Charles Heath's writing blog

It's still a battle of wits, but our hero knows he's in serious trouble. The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because the enemy if it is the enemy, doesn't look or sound or act like the enemy. If at first, you don't succeed, try a few threats, or leverage He took a deep breath, gave me a look a parent would give a miscreant child, and started again. “What’s the deal with you and Commander Breeman?” Yes, he does know about her proclivities, but he was hardly in a position to condemn her.  He, too, had a ‘thing’ for the female trainees under his command, and one in particular. “She has to eat, I have to eat, in the same mess as it happens.” He gave me another of his penetrating glares. “Nothing else?” “That would be against regulations, as I think you are fully aware.”  I returned his glare but with more intensity. “What did you discuss over the dinn

It has been cooler for the last week or so, and the ideas for the treasure story have not been flowing. Now, it's back and I'm back in the cinema of my dreams, figurative following the treasure 'map'! This was not the time to panic. There could be any number of explanations for what I just saw.  Boggs had certainly got me wrapped up in his mysterious treasure hunt, and immediately my mind jumps to conclusions. I took a deep breath.  There had to be a rational explanation. Boggs lived with his aunt, his parents had gone away one day and never came back.  He had no brothers or sisters, so he assumed rightly or wrongly, they’d abandoned him. For the last few years, Boggs and I had been looking for his parents.  That’s how he found the treasure map, in a box of stuff his father had left at his brother’s loft. Now, his aunt was Spanish, or perhaps that was not totally correct, she was Mexican who spoke Spanish.  Her husband was Boggs’ father’s brother, and th

How thrilled Harry Walthenson, Private Detective, had been to see his name painted on the translucent glass window in the door to his office. Located in Gramercy Park, in an old building full of atmosphere, he had a space renovated to resemble that of Spade and Archer in a scene right out of the Maltese Falcon. His desk had an antique phone like those used in the 1930s, and a lamp that cast eerie shadows at night.  Along one wall was a couch, his bed for more nights than he wanted to remember, and on the other a filing cabinet, waiting for the big case files. Up till now it had been missing cats and dogs. Then, everything changed… Starts at episode 1 - The Wrong Place, The Wrong Time http://bit.ly/2J4aEBP The latest episode:   Episode 50 - Restart http://bit.ly/2EzV9zM Enjoy

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: I'm sure the person in HR who came up with the idea of having a Management Bonding Camp didn't quite think through the possibilities of thrusting a group of self-serving, egotistical, and utterly ambitious junior executives, would throw up. Particularly when there was a plum promotion to go to the most successful candidate. It sounded to me, after a quick scan of the advertising for the Rapport Building establishment, like we would be using wilderness training as a metaphor to help bring diverse groups together in a single goal. Survival. And the question, at the end of the document, posed the question: “Was it any different out in the wilderness as it is in the corporate jungle?” On paper, at least, it sounded interesting. Let me say this first.  I think I was only one of a very few whose ambition didn't exceed his or her capabilities. I'd receive

It's still a battle of wits, but our hero knows he's in serious trouble. The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because the enemy if it is the enemy, doesn't look or sound or act like the enemy. Old friends, new tricks. Genial tone, trying to win my confidence.  I wasn’t going to ask, but wait for an explanation.  Asking would be like leaving the door ajar. He sat after pulling the chair closer to the table and put his clasped hands on the table. “This is a secret military operation known only to very few, apart from the team that is in situ.  Commander Breeman has been, against very specific direct orders, trying to find out what we are doing here.”  He stopped. I think this was the moment I was supposed to ask, what was going on here. If it was secret, then I didn’t want to know, and he was not going to tell me anyway. I just looked attentive. “You have been

It's still a battle of wits, but our hero knows he's in serious trouble. The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because the enemy if it is the enemy, doesn't look or sound or act like the enemy. Nor does it help when his old mentor walks through the door. I don't like surprises.  This dislike had started with a surprise birthday party about 10 years ago and since then I've assiduously tried to avoid them. Of course, there are also surprises you have no control over, and I liked them even less. Bluff and bravado would only carry me so far.  These people whoever they were would not accept that I knew nothing about what had just happened. Which I didn’t. It was not the A interrogation team with a chest full of torture tools and dressed in hazmat suits, but when the harbinger of my fate walked into the room, it was something a lot scarier. A man I knew well or

Another story inspired from a visit to an old castle in Italy.  It was, of course, written while traveling on a plane, though I'm not sure if it was from Calgary to Toronto, or New York to Vancouver. But, there's more to come.  Those were long flights... I knelt down to Jack’s level and whispered in his ear, “Time to go, mate.  Things are about to get a little sticky here, and one of us should get away.” I’m not sure he understood what I was saying. I pointed towards the trees that ran along the wall.  “Go, now.” He walked slowing in the pointed direction, then turned to look at me. “Go.” Another hesitation, then he headed towards and then disappeared into, the trees. Behind me, I could hear the sound of boots on the rock floor of the tunnel.  The men had broken through and cut off my escape.  I didn’t believe for a minute that Jackerby was there to help me. Well, out of the frying pan, I thought. I walked through the gap between the trees, getting a s

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: It looked like we were in the middle of a post-apocalyptic event. The dust was still settling, and the smoke clung to the ground in a last ditch effort to remind us we were very lucky to escape, for the moment, with our lives. In the other direction it was a mess, the explosions that lasted almost half an hour, managed to level almost an entire industrial area, and only a short distance away, a shopping mall that had an estimated 25,000 people doing their last minute Christmas shopping. Over 10,000 dead, no one really knew for sure because many had been vaporized in the explosion, another 10,000 critical, and the rest, well they were going to be suffering more than just the wounds of war. And, war it was. The terrorists that had been threatening to arrive, had in spectacular fashion. I was standing on the side of the road, trying to breathe, surrounded by the smoke

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: I just wanted a peaceful day at the office. Was that too much to ask for? Apparently so. How did it all start? The train was late, again, over signal failures.   You would think after signal failures in the same place four days in a row, the engineers would have fixed the problem by now. No. Apparently, there's some unidentifiable issue, or so the announcer at the station said in a rather apologetic tone as thousands of us scrambled to get off the train, and rush, already late, to work. You would think the office could run without me. I sit in a small cubicle, the lowest of the lowly middle managers whose responsibility level is just above zero. Wrong. My absence was noticed and, as the Department managers personal assistant, a constantly harried middle-aged lady named Daphne said, today of all the days it had to be this one. The disaster? I had forgotten to tell

It's still a battle of wits, but our hero knows he's in serious trouble. The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because the enemy if it is the enemy, doesn't look or sound or act like the enemy. My turn to put him under the spotlight, for a minute, then two. “There are no optional questions here, Mr. James.” No, but some needed careful consideration, like throwing the dead pilot under the bus. “Roy, the pilot, was adding some hours to his fly time, probably looking for a promotion.” “So it was not a proper sanctioned operation.” Looking for a scapegoat higher up the food chain. “You need the commander’s authority to go up, so it was sanctioned.” “Then this commander could have ordered the pilot to fly into the no-fly zone.” My thought too, but I wasn’t going to fuel his suspicions. “For what reason, after all, it's not called a no-fly zone just so p

Another story inspired from a visit to an old castle in Italy.  It was, of course, written while traveling on a plane, though I'm not sure if it was from Calgary to Toronto, or New York to Vancouver. But, there's more to come.  Those were long flights... Another fifty or so feet along, I stopped at an overhead grille.  The metal was showing on the tunnel side, but on the other, I could see bushes. I think I knew where we were.  This was where the road crossed a small bridge and headed towards the castle entrance.  It was on the north eastern side of the old battlements, and going straight under the road would take us to the eastern wall. Whether we could get out of the castle there remained to be seen. I took a step and saw Jack stop and turn around to look back the way we had come.  A moment later a beam of light came from the break in the roof of the tunnel.  Perhaps the man had decided there might not be ghosts in the hole. I heard the man’s voice travel