Charles Heath's writing blog

Here’s the thing... Every time I close my eyes, I see something different. I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox. But these dreams are nothing to laugh about. Once again there's a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt. Feeling a little miffed at Boggs’ dismissal, I decided to go on my own fact-finding mission.  Of course, it depended a lot on whether the Cossatino's still hung out at the same bar, and whether I’d get a foot in the door. I was going to talk to Nadia, or at least try to. The Lantern Inn was about as far from the image the name threw up, it was more a place where respectable people wouldn’t be caught dead in. And, as I recall, a few had.  Seemingly respectable people anyway. It was the place to go if you were looking for three things, not necessarily all at once, trouble, girls, and drugs.  Soggy, a friend of Boggs and I, had alway

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 of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn't look or sound or act like the enemy. Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in. The debriefing team were not quite what I expected, a man and a woman, one a Major, the other a Lieutenant, and it was apparent they had just met before coming into the room. He was Major Lallo, Army intelligence, and the woman, Lieutenant Jill Monroe, a familiar name as I’m sure I’d heard it before. Lallo was not a fighting soldier, he was a paperwork man.   I suspect he was more at home with an order book, and filing communications though that didn’t explain the rank, which he would have to have front line experience to attain. Monroe looked to me to be the sort of woman soldier that had to prove she was bette

This is a story inspired by a visit to an old castle in Italy. It was, of course, written while travelling 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... And sadly when I read what I'd written, off the plane and in the cold hard light of dawn, there were problems, which now in the second draft, should provide the proper start. On the way back I decided to call my enemies the holy trinity.  Jackerby, Johansson and Wallace.  It would be interesting to see who took the lead. Back in the main hall, I was told to sit in one of the antique chairs.  No one bothered to tie me up.  No need.  Three of the guards were strategically placed so I couldn’t escape, or if I tried to attack any of my captors, I would be shot. At first, it was Jackerby and three guards, men from the landing party looking no different than they would on any mission.  If they were English, which they w

Here’s the thing... Every time I close my eyes, I see something different. I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox. But these dreams are nothing to laugh about. Once again there's a new instalment of an old feature, and back on the treasure hunt. “Do you remember Nadia?” Boggs was out the back on the veranda, sitting in an old lounge chair that had seen better days, eating tacos, or at least I think they were tacos.  He offered me one but I didn’t like the look of it.  Aside from the fact I wasn’t a fan of Mexican food. “One of the Cossatino's, Vince’s sister, tall, shorts skirts and big, well you know what I mean.” Statuesque, Amazonian, yes I did.  We all coveted what we couldn’t have. “The same.  She’s back in town.” “And this means what to us, if anything.  As I recall, the one time we tried talking to her, Vince had his friends rough us up.” “I saw her with Alex today

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: "This is as far as I go.  From here, you're on your own." "You're not coming?" "No.  My job was to get you to this point.  What happened from here, that's up to you." A small wiry man by the name of Giles, no first name or salutation, just Giles, answer an advertisement I put in at least fifty newspapers, trying to track down the last remain member of the Burnacott family. Having just been made the last junior partner in the legal practice, Gerhardt, Gerhardt, and Wilmington, my first assignment was to find any remaining family members of the Burnacott family, now that the oldest member, referred to by Mr Gerhardt the elder, as 'old man Burnacott' had died and left behind a small fortune. In the fifteen months I'd been searching, not once did I realise I was not supposed to find anyone.  Perhaps if Gerhardt had told

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: "What do you mean, if I step through those columns, I'll step into another world?" It looked to me to be just two poles signifying a gateway into a park behind, with a reputedly hard maza to escape from. That was my thing, mazes. Travelling the world, finding as many as I could, and, one day, publishing a book about the great mazes of the world. But here, now, that didn't seem to be much of an idea.  I could feel the enthusiasm draining out of me, and, suddenly, I felt tired, and what was the word I was looking for, yes, jaded. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the so-called adventure I was about to embark on, to find out what was on the other side of the gateway. Maybe it had everything to do with what I had discovered about Louisa, the woman that was standing beside me, the woman I knew now, was simply pretending to be my companion, my friend. I thoug