Charles Heath's writing blog

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: It was a rather odd feeling sitting in a cafe watching the news on television and seeing a photo of my father, and the much larger image of scattered plane wreckage in the background. The accompanying voiceover was giving a brief rundown on the victims, not only my father, but also his mother, my grandmother, and my brother, Toby, who were both making a normal flight from London to Florence in the company jet. And it was even odder that, in that very moment when I should have been feeling very sad, I should feel somewhat annoyed that I had never been afforded a chance of getting similar passage. But, then, there had always been two sides to this family, and after a bitter and at times acrimonious divorce between my parents, my brother had told me in no uncertain terms that I'd picked the wrong side when I chose to go and live with my mother. It was probably true, because m

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, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission. The folder had half a dozen single-page sheets with a photo attached to each with a standard issue army paper clip.  There was no top secret in pale red ink diagonally scribed across any of the pages which somehow diminished the exercise. I guessed this was the hand-picked team selected for me to take on our suicide mission.  It didn’t have the officer overseeing the mission, or the go-between Jacobi.  Not exactly a useful man to have along in a firefight, because he would be too busy working out who would pay the most if or when he survive

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.    For instance: And, then, the words: I was still feeling from the suddenness of one moment being in London and what felt like the next, in Shanghai. The expression I heard once in an old Hollywood movie popped into my head as I stood and stretched after the plane had come to a stop at the gate, that I'd been shanghaied. Quite literally, it was true. Around me, the cabin looked like a bomb had gone off with all the accoutrements of business class travellers everywhere, and the passengers hastily trying to reassemble themselves and their belongings before the door was opened and they had to disembark. My travelling companion smiled wanly as she stuffed her onboard bag haphazardly with belongings.  This was not a first for her, but it was short notice and she had been caught on the hop. I was used to it.  Trouble-shooter, ready to drop everything at a moment's notice, to go anywhere anytime and do anything