There were white cotton sheets beneath her cheek. Vicki opened her eyes and stared blearily as the swaying image in her view resolved itself into their hotel room. She heard Richard groan beside her and at the same time, became aware of a sharp stinging pain in her shoulders.

She sat up slowly, holding her ringing head in her hands. Her back was on fire. She tried to look back but winced at the thud it brought to her temples. Her fingers felt something sharp and she pulled at it, grimacing at the tug it gave to her hair. It was a black feather. She stared at it, turning it over in her unsteady hands.

“My God,” said Richard. He was also struggling to sit up. “How much did we drink last night?”

Vicki didn’t answer him. She dropped the feather on the floor and staggered across to the window. She looked out onto the usual view from their hotel room, out into another glorious, blue-skied, sunny day. Their hire car was parked down in the car park, just as normal. She blinked. Had she dreamed the whole thing?

In the bathroom, she caught sight of her shoulders in the mirrored wall and nearly screamed. They were scored all over with thin red lines and blood had dried in a dark crust along each one. Her inner thighs were sticky too. She tried to remember what had happened, to place the events into a coherent sequence, but the memories she still retained were growing ragged, flying away from her when she tried to fit them into place. She shook her head, ignoring the pulse of her headache, and climbed under the torrent of gushing hot water.

There was pain. There was agonising pain, flooding her belly, her back, a giant fist squeezing her relentlessly. Vicki groaned. She was squatting on the ground, on the dirt floor of the chattel house, and something was emerging from between her legs, a dark shape growing outwards from her as she puffed and heaved and shouted. Blood pooled on the floor beneath her as a fresh onslaught of pain gripped her around the waist. She threw her head back, her throat sore from moaning, and then looked down at what was emerging from the depths of her. Monstrous, deformed, an atrocity of misshapen limbs and smashed features, one black and shiny eye staring up at her from the blood smeared ruins… dark feathery stubs poked from the slimy skin, and the gaping mouth opened as if it would reach upward to destroy what had birthed it. Vicki found it in her to scream one last time…

There were voices, a hand on her arm. Vicki opened her eyes, bewildered. Richard was leaning over her, his face full of concern, and behind him, she could see a stewardess hurrying towards her along the aisle of the plane, eyebrows raised. As she struggled to sit up, realising the seat belt had clamped itself tightly around her hips and stomach, she could see people turning and whispering, looking at her.

“Darling, you’re okay, don’t panic – “ Richard had one hand on her arm, stroking her as if she were a frightened animal. “You just had a bad dream.”

Vicki felt her face grow hot.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “ Sorry, everyone. I just had a bad dream. No, I’m fine –“ this to the stewardess who was bending over her, asking her questions, “I’m absolutely fine. I just had a bad dream.”

Five months later, Richard was in the living room of their house, talking to his mother on the phone.

“No, she’s fine,” he said. “Absolutely fine. A bit tired of course, but that’s to be expected. At least she’s not being sick any longer, that was starting to wear her down a little.”

Out in the kitchen, Vicki was doing the washing up and staring out into the garden. She slowly rinsed a glass and upended it on the draining board. A flicker of movement caught her eye and she stared at the blackbird that had flown down onto the lawn. It hopped slowly towards the house and then, in a blur of wing beats, flew up to the kitchen windowsill. She looked at it, at its thin little legs and its black and beady eye. Inside her, she felt a kick that made her flinch.

She could still hear Richard talking in the other room.

“Mum, you don’t know how happy I am,” he was saying. “And after so long, too. Well, we didn’t want to say anything – what’s that?” A pause. Then “Yes, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. We have been blessed.”

Out in the kitchen, Vicki watched the blackbird cock its head to one side, its eyes fixed upon her. She put a hand to the swelling curve of her belly, and shivered.

~~~

Little Drops of Happiness

6.00pm

Friday night. You can feel the tension in the city already. Driving back through the clogged streets the lights seem brighter, the car horns louder. The daytime radio stations are fading away, the nocturnal DJs are warming up the airwaves. You can feel Friday night inside you, like a faint electric current running underneath your skin. In the gathering dusk, you can feel yourself glowing.

The phone starts ringing before you reach home. You yank it from your back pocket, check the number. Katy’s name is winking from the little screen. You toy with the idea of answering but, fuck it – time for a little Friday night refresher before business starts for real. The house looks just the same as it did when you left for work this morning but, paranoia always knocking, you glance around covertly before you unlock the front door. There used to be ragged overgrown bushes by the verandah but you uprooted those one sunny Sunday, after too many nightmares of some rabid junkie leaping out at you like something from a cheap horror movie. Now the front yard is neat, Spartan. The gravel that covers the ground still glimmers faintly in the dying sunlight. A solitary bay tree stands in the centre of the yard, like a leafy sentinel.

Inside the house and the phone is going crazy now. You’ve programmed separate ring tones for different people. One for your parents; one for your few real friends; one for everybody else. Every call now is ringing the latter tone; the latest cheesy club anthem bastardised into tinny mobile notes. You talk, laugh, promise, placate. It’s shaping up to be a busy one. There’s a rave on tomorrow and a big-name DJ playing one of the clubs tonight.

You walk through the house, phone pinned to your ear. Katy’s garrulous rattle is mere background noise - you punctuate the stream of gabble with the occasional ‘yeah’. The house is dark, curtains pulled against a curious world. You walk into the bedroom feeling as if it’s been more than nine hours since you were last here. The bed looks like an archaeological relic - it’s been too long since there was anyone else sleeping there with you. You think of Katy, Nadia, even Sue and dismiss them all. Too easy. You know that all you’d have to do is proffer the goods and they’d be in there like a shot – all three of them together, probably – and whilst the image is good for a momentary frisson, you know those last few remaining scraps of self-respect would vanish with the smoke of the post-coital cigarettes.

Those unwelcome thoughts linger just that bit too long - you need to wash that nasty taste out of your mouth. The phone is miraculously silent for five minutes and you take the opportunity to chop out three fat lines. One and the black cloud above your head whitens. Two and it begins to dissipate; three and it’s gone entirely. Feeling that welcome numbness you sit there on the futon, working out what you’ll need to take tonight. The surface of the bed starts to look like the counter of a sweetshop. An adult’s sweetshop. You pick up the newest pills, fat blue Nikes. Untried as yet, all the way from Sydney. What the hell, you think, and chuck one down, grimacing at the acrid taste.

There are lots of things to do but at the moment all you feel like doing is just lying here, feeling the coke sparkle through your synapses. Again, you’re struck by the need for someone else to be here. Rolling over, you hug a pillow to you but it’s not warm, it doesn’t move, it doesn’t hug you back. Astonishingly, you feel tears prickle the back of your throat. Only one thing will take your mind off the loneliness and it’s sitting in front of you in a plastic bag. Four, five. That’s better. The phone starts its insistent warble again and this time you grab it eagerly, relishing the fact that people need you.