Water In The Wrong Light

My short story titled "Water In The Wrong Light" has just been published in the first issue of  Roads Less Travelled magazine, edited by Trevor Denyer through Midnight Street Press, and as usual I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

I usually start with a title and whilst I can't remember where this title came from that was certainly the case here. I coupled this with something I took from my regular morning cycle ride, where a strip of stagnant water - which seems to be the dead end of a river - runs along the side of the cycle path. It's overhung with trees and there's usually a polythene bag somewhere in the water and if I were ever to discover a dead body I'm convinced that it would be here. This got me thinking that not only would it be a likely spot to discover a body, but also an ideal setting to place one. I decided to create a character who would fantasise about this scenario, and then consider how this might play out, and then - of course - wonder if such a body might be his own, and how that second scenario might unravel. Essentially, that's the impetus for the story. My narrator isn't an altogether pleasant character - far from it - which I think makes the piece more interesting as to where a reader's sympathies might lie. I'm very pleased with how it worked out.

Here's an extract: 

Each time Shimizu cycled under the railway bridge his eyes were drawn to the shaded patch of water to his left, a stagnant area where his expectation was always to see a body. The early morning sunlight would kaleidoscope light through variegated leaf cover, speckling his vision, the contrast between the route ahead and adjacent vegetation almost two different worlds, just as the track he was on was once a former railway line even as trains passed overhead. This secluded area would be a place that he would dump a body, should he ever murder anyone, that much he knew. It wasn’t so isolated that it might never be discovered, yet neither would it be obvious. The idea that a body might lie in such a liminal space resonated with him. There was a mirror to be had with his take on existence.

Regular readers of this blog will know I usually listen to music through headphones whilst writing, and this entire story was written to Blonde Redhead's album "Barragán" (initially the whole album, but then only the title song on continuous repeat).

To reiterate, "Water In The Wrong Light" is published by Midnight Street Press, and in addition to myself features stories from Michael FitzMichael, Ian Li, Frances Koziar, Ralph Robert Moore, Margaret Eve, Sunmisola Odusola, Charlotte H Lee, Tim Lees, James Van Pelt, Vaughan Stanger, K MacMichael, and Joe R Lansdale together with a number of interviews and articles. Buy it here.