Stories for 100 Days of Writing

Complex Shopping (Out of the Fog Dream Contest)

I was staying in a strange place, a busy, old-fashioned place where I had one room. It was full of disabled people of many kinds including those who needed counselling; we were free to come and go, as we wanted. There was a street outside but it seemed all covered in. While I was there my sister came in, I was suspicious because she was evasive, she had a counsellor also but everything seemed hushed up. She shared my room and was in a bed next to me. We had old-fashioned dial phones, while in there together, she had a phone call; she went to transfer it elsewhere but forgot to cancel it at my end and I heard the conversation. I discovered that she had killed someone, I thought it was deliberate by the way they were speaking, the person's name was Jane. When she returned, she sensed something was wrong and realised that I knew but she said it wasn't what I thought but wouldn't tell me anything so when I was alone I researched it. We had no computers so I looked through old papers, I found an article about a medical mistake and realised that this was the one but it still wasn't just a mistake, I got the impression that there was more to it than just a mistake. I'd done the research when my sister went out on a white bus. I was so confused and stressed by all of this that I decided to go out too. I got on a red bus, but I had trouble finding the money for the fare. Then I saw the white bus pass ours and I was relieved I'd missed my sister. Then I didn't know where to get off so the driver told me the best spot, which was only a few minutes from where I was staying. It was a huge shopping complex that was attached to where I was staying. The driver said that if I travelled any further I might not get back.

I got off and the place at first was all full of electronics and colour, also people were everywhere. I was overwhelmed at first and things weren't as they should have been, I was in a bookstore and the steps had books on them but the steps moved and as I stepped off the last step, books fell off and I felt ashamed that I'd done something wrong. Then I walked into a Swimming Pool area and everywhere was wet and slippery. I wanted to get to the food shopping area and so I went up another flight of steps, but they too moved, in a spiral movement, like a lift, to the top but when they got to the top there was a gap and I couldn't get up to the final step that led to the shop. The steps then folded back down again. I tried several times but it seemed impossible, so I gave up, then I met two friends and I was grateful, as they knew a different way to get there. We went through a tunnel and it just sucked each one of us in one by one, however, when I came out the other side, my friends were gone and I was in an alleyway with rubbish bins. Three big men were there and they were scary, but another man came and they left. In front of us was a long flight of stairs and this man couldn't get up them, so I offered to carry him. He accepted my offer and so I carried him, the stairs went on for a long time. Eventually, we reached the top and we were back in the old town and people cheered for what I had done. I then went back to find out what was happening with my sister and read in the paper that she was to go to court for murder. I was angry because I had vaguely remembered burying a body so thought I'd killed someone, it turned out I'd done neither.