The Inheritance of Shadows

     Hey Tiny Fair! New information just in, and it doesn’t sound good! 

It never does, does it?  It's all like a leaking diaper. 

Dr Jimmy’s father, Jimmy Snr, he was arrested a few years back for impersonating a Doctor, yes a Doctor, inside the hospital, white coat, stethoscope, the full performance, but not for prestige, not for ego, looks like it was for access, narcotics, controlled drugs basically. 

When they caught him it wasn’t just what he had on him, phials, substances, scalpels and hypodermic syringes,  it was what sat waiting outside, a sawn off shotgun, cable ties, a hunting knife, not impulse, not panic, but preparation, intention. Like what the hell? Five years, that’s what he got, five years for something that doesn’t sit neatly inside a sentence. What was the motive? What did he need the stolen stuff for?

Abd Frency, prison doesn’t erase men like that, it doesn't rehabilitate them,  it sharpens them, distills what’s already there. But yes, why did he need the tools? To get rid of his wife is my guess.

So, he gets out of jail, he moves, new place, same man, and then, the body in the Bay. He was less than a minute away from the victim!

A woman, known to him?

Yes! Not random, not chance, she’d been in his home, late night drinks, his wife away, her husband busy at the office... a quiet setting, familiar, almost too familiar, and the next morning? He asks the maid to check for blonde hairs on the furniture.

Not worry.

Not regret.

Erasure. There was a plan, a plot..

He didn’t get her upstairs in his house, well maybe, maybe not, but proximity is enough, familiarity opens doors, no need to break them down.

Then the bar, the last sighting. They were laughing, enjoying the convivial atmosphere.

But now he’s spiralling, he's thrown out by his wife, his constant lies, the unpredictable violence  he can no longer keep contained, he’s in a cheap hotel across from the Bay, weekly rates, no questions asked, people come and go, no one looks twice. People of no discernable character.. Just blank faces to a tired and jaded receptionist who's seen it all before.

One minute from the bar. The hotel.

One minute.

No car, the wife had claimed that, but he didn’t need one, he had the motorbike, red, sparkling clean, visible yet unseen, he knew where she lived, the victim,  knew her movements, knew enough.

Did he lie in wait? 

The attack says something, not clean, not quick, a rock, her face, repeated, personal, excessive, belongings scattered, looks like chaos, looks like theft, but feels wrong, staged, like an afterthought.

She’s found floating, face up, as if even the water wouldn’t hide what had happened,  but something doesn't sit right with me. It's the hand bag. It's her profession (...)

Which was what?

She was a journalist for the Evening Sentinel,  she would have covered the daily court sessions.

But a bit extreme? To kill someone to stop your name appearing in the local rag? Unless there was something else going on.. 

And him? Now in jail for something completely unrelated?

In jail.

Theft, fraud, a chop shop running quietly, eighteen months, just enough, just enough to sit behind a wall when the questions start.

Not a suspect.

Not even considered.

Convenient.

Another man dies in prison, claiming innocence to the end, a neat ending for someone, whether it fits or not.

So now the question, the one that doesn’t go away,

Do the sins of the father run through the son?

Because Dr Jimmy didn’t come from nowhere, none of us do, he watched, he learned, not just blood, behaviour, patterns, quiet lessons in the background.

What did he see?

A man who could become someone else.

A man who wore authority like clothing.

A man who cleaned up, removed traces, avoided consequence.

A man who was never truly caught for the worst thing he may have done.

That doesn’t disappear.

It stays.

It teaches.

So when you look at Dr Jimmy, really look,

Is he creating something new?

Or finishing something that was already in motion?

—End—

But it isn't,  is it?

The Blue Gate

     She looked at me that day as though the world had just begun.

She was younger then—of course she was—light seemed to gather around her without effort. The sun found her eyes first, pale blue and almost translucent, before settling into the soft strands of her blonde hair. It wasn’t just beauty, though that would have been enough for most. It was promise. The kind you only recognise properly once it’s gone.

He stood beside her, equally striking in his own way. Confident, assured, carrying the quiet arrogance of someone who believes life will bend to his will. I remember thinking I understood it instantly—the pull between them. It wasn’t reckless, not then. It felt inevitable. Like gravity.

You could almost forgive him for leaving everything behind.

A family traded for a dream. A known life for an imagined one. A distant land waiting like a blank canvas.

And for a while, perhaps, it worked.

You can picture it—their early days. Sunlight spilling across open land, laughter echoing through rooms not yet filled with silence. Wine shared for pleasure, not necessity. The blue-painted gateway standing proudly at the edge of it all, less a boundary and more a beginning. They must have believed they had stepped into something permanent.

But permanence is a fragile illusion. Nothing is permanent. 

Now the years have settled heavily on them both. The light has changed. It always does. What was once lush and green has thinned, dried out, the soil cracked beneath the weight of time and unspoken things. The air feels different there—thicker, harder to breathe.

They drink more now.

Not together, not really. The same bottles, perhaps, but for different reasons. She drinks to soften the sharp edges of what never came—the absence that echoes louder with each passing year. No child. No small voice filling the spaces. Just a quiet that presses in from all sides.

He drinks too, though his reasons are less clear. Maybe regret. Maybe habit. Maybe because silence demands to be filled somehow.

He has laughter still, but it doesn’t belong to this place. It comes from elsewhere—from  grandchildren he did not build this life with. A reminder that something grew, just not here.

That’s where the resentment lives.

Not loud at first. It never is. It seeps in slowly, like damp through old walls, until everything carries its weight. He shouts now. Sharp, sudden bursts that seem to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. She doesn’t answer. She drinks instead.

And when the house becomes too small to hold it all, she walks.

Always to the same place.

The blue gate.

Time has dulled its colour, but not its meaning. Once, it was the entrance to everything they wanted. Dreams hung on it like decoration. It was possibility, painted bright and bold for the world to see.

She stands there for a long time before trying the key.

Maybe she already knows.

The metal resists, stiff from years of neglect. She forces it, just a little more, just enough—

—and it snaps.

A small sound, almost insignificant.

But final.

The broken piece remains lodged inside the lock, unreachable. The rest sits useless in her hand. For a moment, she just stares at it, as though something might undo itself if she waits long enough.

It doesn’t.

Behind her, the house. The shouting. The silence that follows.

In front of her, nothing but a gate that no longer opens.

And for the first time, perhaps, she understands:

It was never about leaving.

It was about where they arrived—and what they brought with them that no place could ever change. 

Everything they dreamed of they already possessed,  but now it was gone.

They destroyed it themselves. 

Grey Stones: Where the machines still hunger

Grey Stones was never meant to be found again.

Not like this.

Not with the light fading so quickly, bleeding out across the broken windows as if the place itself were trying to swallow the last of the day. We shouldn’t be here this late. Everyone knows that instinctively, even if no one says it out loud. The grounds are too vast, the buildings too many—silent monoliths scattered like gravestones across a forgotten empire of cruelty.

But we came for the machines. We came to absorb the madness.

They always come back to the machines Tiny Fair.

They said unmarried women were brought here—girls, really—branded, discarded, erased. Their babies taken, repurposed, used. The poor, the desperate, the hungry—locked away for crimes as small as survival. And when they were no longer useful…

Disposed of.

That word echoes louder than anything else. Dispose.

We must move faster.

But I can't breathe...

The administration block looms ahead, its windows like hollow eyes. Inside, the air is thick—stale, unmoving, like it hasn’t been disturbed in decades. There’s a theatre here. Rows and rows of seats, all facing a stage that no longer exists. You can almost see them sitting there—bodies upright, minds gone. Chemically softened. Electrically quieted. Watching nothing. Feeling nothing. All dressed in the same pale grey robes, tattered by years of being laundered in bleach. Blank faces staring into nothingness. 

Or maybe I'm  feeling everything, trapped inside.

Don’t stop. Don’t look too long. Keep moving.

We run.

Out into the open again. The weeds claw at our legs, brittle and dead, crunching underfoot like bone fragments. The path crumbles beneath us, fractured by time, by neglect, by whatever happened here that no one will admit to. The sky is dimming faster now—too fast. Shadows stretch unnaturally, clinging to corners, pooling in doorways.

The next block.

This has to be it.

Inside, the temperature drops immediately. Not just cold—wrong. The kind of cold that feels intentional, like something is still being preserved.

“Basement,” I whisper.

Of course it is. I can feel it.

The staircase is concrete, spiraling down into echoing darkness. Every step reverberates, too loud, too exposed. It feels like announcing ourselves to something waiting below. The walls are painted a sickly pale green, peeling, blistered.

Then we see it.

Graffiti. Fresh compared to everything else.

MORGUE with an arrow sprayed in black paint a little too conveniently. 

The word hits harder than it should. Like confirmation. Like a warning we’re too late to heed.

We descend anyway.

Because we came for the machines.

At the bottom, the air thickens. Metallic. Rotten. There’s a smell here that never left. It clings to the back of your throat, settles into your lungs. You don’t breathe it—you wear it.

And then—

There they are.

Not what we expected.

Worse.

Long, narrow structures. Industrial. Functional. No attempt to hide what they were for. No dignity. No humanity. Just process. Input. Output.

You understand it instantly, without wanting to.

“They fed you in… here,” Frenchy, my voice breaking.

And at the other end…?

You don’t need to see it working to know. Your mind fills in the motion, the noise, the inevitability. The tearing. The stripping. The efficiency.

Organs removed.

Nothing wasted.

What remained—what little remained—sent straight onward.

To the furnace.

It’s not history here. It’s not past.

It feels… paused. Like the machines could start again at any moment if someone just flipped a switch.

You take a step back.

Then another.

Because now the silence isn’t empty.

It’s watching.

The walls feel closer. The shadows thicker. That smell—stronger now, as if disturbed by our presence. As if something has noticed us noticing.

“Imagine being pulled through it.”

 “Like a jet engine… no control… no stopping… Fucking hell..."

"That’s enough!"

"That’s more than enough."

"Run!"

Up the stairs, too fast, slipping, stumbling, hands scraping against the walls. The word MORGUE flashes past again, but it looks different now. Warped. Alive. Mocking.

Out into the open—but it’s darker than it should be. The last light is gone. Completely gone. No twilight. No easing into night. Just—

Darkness.

And the buildings don’t look abandoned anymore.

They look occupied.

Watching.

Waiting.

Grey Stones doesn’t keep its secrets buried.

It keeps them hungry.

"Tiny Fair, I  have a feeling this is the birthplace of Dr Jimmy."

"But he didn't get fed into the machines?"

"Not yet he didn't. But his mother certainly did."

The Light Through the Tear

     You can hide from authority. People do it all the time. Papers disappear, names change, stories get rewritten until even the past starts to feel negotiable. You learn the angles, the timing, the careful distance between who you were and who you pretend to be now. You become practiced—convincing, even.

But hiding from yourself is a different craft entirely.

That’s where the cracks begin.

It starts small. A hesitation. A glance held too long in the mirror. A question your partner asks—innocent, undeserving—and you answer too quickly, too sharply. She doesn’t know you. Not really. And the worst part is, she trusts the version you’ve given her. She lives beside a carefully edited man, and she doesn’t deserve the omissions.

The tear in your fabric widens.

And then—of all people—he appears.

A name from years ago. A schoolyard echo. Someone who knew you before the edits, before the performance. He reaches out, casual, friendly… but you know better. He’s a retired cop now. That changes everything. Or maybe it confirms everything you already fear.

What does he want?

Reunion. Drinks. Laughter. Old stories dragged back into the light. You can already see it: the dim room, glasses clinking, nostalgia thick in the air. You’ll loosen up. You always do when the past starts calling your name. Melancholy will creep in, soften your guard.

And he’ll be there.

Listening.

Not just hearing—listening. Watching the pauses, the slips, the things you don’t say. You imagine a recorder in his pocket, or maybe it’s worse—maybe he doesn’t need one. Maybe your words will be enough.

You start rehearsing conversations that haven’t happened yet. Defences against questions that haven’t been asked.

This is where the nightmares begin.

They don’t announce themselves. They bleed into sleep, into the fragile space where control slips. Images come slowly at first, then linger. They don’t rush. They linger. Like they want you to see every detail, every consequence, every truth you’ve buried.

You wake drenched, breath sharp, heart hammering against your ribs like it’s trying to escape you.

And it doesn’t stop there.

The fear follows you into the day, wraps around you like something alive. Anxiety hums beneath everything—every conversation, every silence. Paranoia becomes your constant companion. Faces in crowds linger too long. Voices sound like they’re talking about you, even when they aren’t.

You wear it all like a coat—a coat of a thousand colours, stitched together from dread, memory, and the quiet certainty that something is coming.

You lie still sometimes, completely still, as if movement might trigger something irreversible. Frozen. Waiting. Watching the images pass behind your eyes like a slow-motion film you never agreed to watch.

And then—

Morning.

Light spills in. Real light. Honest light. It touches familiar things: the room, the street, the ordinary world that continues without accusation. For a moment, you breathe. For a moment, you believe in the possibility of distance from it all.

Daylight is merciful.

But it is temporary.

Because you already know what waits.

Darkness doesn’t forget. It doesn’t forgive. It follows. Patient. Relentless. It doesn’t need to chase you—it knows you’ll come back to it, every single night.

And beneath it all, there’s a truth you can’t outrun:

This isn’t something being done to you.

This is something you built.

Carefully. Quietly. Piece by piece.

A private hell.

And now you live in it.

How bloody smart of you.

The Making of a Murderer

     Dr Jimmy wasn’t leaving the house the same way he’d entered it.

The broken window pane—jagged, whispering with the risk of noise, blood, and exposure—was no longer an option. Entry had required urgency. Exit demanded control. And control, above all else, was what defined him.

Luck, or perhaps something darker that followed him like a shadow, had intervened. A key left casually in the back door. Carelessness. Trust. The small, human oversights that made everything possible.

He moved without hesitation.

Down the pebbled driveway he went, each step measured despite the uneven crunch beneath his shoes. The night wrapped around him—thick, damp, and indifferent. A darkened alleyway stretched alongside the property, a narrow artery leading him away from what he had done, away from what he had become. He slipped into it like something returning to its natural habitat.

Waiting at the end: his car. Silent. Obedient.

The hammer—still wet, still speaking its unspeakable truth—was tucked beneath his coat. Hidden. Controlled. Just another object again.

It was only once he was seated, door closed, engine humming low, that he saw himself.

The rear-view mirror caught him in the fractured glow of a streetlight.

And there he was.

Not the clean-cut medical student. Not the polite, well-liked young man of exemplary character. Not the one who smiled easily, who listened, who blended seamlessly into lecture halls and quiet conversations.

No—this face was something else entirely.

Red.

Completely red.

Blood masked every feature, soaked into the lines of his skin, clung to his hands as though it belonged there. For a moment—just a flicker—he stared. Not in horror. Not in disbelief.

But in recognition.

A problem had existed.

And now, it didn’t.

His breathing slowed. His mind, sharp as ever, began its quiet calculations. There would be noise soon. Panic. Sirens. Questions. The town would reel under the weight of what had been done.

But who would suspect him?

He almost smiled.

He was the last person anyone would imagine. That was the beauty of it. Reputation wasn’t just a shield—it was a weapon. Carefully built. Patiently maintained. And now, it served its purpose.

No clues.

No mistakes.

Nothing left behind but confusion and fear.

He pulled away from the curb, the car gliding into the sleeping streets as though nothing had happened at all.

Yet what fascinated him most wasn’t the act itself.

It was what came next.

The investigation.

The theatre of it.

The interviews. The suspects. The shifting suspicions. He could already see it unfolding—detectives circling the truth without ever quite touching it. Ordinary people placed under extraordinary pressure, their lives dissected, their words analysed, their faces watched for cracks.

And he would be there.

Not hidden in the shadows—but standing near the centre of it all.

Listening. Watching.

Learning.

It had happened so close to home, after all. Close enough to observe without ever being seen. Close enough to feel the pulse of the investigation as it tightened and twisted.

Close enough to enjoy it.

Because this wasn’t just an ending.

It was a beginning.

Not driven by madness, not by impulse—but by something colder. Something patient. Something that understood the value of restraint as much as release.

This was the moment a line had been crossed—quietly, cleanly, without hesitation.

This was the making of a murderer.

The Anatomy of Division

     “Define a pathological liar for me, Mr Big Cop.”   Why the constant lies? Do they know they're lying? Explain me, explain me like I'm five years old. How does a white lie, become someone who tells frequent lies... How do they become a pathological  liar?

That’s how it begins Tiny Fair  —not with a question, but with a seed. The initial lie. A seed planted quietly, deliberately, in soil already softened by trust. A pathological liar doesn’t just lie. That’s too simple, too blunt an instrument. No—he curates reality. He edits it, trims it, feeds it back to you in fragments until you begin to doubt your own memory, your own instincts, your own people.

I remember when he told me everyone I knew was a liar.

Not casually. Not as an aside. He explained it—carefully, almost clinically. He described how they lied, the little tells, the imagined betrayals, the hidden motives. But he never answered the most important question: why.

At the time, I didn’t understand. I thought it was insight. Experience. Authority speaking.

Now I see it for what it was: architecture.

Divide them.

Isolate them.

Make sure no two voices align long enough to compare truth.

Because comparison is fatal to a man like that.

If we had spoken—really spoken—notes would have been compared. Stories would have overlapped. Cracks would have formed. And behind those cracks, the rot.

So he lied to each of us individually. Tailored lies. Personal lies. Lies that ensured silence between us.

And in that silence, he became the only voice.

The only authority.

The only truth.

But what does it cost to live like that?

What does it feel like to exist in a world of your own fabrication?

To wake up every day and scan the horizon—not for opportunity, not for connection—but for threat.

Flashing blue lights.

A knock at the door.

A hand on your shoulder while you’re collecting your takeaway, heart stopping mid-beat, breath catching in your throat.

Always en garde.

Always listening.

Always calculating.

There’s no rest in that life. No stillness. No quiet moment where the mind unclenches. Just a constant hum of vigilance, like a wire pulled too tight, ready to snap.

You don’t live—you hover.

Between exposure and escape.

Between control and collapse.

And then the question lingers, heavy and unsettling:

When it finally ends—when the mask slips, when the truth surfaces, when the world sees what he is—what does he feel?

Fear?

Shame?

Or something far stranger…

Relief?

Because imagine it—the running stops. The watching stops. The endless calculations fall silent. No more lies to maintain, no more threads to keep from tangling.

Just… exposure.

Your face on every front page.

Serial killer arrested.

A label, final and immovable. A truth no longer negotiable.

Would that feel like annihilation?

Or freedom?

But men like that rarely leave it to chance.

No. He won’t let it get that far.

Because control is everything. Even at the end.

Especially at the end.

There will be a plan—there’s always a plan. An exit mapped out long before the walls begin to close in. And it won’t be surrender.

It will be disappearance.

Permanent, deliberate, final.

An escape that ensures no interrogation, no courtroom, no unraveling under fluorescent lights.

No one gets the full story.

No one gets closure.

And so the last question drifts, almost poetic in its darkness:

If there is a reckoning—if there is a descent—where does he land?

Which circle claims him?

The deceivers?

The betrayers?

Or somewhere deeper still, where truth is stripped bare and there’s no one left to lie to… not even yourself.

Because in the end, that’s the only audience that ever really mattered.