Clarke My Words

Ted could hardly believe his luck when he spotted the camcorder at the car boot sale. He'd been keeping an eye out for a Full HD device for months and had seen the Acorn H3 on a couple of websites. It had always been way beyond his price range but suddenly there it was, sat innocuously between a grimy TV/VCR combo plastered with Alf stickers and a tattered and sun-faded VHS Thorn Birds box set. A Post-It note had been taped to the side of the camcorder with one hastily scrawled word. "Defective". "What’s wrong with it?” he asked the woman stood behind the table. She leaned in closer to Ted and brought with her the sharp aroma of cheap perfume coupled with a musty tendril of last night’s wine. “What’s that, sweetheart?” “The camcorder. What’s wrong with it?” She looked at him blankly for a moment and then followed his gesture. “Oh that,” she said pursing her lips in distaste, “that thing never did work right. My Dale was forever fiddling with the damned thing, sayin...

[Just a quick note to preempt any confusion, this short story was written to be a part of the Machine of Death Volume 2 anthology . Unfortunately it didn't make the cut so I thought I'd publish it here. Enjoy!] To whom it may concern, I remember once hearing a story about a man whose cause of death slip read “Ripcord Malfunction”. This man had never been near a parachute before he received the prediction and had had no real plans to go looking for one in the future. His father clapped him on the back and laughed, “that should be easy enough to avoid, eh?” The story goes that this man, still just a boy of course, retreated to his room and thought long and hard about his prediction - I mean, who doesn’t? He thought about all he would need to do to put off his death by keeping himself away from the possibility of a “Ripcord Malfunction” for as long as possible. Basically, he would have to stay away from planes. And also lawnmowers. For that matter, any petrol-driven p...