“Well, if you must know… in my version of the story the pilot doesn’t make it.”

Screamed the young woman from the bottom of the decrepit stair case. Her clipped words echoing down the long bare central hall of the rustic Victorian townhouse. The peeling wall paper doing little against the spoiled plaster walls to limit the ear splitting echo. “And what good would that have done, you silly shit!” Comes the shrill answer from the attic. Followed immediately by a rattling coughing fit, and the shaking of the patinaed light fixtures, causing dust mites to tumble from the gaps in the busted ceiling. “You never take my advice! You ask me thousands of questions, and ignore all of my suggestions! I hate you, you old fucking cow!” Booms the young woman, pausing her pacing at the foot of the stairs just long enough to tear a piece of thumbnail from her teeth. “That’s the spirit, you little shit! Fight for your suggestions then. Win me over in our dinner time debates if you think they are so much better than what I’ve written.” The disembodied voice replies, a little less shrill, and with just a hint of a laugh. “Oh sod you then. See if I have any answers for your thousands of questions on the next one!” Replies the now motionless youth, gathering herself and her voluminous skirts. “Oh my deary. You say that now! But what of my next manuscript? Can you truly contain yourself when the opportunity for input arises?” Barks the raspy voice from the attic, with a choked laugh.

The sounds of a type writer tick, tick, ticking once again fills the somber air of the run down Victorian townhouse. Rain pelts the cheap leaden windows. Water pools along the mouldy baseboards. A lone candle flickers as the youth rushes past it with her skirts all a skitter. “Bitch”. She mutters to herself, as she moves along the hall towards the kitchen. Dust trails her foot steps on the roughly worn carpets. A knock at the front door goes unnoticed.

The air is thick and scented in the downstairs foyer, with oil lamp soot. The candle flames in the lower levels sconces leave trails of soot up the walls. The burned edges of the old wall paper curl and writhe in the air. From the attic a steady thrum of the typewriter can be heard. From the front door a louder and more insistent knock persists. The clanging of pans in the kitchen just about drowns everything out. Atleast until the clanging, and tick, tick, ticking is interrupted by the sound of breaking glass.