Where the Shadows are Heavy (Bastille)

CHAPTER 3

Dan Smith, the resident psychic of a tower block somewhere in London, closed his eyes and silently begged the woman sat opposite him to shut up.

She was very eager to talk to her freshly deceased husband, a chain smoker who had supposedly 'forgotten' to include his dearest wife in his will. Said dearest wife talked animatedly nonstop as she tried to explain the situation to Dan, who didn't really care, but desperately needed her money to pay his already overdue rent. The money was what mattered. No matter how irritating she was, there was still a £50 note on the table in front of him.

The woman wore a bright pink raincoat, her own pink skin barely squeezed in, a tight fit. Her arms were wide, and her fingers, plump like sausages grasped a handbag tightly in her lap. Her face was plump and her cheeks red. By the way she practically wheezed whenever she paused her chattering, Dan guessed that her husband wasn't the only chain smoker in the family.

"So..." he began.

"Of course, I know he must have been very busy, what with his job and all, but surely, he was gonna leave me something, I mean-"

"Um-"

"Exactly, so then I said..."

She droned on, and on, and on, and on. Her mouth moving a hundred miles an hour. Small fat feet casually swinging, knocking the table legs, sending a jolt through Dan's elbows every other minute. He bit his lip and studied the note on the table. If he didn't have to pay bills he could've probably bought at least 25 bottles of hot sauce. Maybe 15 if he wanted Doritos to go with it.

"My husband, Oh! Did you know, he once..." She continued, waving her arms in the air to accentuate her words.

Dan wanted to hit his head on the table. Think of the money. Just think of the money. It wasn't even that much, but he supposed his prices could be seen as extortionate. He was practically just a kid (at nineteen), charging people money to 'talk' to dead friends and family in his small dingy flat. It was no surprise business was slow. If it could even be called business. He seemed as fake as his current customers eyelash extensions.

"Can you even believe that?"

He couldn't. She was still talking. Her overly strong perfume was invasive and made his eyes sting and his nose water.

"So, then I said..."

It took approximately another thirty minutes before she quieted, apparently finished with her life story, and that of her husband, before fixing an intense stare on Dan. Her face was expectant. He gave her what he wished was a reassuring smile. (He really needed a good business reputation after all.) He hoped she'd tell all her friends how charming he was and that they should spend all of their money on talking to their various deceased loved ones.

"So, his names To-"

"Tony, yes."

"Okay, um in, in order for this to work, I, I um need complete silence."

Her eyes widened and she nodded vigorously.

He didn't need complete silence. She could literally cut off her fingers one by one, shrieking and crying and it wouldn't matter. Well it would matter to her, she was hypothetically cutting off her fingers, but in terms of summoning the light of her life, fifty seven year old, chain smoking Tony, it really made no difference. Dan just wanted silence.

He could feel it. In the sudden stillness of the air, the soothing coolness that settled on his arms and neck. He tried to look as authentically psychic as possible, like he'd suddenly summoned a spirit, that there was another presence in the room. It was true. There wasn't just him and the woman opposite him, but now a rather spiteful looking old man hunched in a corner.