Chapter Ten
When Only Crackers Will Do
Charlie felt blissfully refreshed when he woke up. He stretched his limbs as he sat up from the sofa and blinked his eyes open. He noticed that all the other Grims could be accounted for.
‘Look who’s finally up,’ said Bobby, passing by the armchair opposite Charlie’s sofa. He made a gesture to Charlie’s hair, which he quickly flattened down.
‘What’s the time?’
‘About 9 in the evening.’
‘Are you serious? I’ve been asleep for five minutes? It feels like I’ve been out for a full eight hours.’
‘Try twenty-four, mate.’
Charlie stared, making sure Bobby wasn’t playing mind games.
‘Wow. That’s an achievement.’
‘You could say that, yeah.’
‘If I may,’ piped up Victoria from behind the sofa. ‘Now that you’re awake, and we are all present, it would be an opportune time to call a meeting.’
‘A meeting? About what?’
‘If you would care to join us, you’ll find out.’
Within minutes, in a set-up that reminded Charlie all too much of his primary school lessons, he and the rest of the Grims were seated or standing in a circle, with Victoria leading the order of events. This consisted of going through many, many, many sheets of parchment.
The meeting, Charlie worked out, was divided into two parts. The first involved discussing assignments for the coming week, in an uncharacteristically concise fashion for Victoria: ‘Peter, Heathside, window cleaner due to fall from their platform; Douglas, Westside, motorcycle accident; Friar…’
He supposed that, at the end of the day, this was just another job to do, with its own paperwork (parchmentwork?) and a necessary schedule for each day in order for everything to run smoothly. Still, it felt jarring to hear all these imminent deaths being referenced so fleetingly, especially since the list was so long…all for a single day, in a single county. It hurt Charlie’s head.
The second part of the meeting was devoted to a progress update of the - even lengthier - list of those being tracked, as Charlie himself had been until he met Victoria. While this involved more input from the rest of the Grims, informing everyone else of what they’d observed from their last visits, Charlie felt the meeting was at this point interminable.
Having nothing to contribute to the conversation, he became easily distracted, tapping his knees, scratching his ears, and generally fidgeting. What bothered him the most, however, were the hunger pangs from the previous day, which had escalated from uncomfortable to excruciating. He knew he had to push through them if they were to go away indefinitely, but right now they were too painful to ignore.
At long last, he noticed promising signs that the meeting was drawing to a close - James stood up from an armchair and discreetly dragged it back to its usual place, while Victoria began shuffling the different sheets of parchment into organised stacks.
‘That will be all for now. Thank you, everyone; this was productive.’
‘Victoria…’
‘I expect we will hold another in a week’s time, however do inform me immediately if anything unexpected arises.’
‘Victoria, could…’
YOU ARE READING
A Blue Sky Existence
ParanormalCharlie lived a perfectly ordinary life until an afternoon in August, 1990. His family has to cope with an enormous loss, and it seems as though their world will never be the same again. When an elusive cloaked figure shows up after the tragedy, ho...
