Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge?  Are you open to sharing your dark side?   Then read on.

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Do you have a dark side?

Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so,  join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.

Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday

Share your dark side?

I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.

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dark | side | thursday | forty

‘I will break you, do you understand?’

The lips of the figure looking back at him barely moved. The shock of hearing such cold, brutal, words from a simulacrum of his self, separated by seconds, seared his (lost) soul. More than ever, he needed a shot, needed so much more. Never mind internal warming, he needed a meltdown. He needed to lose himself. If he wasn’t already lost.

The thin man coughed, briefly.

He turned his eyes away from the replicant, the simulacrum, the imposter. Turned his eyes to the thin man. The thin man, in the white coat.

‘It’s 12:51, it’s time, it’s no longer seven minutes past one. Maybe you remember that time, the time you crossed the street, in a distant northern town, the man asked you (innocently) the time, you told him it was seven minutes past one, you knew it wasn’t, but, even then, you knew. You knew that it was time. And yes, you knew that it was 12:51, and that it always would be. It is written.’

The thin man turned away. With his right hand he reached down into the left pocket of his white coat. His fingers found what he needed. He popped one of the round white pills, took it between his finger and thumb, brought his hand out of his pocket and turned and faced them both.

‘My part in this is over. The time has come, the time is 12:51, the end has no end, you know – both of you – what you must do. She knew too, you knew that she always knew, it conditioned her every action. You both know (and knew) that. And, you both know that only one of you can survive what will come next. When the time comes to make the choice. I wish you all you wish for yourselves’

With a swift movement the thin man popped the pill, bit down hard. His eyes rolled back in their sockets. He fell to the ground.

He looked at his shadowy simulacrum, their eyes met. They both raised their right hand, index fingers extended. Their fingers touched. Their fingers pressed together. There was a brief, intense flash of light, a low rumbling noise, a searing pain flared in (their) left arm.

Then, nothing. (Again).

He felt the cold smooth surface pressed into his forehead. The familiar geography of his desk. He raised his head with care, his eyes unable (unwilling) to open. The familiar hum of the fan (of his Mac) taunting, teasing him. Rain lashed against the windows. The chimney towered above.

He sensed these things, he did not see. Not yet.

With trepidation, he opened his eyes, pain blasting him as he did. He squinted at the screen on the desk. Searching for the menu bar, his eyes gummed and inflamed, he found the row of sparse black numbers, he struggled to focus, he struggled to take it all in.

Though the mist, he saw the time.

12:51

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The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.

forty | fiftytwo