by Christopher P. Mooney

Nathaniel Friday walks past a hospital for the criminally insane on his way to work. Its high wooden fence means he cannot see inside but he knows the patients are there because, morning and evening, he can hear their unified chant:

“Twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve …”

On and on like that, day after day; repetitive, monotonous, interminable.

Finally, he finds the gnawing curiosity impossible to ignore and looks in through the fence.

“Fucking hell!” he shouts when a finger pokes him in the eye.

Walking away, he hears them take up a new chant:

“Thirteen, thirteen, thirteen, thirteen, thirteen …”

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Christopher P. Mooney was born and raised in Glasgow and currently survives in a small house near London. At various times in his life he has been a supermarket cashier, a shelf stacker, a barman, a cinema usher, a carpet-fitter’s labourer and a foreign-language assistant. He is now a professional high-school teacher of French and English and an amateur writer of crime fiction, horror fiction, adult fiction and eclectic poetry. In addition to two pieces of flash fiction on this site, his writing has been published by Crooked Holster, Dead Guns Press, Devolution Z, Revolution John, Out of the Gutter, Yellow Mama, Horror-Sleaze-Trash, Romance Magazine and Open Pen.