Chapter 1

The black kite circled Giles several times, flying closer with each lazy flap of its huge wingspan. Settling a few feet away from his face, it coughed out evil smelling breath. The ugly raptor raised its sharp beak skywards and emitted a shrill whistling call.

Giles could only move his head to follow the approaching creature. His body lay there, impotent and paralysed. Fearful eyes watched, as the bird’s powerful talons clawed at the object fallen from his outstretched right hand.

The kite tore large chunks out of the spicy red-stained burger meat, leaving the two dried out crusts of bread. After feasting, it eyed Giles hungrily, before spitting out junk food remnants on his face and hopping closer.

The burning chilli seeds, made him turn sharply away from his fate. To the left, through his watering eyes, he could just make out a slim figure with beautiful nylon-clad legs, wearing red high-heeled shoes.

Beelzebub nestled against the silky, black pantyhose of his female nemesis; the witch who had enchanted him with her sexy spell. His tail curled around her shapely calf and the feline raised an open clawed paw, in the trapped victim’s direction.

Giles screamed as he felt his neck being pierced …

“Meow…”

“Shit,” he said, waking up and shaking the hungry black cat off his shoulder.

The feline gave him its best, ‘I’ve saved you from certain doom, so feed me now’ look, and Giles responded by patting him.

“I wish these awful flashbacks would go away, puss. I’ll get you dinner in five minutes, Bez.”

The cat appeared to nod gratefully and Giles looked at his old watch. The Roman numerals told him it was six o’clock, on a late June evening and time to check the brewery.

There had been eight consecutive days of bright sunshine, a little unusual for this time of year. Giles Morton wore brown sandals, a ‘Keo Beer of Cyprus’ T-shirt and washed out, cut-off denim jeans. The shorts were in good condition, apart from a large white paint smear on the back pocket.

He smiled to himself, as he remembered the last time that he wore them. The chain of events, which followed that day, eventually exposed the truth about his sham-marriage. His life had changed so much, since a fateful accident with a paint tin, three years ago.

Giles had been trying to avoid renovating their old wooden greenhouse for ages. His previous partner, Sandra, badly wanted him to tidy it up, until finally on a sunny day, he had agreed to turn his hand to some DIY. She went off to work with the parting sentence, “Don’t mess up your new trousers…”

He remembered watching her trot off down the drive, three years ago, in her navy blue business suit and listening to her heels clip clopping along the path. Many years before that, he had found such attire rather fetching on her, but as time marched on, the thought of even spending the day together, used to test his patience to the limit.

There’s plenty of time to restart this three-year-old painting job another day, he thought. It seemed to have commenced in another life. The black nylon dream returned for a second and he shook his head to empty it out.

“Focus Giles,” he said to himself. “She’s gone, just a bad memory.”

He stood up from the sofa and stretched. His neck clicked to remind him of an injury sustained in a fight for his very survival, all those years ago. What’s another day, he thought? Sandra wasn’t around anymore to tell him what to do; so he retired to the small building at the back of the house.

At one time, before being extended, it may have been the outside lavatory. He imagined that other people would have trodden the same path years ago, just like him, with a newspaper under their arm. No old-fashioned way for him, though, any straining would be of a different kind. His new hobby resided here and this is where he liked to spend his time.

“Hello my beauties,” he said, as he turned the corroded brass handle on the old tongue and groove door. A large, black spider annoyed that this intrusion had damaged the newly woven web, scuttled across the floor and watched him from underneath an old fan heater.

The dusty shelves were filled end to end with glass demijohns and the floor held several buckets of unappealing looking mixtures. The warmth that had built up in the room hit him as he walked in and his nostrils were filled with the warm smell of his concoctions.

He stirred the nearest one, with the piece of one-by-one-inch timber that stuck out of each pail and some gungy yellowed objects rose to the surface. They span around twice before submerging like a prehistoric sea monster. A string of little bubbles came to the surface. He repeated this with the other three buckets. “Very nice, indeed,” he said to his unusual friends.

Giles looked up at the rank of empty demijohns on the shelf waiting to be filled and a thought hit him. Maybe the worse the initial bucketful looked; the better the new wine will taste? He glanced back down at the stained liquid. Hmm…

It can take a year to ferment some home wines. Fresh grapes are hard to come by, but real English fruit and veg may be found as close as the local grocer. He’d tried growing a black Tempranillo vine in his younger days, in the wooden greenhouse. A total failure, as the tiny fruits were usually so sour that even if he left some out on the bird-table, the sparrows just pecked them onto the floor, leaving pink stains on the patio.

A neighbour had introduced him to an alternative, the ‘English Grape’. Otherwise known as the gooseberry, it’s the nearest thing that will easily grow in our fair isle that contains enough sweet sugar to make a palatable wine.

Giles thought back to some of the neighbour’s recipes that he’d tasted and their enchanting properties. He wondered if he’d be able to brew anything as fiery or adventurous. He sat down on an old wooden chair and let Bez the cat hop onto his lap. The look on the hungry cat’s face said, ‘You know how this stuff turned your life upside down three years ago. Just get my dinner and forget it’.

“I can’t forget it, Bez,” said Giles, speaking out aloud. “It’s part of me. I’m hiding again but the memories are still so real…”

 

Chilli Birds - Prepare yourself for a crazy voyage of self-discovery as Giles Morton and his Daehbonk friends battle the sinister Eizus.

978-1-78099-611-0 (Paperback) £11.99 $20.95

978-1-78099-612-7 (eBook) £2.99 $3.99

Giles Morton has a predictably plain life.

Suzie awaits to spice things up.

An enchanted seduction leads him into a crazy voyage of inner self discovery.
Saucy secrets abound as he battles for his very existence against Suzie's alter ego.
The future of the human race lies in the mind and imagination of one hapless man from the suburbs...

A bewitching tease of a tale which will make you laugh out loud and keep coming back for more, Helen Noble, Author of Tears of a Phoenix

John McGinn is a South Wales based dentist/property renovator. His avid love of reading shows through in his accomplished storytelling.

 

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