The Emancipation of B takes you into an unexpected
enclosed world. In order to find out what it is and why he's there, you just have to keep reading! It's short and light to carry, but most of all it's unputdownable. The perfect holiday read!
He must have dozed off. B jerked upright in his meditation chair, alert to a strange acrid smell. Had he left the cooker on? Grabbing his crutches, he limped into the kitchen. Everything was off. And in the front room there was nothing either. He never had lamps on in there, and hadn't lit a candle for a long time. A fire somewhere else in the building? The thought gave him goose bumps. No one lived there. (B squashed an insidious worm of doubt.) Could electrics burst into flame of their own accord? Fear mingled with the sharp rawness in his throat. There was no fire escape that he knew of. He was slow on his feet and, although he was only on the second floor, he'd be trapped.
But, moving towards the windows, it seemed more likely that the smell was coming from outside. He peered through his peep holes. There, sure enough, was a little thread of smoke issuing from a window in the building opposite. A little crowd clustered as the fire engine arrived and water hoses were aimed up at the fourth-floor windows. At least there was no one in the building. B caught the thought, remembering the flicker he had seen that night. Surely not. If there had been, whoever it had been would have been long gone. But if no one lived there, how had the fire started? Perhaps a paint-stripping blow-torch had caught something. B turned from the windows, forced himself to think of ordinary things, and went back to his meditation chair. He re-set the timer, removed his glasses, and shut his eyes.
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