–Penance for my sins?
“I’ll get the form sir.” The bored desk sergeant left the gloomy reception of Skendlethorp police station.
–
“Let’s stop at Thaxby, I want a wee!” my partner Saffron had giggled.
“OK.”
We’d been out to dinner, where we’d discussed my forthcoming sex change, and taken a backroad home. Normally moths sparkled in the headlights and sometimes hares ran on the road. Tonight, nothing moved save wraiths of hovering grey-white mist.
We’d stopped at the desolate top of Thaxby hill. Saffron went off into bushes, stepping gingerly in sandals. Gazing across the dark valley, I could just discern the burial mound of Hoe Hill.
Suddenly, emerging over it, came a silver disc, perhaps 50 metres across.
Christ! “Saff, come and look at this!” I shouted.
As if in response it headed towards me. In absolute silence it passed low overhead at speed.
–
–
“Here we are sir,” the sergeant plumped down a form, headed ‘missing persons’.
“Look, I said she was abducted by a UFO!”
He smiled. “We’ll send someone up there. She might’ve fallen.”
“Explain this then!” I emptied a sandal from a bag. Under the strap glinted the scarlet nails of five neatly excised toes.
–
Featured in the book, To Cut a Short Story Short: 111 Little Stories
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