Birdhood, a modern murder mystery (Camp NaNoWriMo July 2014)

First Chapter - in which apprenticeship dawns on our protagonist

Vogel McClennan, advocate of attention to details and chewing gum, was the last to expect employment. Or even, as it turned out, apprenticeship.

In fact, a few months after her seventeenth birthday, sat at the computer desk with a look of deep concentration. Half of this was intense thought. Half of this was resignation.

Vogel McClennan, when not cornered, was a girl of few words. The words that did leave her mouth – or flew from her fingers, when she released them – contained mystery, thought and consideration. Unfortunately, the majority of these words remained unspoken, or unwritten.

The Curriculum Vitae document, hosted by Microsoft Word, lay open in front of her.

She didn’t fidget or complain or look around, at the beige walls, out of the window of the terraced house on the rim of town and suburbia, because this was a task which held great importance. As of the 26th of June of this year, the girl in question unceremoniously left school – no career, no job, no school to fall back on – and this scared her. In truth, it filled her with complete fear.

But also resilience. Which is why, as of the 27th of June, of the very same year, McClennan shut herself in her bedroom in front of a computer screen, and vowed to set herself to work.

But the details. The details bothered her; they caught her attention, and once her eyes strayed it was extraordinarily hard to let go. Low attention span – not quite true, as the problem lay more with the fact she could not turn away from the smallest item of interest. The cursor flashed as the phrase was swiftly erased.

Convenient, really – the ease at which thoughts could wander, mistakes could be removed.

But back to the point. There was little that could be said of Vogel, of interest to potential employers, sixth forms, colleges. (The thought of returning to school – after her departure – made her feel ill; a more daunting challenge even than the open road that lay ahead.) A list could be made, of course.

Advocate of chewing gum. Devoted to the details. Campaigner against umbrellas (they only got in the way). Hardly the type of roles that would be of interest to employers, you realise.

Concisely, she found herself in a situation not so uncommon in everyday life.

She stared at the screen, and the screen stared back.

“Your CV is finished?”

“No, not yet.”

“You need to get a job, you know.”

“I know, Mum. I’m looking.”

Half true, technically. Vogel did not leave the house that afternoon, with rare afternoon sun at her back, intending to find a path in life. But instead she stumbled across one. Rather, it stumbled into her.

Music in her earphones at a higher level than possibly advisable, she walked at a moderate pace. The streets unfolded around her, somehow appearing less beautiful than ever in the filtered grey light – cloud cover overhead, with small breaks, residential streets unfolded to the sound of whatever music appeared next on her phone; she had no clear direction, no particular route to take, and if she were in a more reflective state of mind, she would call this a metaphor.

As it was, she was no different than any other person, teenager, or dog-walker traversing the streets on a Friday afternoon. She walked without purpose.  

There was a sunlight, she realised, striding forward rhythmically, though there was still a grey blanket of cloud overhead. It created an atmosphere, one that she could sense, as though the hairs on her neck stood up. As a form of intuition.