David Hartley

Array

In the town centre there is a gathering of news cameras. They have no crew, no anchors; just each other at a measured distance. A delicate array to advocate emptiness and then, remotely, swerved to slice the streets into new patterns to seek and accuse the ignorant. Soon, they rust to stillness. Left, perhaps, to chance upon the virus itself, floating past in gaudy CGI. Instead they see deer, and boar, and foxes, badgers, swans. They see the creatures who will be spliced from the edit but preserved, in a separate file, for when variation might be needed, or expected. 

David Hartley is a short story writer based in Manchester. He is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at The University of Manchester and his work has appeared in Ambit, Black Static and Structo. He tweets at @DHartleyWriter.