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Reposted by Adrian Chills

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

#82: Location-tracking

A screenshot of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'Location-tracking apps have turned me into a gibbering wreck - but I just can't look away'

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The silence is the worst part. When the dust storms abate and the metal shields which form the walls of our base camp stop resounding with the pock pock pock of wind-blown gravel, all that is left is the quiet hum of the life support system. That, and the sound of my own fevered breaths.
I’ve long given up hope of anyone responding to my distress signal; this planet is too far from the trade paths, not even named on our star-maps.The chances of someone coming to my rescue are infinitesimal at best. If any of the others were still here, we could perhaps together have sought a way to repair our ship, but alone it’s hopeless; I’m no engineer.
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So I sit and wait, and listen to the silence. And watch the screens in front of me.
And gibber with terror at what they show.
When we first crash-landed here, thirty-eight cycles ago, we were a crew of four; myself, Landon, Contreras and Masur. We thought the planet uninhabited - the rocky terrain and lack of plant life seemed to indicate a dead world, or at least one that was inimical to sustaining life.
How wrong we were. Seventy-two hours after landing, while Landon worked on attempting to repair our propulsion system, we heard for the first time the sound of movement outside our base camp; scuttling sounds, as though from many legs moving quickly across the rough ground. Then a scream.
Landon.
Visibility is poor on the planet - the nights are weeks long, and the atmosphere above so thick as to block any light from the surrounding moons - so we could not see what was happening to him, even as his cries grew further and further away.
I ran to my screen, saw his location indicator - the signal, as for all of us, broadcast from the tiny bio-chip implanted in his skull - moving rapidly towards a nearby cave formation.
Contreras and Masur acted fast. Instructing me to wait behind, they took their weapons and headed out into the darkness.
I never saw them again. Their location indicators however, kept moving, out there in the night.
When eventually I ventured from the base camp, I found only horror. Landon’s legs, ripped off and scattered in the dust. The whole lower part of Masur’s torso nearby. Of Contreras there was only a ragged, torn foot.
But still, on the screen, they moved.

I watch them even now, for hours at a time. It’s almost a compulsion. I know they are out there, the remnants of Landon, Contreras and Masur, carried by legs that scuttle on the earth, circling the camp, waiting for just this silence.
I will watch them as they come for me. I won’t be able to look away.

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Reposted by Adrian Chills

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

#81: Driverless

A screenshot of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads "Driverless cars are taking us on a road to nowhere."

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It was just rotten bad luck, that was all. If I had been a little speedier in cracking Lady Hurlington’s jewellery safe then we may have been making our merry way back down the trellis when she and her brute of a husband returned from their late dinner. As it was, the Colonel caught us rather red-handed and it was only by the swiftness of my reactions that I avoided being run-through by the regimental sword he kept above the fireplace. Poor ‘Blinky’ Blenkinsop, my companion in crime, was not so lucky; the Colonel pierced him right in the breadbasket, with a triumphant cry of ‘Take that, you bounder!’ The pompous oaf’s celebration did however give me the moment’s grace I needed to grab a heavy candlestick from the table and deliver a hefty blow to his muttonchops. While he clattered to the floor and her Ladyship fell into a faint, I managed to drag poor old Blinky down the stairs and out the front door - straight into the midst of the thickest fog London had ever seen.
Blinky was bleeding heavily, claret colouring both his evening dress and mine. Behind us I could hear shouting voices and the whistle of a bobby. I knew I had to act fast.
A black shape drew up beside me. A taxicab. Without thinking, I opened the door and thrust poor Blinky in, then tapped on the cab window. “Piccadilly, driver, and don’t spare the horses”. Before I was even inside the taxicab’s door we were moving.
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Spared from the immediate attentions of the constabulary, I set about attending to Blinky. Using my silk scarf, I attempted to plug the wound in his belly. He groaned loudly at my touch.
“Hush now, Blinky,” I told him, “We’ll have you fixed up in no time.”
He just shook his head.
“No,” he moaned, “Deserve all that’s coming. Time to pay the piper.”
“What rot!” I scoffed, “The piper can go hang.” But I knew what he meant.
Our last job, robbing a diamond merchant’s in Hatton Garden had gone badly; a night watchman had surprised us and I, thinking only of our survival, had delivered him a terrible blow to his skull, one from which he had subsequently perished. I know that this was preying on poor Blinky’s mind.
“Be quiet now,” I said to him, “save your strength.”
While he rested, I peered through the taxicab’s window but could see nothing; mere shapes and shadows, insubstantial. At one point I sensed that we were moving over water, though I could think of no bridge that would take us to Piccadilly.
I leaned out of the window, tapped again on the cab.
“Driver?” There came no answer. Unnerved now, I stepped out onto the running plate - the road but a vague blur beneath me, almost like fog itself - and peered through the driver’s window.
No man sat at the wheel. We passengers, myself and Blinky, were the taxicab’s only occupants.
I lifted my head, looked out into the fog. We were no longer in London.
We were, it appeared to me, no longer anywhere at all.

0206

Reposted by Adrian Chills

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

#74: Annoyed

$A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'My neighbours and I were left with no water this week. Why was I the only one who seemed annoyed?' Alt-text for next image: It’s been fifteen days since the heatwave first began, fifteen days of cloudless, pale blue skies, of an unrelenting sun cooking city and town alike. For me, it’s been close to unbearable. The night before the heatwave hit, I returned home with my ankle—broken that morning while jogging around the park, victim of an errant Dachshund pulling its lead taut across my path—encased in a fracture boot, with orders not to place any weight on it for at least two weeks. Luckily I’d had a big Waitrose delivery come in the day before, so I was stocked and ready—all I had to do was to see out the next couple of weeks. Then came the heat. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, not just the intensity of it, but the whole feel of it. It was like the sunlight had a texture—thick and heavy, soupy. I could swear it had an odour too. Though I kept the windows closed and fans on during the day, I could smell it seeping through, intoxicating like a perfume. Come to me, it seemed to say, worship in my presence. (continued on next alt-text)$