I felt the heat of the sun On my hand, my face As I raised the blinds Higher, higher After a twelve hour worknight That turned into near afternoon Before I could put my key in the ignition, Get home and open the blinds. My skin is nearly paper now, So I go back to the darkness of my bedroom, Where the room is cool despite the weather outside.
I open the shades for effect And to feel better about the day that will die As soon as it lives.
Sitting in the same chair In the same room, The same chill shooting through my fingers As I type this. Forgetting why I am even writing.
My view from this window a putrid old white pickup truck With a sign that says RICHARD’S TERMITE AND PEST CONTROL On the side Sitting in the parking spot Beside my Ford Focus And a lawn, some trees. I can’t see any further. I am limited, you see.
Hours pass. The chill continues up my fingers, my arms Into the center of me. Nothing good written. I get up to close out all the lights Even though the sun will not set For hours. I shut out the sun. The language closes up, The blinds fold in, The darkness seeps back in. If only you heard the poems from my lips And you were open enough To believe them And I was strong enough to live them As I uttered them….
John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals in the last dozen years. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.
Canvas billowed anew. The rain’s hiss abated. I hoped signal strength would improve.
“Hello?” I said, louder. “Is anyone there?”
“You’re not funny,” interrupted my fare. “I didn’t pay for theater. Concentrate on landing me safely.”
“Madam, with my good eye closed I can navigate the entire Colorado Archipelago. Oftener than the tides have risen I’ve sailed thusly. Relax, let me skipper my boat.”
“Such a mariner, oh dear!” She studied the reflection in her own long-inert cellphone; plucked a rogue chin hair; spat overboard into salt water. “I suspect I’ve hired a fool to convey me to the Denver Islands.”
* * *
The sky’s weight presses the sea, prevents its escape.
I stroked the barely-visible implant scar on the nape of my neck. The snores of my angel complemented a symphony of wind and breakers.
“Wake up,” I said as I prodded her with my toe. “You commanded my silence for the duration of our passage, but we’ve reached our destination.”
She wiped slumber-sand from her eyes.
“So bold, you are,” she snarled. “To suggest one could sleep aboard this deathtrap of a cockleshell! I was deep in meditation.”
Like an anchor, my gaze dropped upon her.
“Your appraisal of this vessel may be correct, madam, yet thanks to your courage and perseverance you’ve arrived at the Denver Islands. I bid you farewell!”
“Again with the humor! Have I not demanded you cease your foolishness? We are nowhere close to shore!”
“My ‘cockleshell’ draws deep and we dare not risk the rocks. You and I, our voyage together ends here. Your contract is recorded on my device.” I held up my blank phone as evidence.
“Bah! Bring me in, pirate. I will double your fee.”
“My counter-proposal: I’ll eject you into the brine forthwith, and at no additional charge.”
“Carry me,” she said, and with a trembling hand drew her hood. “I cannot swim.”
I furled the reefed sail and set fast my oars. Across the railing slithered an anchor chain. I slipped over the side and waves caressed my ribs, welcoming me.
“Your taxi awaits,” I said, and extended my arms to her.
* * *
I eased my burden onto dry slabs of slate. She withdrew payment from her satchel. I hefted the gold coins — my luck was on the mend. Soon, I’d clear all debts and greet my future.
“Thank you and goodbye, madam.” I kept my eye mostly on the buildings and stone outcroppings far above us. She wrapped her cloak tighter against the breeze.
“Bunghole,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“As well you should, and often! Bunghole, yes. The opening at the bottom of a boat.”
“No, you are mistaken. A bunghole is the means by which we fill or empty a barrel.”
“Well, you’re the expert. No matter what you call this, you may want to put it back.” She turned and began her upward trek.
In one hand I clutched my wages; in the other, a bronze drain-plug.
I splashed into the surf. My boat’s keel settled onto sand four feet below swirls of ripples and bubbles. Sunlight pierced overcast. Atop the mast a gull preened.
* * *
To raise my scuttled boat and refit it would cost all I’d earned from the trip. My first night ashore was cold — I catnapped in a ramshackle toolshed — although my rage kept me warm enough. How would I avenge myself on the Harpy who sank me?
In the chilliest hour before dawn I checked my phone for messages. As usual, there were none. I massaged my aching joints and set out on a prowl. These island-neighborhoods enforced curfews and I had to be sharp. I snuffled the bones of an abandoned commercial district until I found a prospect.
Some would encounter Sunnyside Booksellers and believe it a rind stripped of anything edible, combustible, or otherwise valuable.
Crafty me, I discovered a trap door. I wound my flashlight’s crank and spelunked the tomb-scented cellar.
Books in mounds, monoliths; volumes stacked like cordwood. Ink on paper! Bindings — every color and size! I’d outlast winter if I kept this jackpot a secret. Inside a stove, all words burn the same.
My implant chirped a warning. Above and outside, someone approached. Overburdened I fumbled ladder rungs and hauled a bundle of creative non-fiction, whatever that was. Three more nights and I’d empty this cellar of all the fuel I could stow.
* * *
By day I serviced my refloated boat: dried, cleaned, greased, re-stitched, nailed, and tied. After dark I lugged loads of books and hid them onboard underneath oilcloth tarpaulins. Planks creaked as the hull hunkered low in the water.
At last, my pre-dawn departure. Ribbons of purple and red glowed between the forsaken towers of Old Denver’s skyline. I set the oars into their rowlocks and there she was, the Harpy, not thirty paces away and jogging along the stone quay. She hailed me via a trumpet formed by her hands.
“Ahoy, as your type is fond of saying. Is this where I buy a ticket?”
I almost snapped an oar over my knee; instead, I smiled.
“It would please me to accommodate a repeat customer. Come aboard and you can disembark anywhere except dry land.”
“Always with the jokes. The seafaring comedian. Let us agree to allow bygones be whatever, and enter into a new contract. Will you take me home?”
“I’d rather use the butt-end of this oar to put out my remaining eye. No! My services are unavailable.”
Panting, she gave her satchel a shake and the effort nearly tipped her over. Coins were her orchestra, she the conductor.
“Five times the outbound rate is my offer. Paid when we arrive at Port Rainier.”
“Stay where you are, I’ll pick you up.”
* * *
Loathing runs as deep as oceans, and early in our journey my passenger’s unkind behavior caused me to take constant soundings. However, I possess the wisdom to forgive offences as long as revenge is inconvenient or unprofitable.
By the third week she laughed more and criticized less, followed by her unprompted vow to prepare the evening meals. Our conversations grew cordial and she seldom scolded me when I looked at my phone.
“You have regrets,” she said on the brightest and bluest morning since we’d left. “You miss connecting with people and things.”
Hood thrown back, her iron-gray curls gleamed. Outlying Cascade Isles, lumps of brown and black, blistered the horizon. I rubbed my implant scar and rummaged for a response. Despite the day’s brilliance my thoughts were blobs of mercury.
“I suppose I’ve spent too much time on this cockleshell — yes, I remember you named it so. Anyway, solitude is my preferred companion.”
“Oh, a man of action, yet stoic! In my field of work I’ve never chanced upon someone so deliciously complex.”
She grinned at me and I mustered one for her. I’d come to find her aquiline nose and dusky eyes quite fetching. My implant throbbed in an unfamiliar manner.
I labored to push a reply out of my word-hole. “Who are we but water-spiders, skimming the surface, racing from one adventure to the next?”
“Yes, my captain, you’re the sailor-poet-philosopher, the burglar who talks in his sleep. I’m the librarian who won’t allow you to burn your precious cargo.”
(A re-imagining of the Byzantine mores of Vanessa Belland her set and their infliction upon her daughter Angelica Garnett née Bell by way of Duncan Grant)
Charleston Farm, East Sussex
Christmas Day Night, 1918
Today the child decided to be born. Before breakfast!! I cannot believe it. Our first Christmas since the end of the beastly war. Our first Christmas after four long, dull years of Lutheran sensibilities out of consideration for “the people” and their sacrifices. I should have been downstairs presiding over the feast of food and festivities I’d planned; festivities almost Roman Catholic in their excess. How delicious. But the child almost ruined everything but for my darling Virginia. Thank heavens, she oversaw the morning hunt and orchestrated the later dinner and party. Judging by the glee and shrieks rising from downstairs which punctuated my beastly labour, I suppose it was in the end, only my Christmas the baby ruined.
It wasn’t a difficult birth. I suppose I must be pleased that it is a girl and not another boy. My friends tell me daughters are so much more fun. I doubt it but I do believe they are cleaner and more reasonable than boys. Small mercies. Lennox is a Gorgon-faced Godsend, even though she demanded the Devil’s dues to return to service for this one. I suppose it was her form of retribution because we let her go so abruptly once Quentin and Julian were both away at boarding school. How could I have foreseen the spectre of another child? But whatever Duncan agreed to pay her, it is worth every penny to not have the onerous duty of tending to a crying, hungry baby day and night. I informed Lennox the day she moved back into her rooms that I refuse to be a heifer to this child. She has engaged a wet nurse who will arrive the day after Boxing Day.
Clive suggested we call the child Angelica, after all, he said it is on this day the angels brought good news. I suppose this baby is good news, but for whom, I am not certain. Not for me. Now the boys are at the Quakers’ school in Reading, a baby is not what I need. Clive has promised to take her under her wing. He is such a good man and will be more of a father to Angelica than Duncan could ever know how to be, so the least he deserves is to give her a name. God knows Duncan is too distracted and really, he has become such a bore. I do not always wish for his company.
Clive has barely been in. He has spent the day entertaining Duncan and Bunny. They came down yesterday and will stay until Boxing Day. With little consideration for me or this baby, the three of them have indulged in an inordinate number of raucous toasts ever since they returned from the hunt. I could hear their noise all the way up here, but I suspect they were celebrating the end of the war and their enforced exile from London as “conscientious objectors” more than the birth of Christ or Duncan’s girlie as Bunny called her. She is merely a timely excuse.
Later, Bunny popped up to see the baby, champagne in one hand, a filthy White Owl cigar in the other. He blew smoke across her little face which enjoined a stern cluck of disapproval from Nanny Lennox. But when has disapproval ever deterred him? He oohed and he aahed, towering over the child’s crib, a swath of Christmas ivy around his neck, a travesty of a merry fairy godmother.
Oh joy, he declared. She is delicious. Good enough to eat with a crème anglaise and strawberries. If she is as lovely when she’s twenty, let’s see, good Lord, I shall be only forty-six — I think I will marry her. Will it be scandalous, Vanessa?
Yes, it would. However, I kept silent. Sometimes Bunny is as insufferable as he is amusing. I accepted a glass of champagne and we toasted the absurdity of the idea.
Lennox has taken the child. The visitors have gone, the men retired. Finally, I have some peace.
* * *
Christmas Day, 1932
I don’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed with Virginia. She has gifted Angelica the outrageous sum of one hundred pounds annually to purchase clothes. Who in their right mind would bestow such funds on a fourteen-year-old? Dear as my sister is to me, Virginia has not been in her right mind for some time. I am worried. I told her she has been highly irresponsible but she dismissed my objections. She implied my allowing Angelica to travel on the Continent, unaccompanied but for Lennox, was more irresponsible, but both Clive and Duncan backed me up that for the purposes of education Angelica’s sojourn in Rome was far more valuable than that ghastly school in Essex.
* * *
Sissinghurst, Kent
Sunday Afternoon, 15th August 1937
Vita has invited us down for the week. A relief to leave London. I cannot bear anymore condolences on the loss of my darling Julian. It is a welcome distraction to be with Vita and Harold who has a quiet and thoughtful way about him that is quite calming. Between my grief and the talk of Oswald Mosley and his band of thugs and the menace of an increasingly strutting Germany, I have felt lost in a deep well of sadness. Still, I thank God every day for our Royal Family and the sanity and sensibility of British politics. Stuffy as society may be, it is a blessing that we are more obsessed with the marriage of the American divorcee Mrs Simpson to the Duke of Windsor, than with the rantings of that nasty little man Mr. Hitler in Berlin.
Angelica and I motored down with Virginia and Leonard on Thursday. Clive arrived with Duncan in tow yesterday morning. Bunny and his wife Rachael – I cannot bring myself to call her Ray (how vulgar, how gauche) no matter how often she insists I do – arrived by train this afternoon. Rachael is to my eyes much more interesting than when I last saw her; she has lost much weight and her face is drawn, tight and of a curious hue. I might ask her to sit for me in the autumn.
Angelica, who has become quite temperamental and rebellious since she decided to become an actress – a grave misjudgment in my opinion, the child has neither looks, allure nor talent of any description – was extremely beastly to Bunny and made cruel fun of Duncan at lunch. I thought enough. Time the child knew the truth. I took her for a walk in Vita’s wonderful white garden and explained that Duncan is her father not Clive. I tried to ameliorate the situation by telling her that in many ways she was lucky to have two fathers, not one. She spat back that in reality she felt she had none. Her performance was worthy of Isadora. I waited until she had calmed and run out of her diva tears before instructing her to not discuss this further with anyone. Especially Clive’s father who must not be made aware of Duncan’s role in her genesis as William has almost certainly bequeathed what he believes to be his granddaughter, a sum of money in the event of his death. Practical girl, she saw the sense. Well, she should. A woman’s life and fortune are precarious and only someone foolish would unnecessarily risk any upheaval. I have instructed her to make her excuses and not attend the party tonight. It seems only prudent.
* * *
Monday 16th August 1937
I am appalled. Angelica, despite my advice, not only attended the party, but dressed a little too provocatively for an eighteen-year-old girl. She certainly drank more champagne than was advisable. Laughed too loudly and danced with unseemly abandon. I asked Clive to tell her to stop, but he said let her have her fun, that if she was a little wild as he put it, perhaps it was because she still grieved the loss of Julian and has been forbidden to make a “pilgrimage” as she called it to Brunete in Spain. That debacle shows no sign of abating and it would be madness not to say pointless for her to undertake such a trip. Still, Clive is right. However, I felt I needed to address her outrageous behaviour.
When I spoke to her, she threatened to be indiscrete regarding her true paternity and ruin the evening in front of everybody, including several notables and minor Royals. After a while, she calmed and I left well alone. The child has always been willful and I can live with her irregular behaviour. What I found most distressing was watching her flirt shamelessly with Bunny last night, in the presence of Rachael who was visibly embarrassed and hurt. With Julian gone, there is no one to temper her. Perhaps Quentin can take her to tea when we get back to London and have a word. She might be more prepared to listen to her brother than her mother.
* * *
Charleston Farm, East Sussex
Christmas Day, 1938
Everyone has come for Christmas. Quentin has brought a young woman, Anne Popham for the holidays, they seem rather serious. I will get Clive to find out more about her family. Bunny and Rachael are here, but I fear her health has deteriorated. The last time I saw her was just over a year ago when she declined to sit for me. What is troublesome is that Angelica and Bunny carry on in a way that is wholly inappropriate and raises my concerns. I remember his drunken prediction about marrying her despite his being in a liaison with her father. And how can I tell her that this man was her father’s lover? It mattered not a jot until now. There is something quite wrong with this relationship. Not least that they are being quite disgraceful in front of his poor, sick wife. Perhaps I or Duncan should speak with him. Warn him off. Or do I leave them to have a fling, however distasteful? Perhaps an older man will help settle her. Let her get her rebelliousness out of her system and then she can move on and hopefully meet, marry someone more suitable.
I have just spoken with Virginia. She assures me my daughter will tire of that rusty, surly old dog with his amorous ways and his primitive mind. Typical Virginia – she has the most vivid and apt way of putting a matter. I hope she is right. She knows all sorts of interesting young men, closer in age and class to Angelica and has promised to send them Angelica’s way after the holidays.
* * *
Christmas Day, 1942
It is done. And I must be gracious and welcoming. Bunny might believe he has pulled off a coup, perhaps exacted a small revenge on Duncan, but I find it disgusting. An affair was one thing, but this marriage is partly my own fault. If I had found the courage, had informed Angelica about her intended husband’s history and more specifically his proclivities, namely that Bunny had not simply propositioned me (thankfully I rejected him – would he be so petty to marry her out of spite?) but had conducted a liaison with her father, might she have called off the marriage? In a note of sordid glee, she informed me she lost her virginity to Bunny while staying with the novelist Mr. H.G. Wells in Sussex. It is quite abhorrent to me that Bunny Garnett, fifty years old, has married my daughter, a mere twenty-four years old. The poor deluded girl is giddy with her new status and independence. They have moved to his place in Cambridgeshire, so it is somewhat of a blessing that I shall see less of her and her husband whom she refuses to call Bunny – he’s not a pet, Mama, she said – rather she insists on calling him Darling David. Quite nauseating.
It was all very well being tolerant when Darling David’s excesses were amusing, scandalous and delicious in equal measure, but when it is one’s own daughter sucked into the insobriety of others’ sexual mores, one finds one is forced to re-examine one’s own opinions – and admit to one’s culpability. I, we, created and glorified this sordid seeking of sensation and acceptance of breaking taboos.
It is not difficult to conjure a list of muckrakers hoping to be the first to inform Angelica of her husband’s dalliance with her father, enjoying the anticipation of her dismay. Then how gleeful will she be, I ask, if somebody tells her, as they surely will be keen to do, about not-so-darling David’s torrid relationships with both male and female intimates of our circle and beyond (more than I care to name!)? They will do so all the while claiming moral outrage but seeking revenge or social superiority over our eccentric little family, spreading the dirt and depravity so deep that it will be Angelica, an innocent, who is shamed and not her Darling David who has tainted everybody he has known. Including me.
I know this milieu; indeed, I have dabbled in it myself but that gives me advantage. I shall make it my mission to use whatever means, practical, immoral, sexual or sentimental, I will call in all debts owed whatever their nature, financial, patronage, discretionary – bearing in mind the large repository of secrets entrusted to me which I am quite prepared to use as leverage to ensure no one disillusions Angelica.
Let my silly daughter have her illusion of a great love affair. Better that than laying this family bare to ridicule and judgement heaped upon our name. But I confess, I am tired. Tired of these men; Bunny and his predilection for young flesh of any persuasion, our George and Gerald who took me and Virginia for sport, and Lytton and Roger and Leonard and all their ilk who offer praise and speak of equal artistic worth yet ensure we are crimped by social, marital and maternal expectations.
And if I must wield the librys to slay the switchblade tongues or lay down with husbands, wives, or fathers to ensure their silence, so be it. But given the inbred snobbery of our venal and socially ambitious times, I doubt nothing more than invitations to our dinner parties and readings and gallery openings together with promises of attendances at their parties will be suffice.
My daughter needs to be protected.
I will be her Amazon.
A New Zealand writer who divides her heart and life between Cyprus, England and New Zealand. Winner: Reflex Fiction (Winter 2017); Cuirt New Writing Prize (Galway, Ireland) (March 2019); Flash500 (Summer 2019). Runner up, shortlisted, longlisted, commended and published here and there.
I skipped breakfast that morning. Very out of character. I always have breakfast. Cereal of some form. Mostly Shreddies but sometimes I throw caution to the wind and have Frosties. Never the real ones of course – supermarket’s own brand versions are just as good.
But that morning the milk had turned. It hadn’t reached its expiry date, but it smelt awful. I was unprepared; we had no bread in for toast. So I went without.
I should’ve taken that as a bad omen.
I drove myself to the hospital. It was a follow up appointment from the scan so there should’ve been no invasive procedures to stop me driving. I told Trish I could handle it and for her not to worry. I’d ring her with news on my lunch break. All routine.
Sit down the doctor said. Sorry the doctor said. Measured proliferation the doctor said. Hostile carcinoma the doctor said. Short period of adjustment the doctor said. I didn’t hear anything else the doctor said. She shook my hand and shuffled me through to the processing department.
The room was small and square. Empty and cold. The expiration machine dominated the room. I knew what it was of course, but I wasn’t prepared for its grand scale. Bulky and smooth. Why do they have to shape the scanner like a coffin? Fitting I suppose, in every aspect.
It was my time. Whirring and sliding, I entered the machine. It wasn’t painful. These administrative things never are. The blood tests on Tuesday made me squirm more. Hell, getting out of bed in the morning causes me more distress.
On completion they clamped the shackle on my left hand. The assistant didn’t make eye contact. I couldn’t blame him. I can’t imagine how he does this job. Every hour. Every day. Every week. Setting in motion the countdown. The giver of time and the taker of time in one role. I said thank you on my way out. It’s not his fault. I’ve never been a believer in shooting the messenger. I’ll keep my manners until the end. For another ninety-four days. According to the display on my wrist.
Intelligence requested. That’s what it reads on my medical report. I asked for this. I embraced the medical advancements. I signed up for the donor register. I donated blood and saliva and cells and sperm and willing. I ticked the permission boxes. I banged on the door of progress. I shouted about how knowledge was power. I never thought I’d regret it.
The traffic was slow, but I made it home by midday. Even considering I stopped at the supermarket for fresh milk and a new box of branded cereal. I’d called in sick when the hospital dismissed me. I may repeat the call tomorrow. Sitting in the car I fiddle with the shackle and wonder if I can hide it from Trish. She never ticked the box. She never wanted to have the information.
Ninety-four days, thirteen hours and seven minutes until my expiry date. Give or take. Modern medicine is marvellous but there is a ten percent buffer zone for computer error. Reasonably.
I have less time left than the box of cereal in my footwell. I thought the information would be comforting. I thought when the time came, I’d want to know. I thought that it would give me the opportunity to get my affairs in order and spend my last days doing what I wanted. Turns out all I want to do now is fight to outlive my cereal and wish that I had more time.
Katie Isham is a writer, teacher, drummer and mild adventurer from the UK. She writes angry emails, the odd fictitious story, and a travel blog that is currently somewhat static. www.vintagegnome.blogspot.co.uk. Her words can be found in Dear Damsels, Funny Pearls and The Daily Drunk. She can be found on Twitter @k_isham.
An aura of decay clung to the air in the austere hall. Dennis, the auctioneer, was never certain if the odour emanated from the fabric of the building, the sale items, or the clientele themselves. He regarded the sea of faces before him with displeasure, trying vainly to recall the last time he had spotted anyone whose hair colour was neither grey nor that strange honey-blonde shade found nowhere in nature but so favoured by the dowager class.
His profession was also in its death throes, and he felt his shoulders sink a little as he stood at the podium. They had brought it upon him, this generation with naked greed glinting in gimlet eyes. So keen to possess, they left nothing for those in their wake. They’d created Generation Rent by refusing to relinquish ownership of anything.
Now no-one bought anything. Everything was leased, inadvertently favouring the planet as its raw materials experienced constant recirculation, rather than sitting in landfill-like cupboards awaiting infrequent use and entropy. Businesses slunk back to high streets offering temporary tenure at reasonable rates, and shared ownership had reignited a sense of community across the land.
That had really pissed his audience off.
Eric, his assistant, gave him a gentle nudge in the ribs, and stage whispered.
‘Next item?’
Dennis unhooked his brows and lifted his head.
‘Next item!’ He thunked the wooden gavel on the block, glanced at the day’s list and turned towards the door on his left. ‘The next item on today’s list is…’ Eric stepped sideways through the door, carrying a large empty wooden frame. ‘…a lovely day.’
A ripple of avarice passed through the audience.
‘Expression of pleasure in the exquisiteness of a full twenty-four-hour period will henceforth fall under your copyright. Starting price £6,000.’ The ludicrous and unseemly battle for possession of yet another basic human right played out before him, replete with the customary paddle waving and instances of stink-eye.
‘A Lovely Day’ went for £120,010.
The list progressed through ‘Love of Nature’ (now under the ownership of an aging physics teacher, who declared on successful bid that he hoped to dissemble it into “a rather exciting equation”), ‘Surprise Parties’ (personally Dennis was happy to see that one taken out the public domain), and ‘Canal-dwelling Shopping Trollies’ (that one only just secured the reserve despite the appetite of the audience).
‘Final item on today’s schedule.’ Dennis surveyed the slightly diminished gathering. Panic sweated the faces of those yet to secure a new item, the thought of a static, unenhanced collection of stuff clearly triggering a physiological explosion from their adrenal glands (which were, incidentally, scheduled for inclusion in next Tuesday’s auction). He returned his attention to the list.
‘Wellbeing.’
Dennis leaned into the lectern to allow the passage of Eric who was man-handling a large Perspex box. The auctioneer covered his microphone with a hand and turned it to one side before muttering ‘Really?’ at his assistant.
‘Yes, really.’ replied Eric, his breath momentarily clouding the box of Wellbeing.
‘Jesus.’
Eric carefully placed the large empty box on the table and exited stage left. Dennis stared at the box until an impatient cough from the cash-rich crowd reclaimed his attention.
‘Okay. Reserve price for this item is £20,000 but I think we can start a little higher than that. Who will bid £30,000?’
Paddles flew.
Hybrid writer-scientist, Sheila most enjoys turning idle thoughts into short narratives and illustrative doodles. Her work has been published in Edwin Morgan 100 Anthology, Postbox, Cabinet of Heed, Causeway, Ellipsis Zine, Flashback Fiction, Bangor Literary Journal, Poetic Republic, and 2019 Morton Writing Competition. Her intermittently hyperactive Twitter account is @MAHenry20.
There are problems beyond The summation of equations That exist only in the minds-
Of the few who yearn to solve The questions of a universe So questionably mathematical
That even their own minds Fail to fathom the sheer depth Of the numerators and denominators too
Which give way to all manner of theory In a world where to be creative Is frowned upon only till vain fame-
Seems to eclipse all judgement And all rouge infringement dissipates To an acceptance of intellectual creativity-
Quite unlike anything found In the empiricism of formulae Which bewilder all those that lack-
The natural ability to calculate And hypothesize over an ideology So positivist in nature-
That one might ask if notions of society Were simply distortions Of our futile attempts to justify-
A life of functional differentiation So utterly contrived that perhaps Even the creativity that is so ardently suppressed-
May be just a disfigurement Of a natural ability So positivist in nature-
That its judgement is but a sardonic irony.
A R Salandy is a mixed-race poet & writer who likes to focus on the contrast between nature and humanity but also the many similarities that bring the two together. Anthony travels frequently and has spent most of his life in Kuwait jostling between the UK & America. Anthony’s work has been published 45 times. Anthony has 1 chapbook entitled ‘The Great Northern Journey’.
Candyfloss clouds. Azure sky. A sun straight from the Teletubbies.
Stevie lifted the glass to his sweaty lips, flicking away the slug that was clinging onto the side. The Coke was warm and flat. And diet. It was all the little old dear had in the fridge.
It was the fifth consecutive day of 25-degree sunshine. A once in a lifetime Scottish summer. And Stevie was stuck laying fucking concrete slabs. His uncle had reiterated it was a two-man job and they would split it 70-30. But he had failed to mention his plans to head off to ‘Eye-Beeza to piss sangria’ in the middle of the contract.
The non-existent buzz from the aspartame was only irritating him further, so he poured the remainder of the dark liquid onto a dandelion. The depressingly imposing council house loomed above him, mocking his predicament. The old dear had disappeared for her messages leaving Stevie free rein of the kitchen. But there were only so many custard creams one could take in this heat. What he wanted was a pint, to lick the condensation that puddled at the bottom of the glass, never mind the funny looks he’d get. He was missing Ryan’s barbecue for this shite.
He surveyed his work so far: only two slabs laid in four hours. His uncle was right, it was a two-man job. It was the longest and most laborious process he’d ever experienced. He had to lift the old 3 x 2 grey slabs, walk them a safe distance away, add a fresh coat of ballast and whin dust, before replacing it with a newer, practically identical 3 x 2 grey slab. What he didn’t expect was the sheer weight of the fuckers. He’d scraped his arms and knees raw and embarrassingly had to ask the old dear for a plaster. She’d just smiled as she applied it for him, making him feel like a ten-year-old boy instead of a nineteen-year-old not-as-strapping-as-he-once-thought lad.
There were still thirty-seven slabs to go, and his uncle wasn’t due back until the following week, so Stevie dragged on his gloves, laced up his boots and clomped his way back to pain and suffering and endless fucking drudgery.
Taking up his shovel, he dug underneath a slab, loosening the earth, lifting it slightly before gripping it with both hands. The most inconvenient part was getting enough purchase between the ground and concrete without crushing your fingers, but this time there was plenty of space, so Stevie hauled it up with surprising ease. Instead of being greeted by hundreds of slaters scrambling for a new home, he found himself staring into a large hole. Stevie wasn’t an expert on anything in life, and he was certainly no expert on holes (including those ones as Ryan liked to joke), but he somehow knew this wasn’t a hole created by an animal; it was perfectly round, and as he looked down, the edges seemed to have been crafted, as if the dirt had been sanded away for a smooth finish. As he peered further into the gaping maw, he realised that he couldn’t even see the end point; just more blackness, leading to nothing.
As an Indiana Jones aficionado, Stevie thought he knew exactly what to do when presented with a fathomless depth. He chose what he deemed to be a good-sized rock for the job and watched as it disappeared into the emptiness. He found himself focussing so much on listening out for the noise of the rock striking the bottom that he began to wonder if he’d already missed it. Choosing what he deemed to be only a decent-sized rock this time, he dropped it down. Once again, silence.
Stevie was never one for spontaneity, but something about this hole had him intrigued. Whether it was the heat, his frustration at his uncle, or the fact he was alone, he relished any opportunity to skive off laying slabs. And if finding a mysterious gigantic hole under a 3 x 2 slab in a council house garden in Prestwick wasn’t a good enough opportunity, then fuck knows what was.
Crouching down onto his knees, he leaned his head into the space. It was roomy enough for his scrawny body so he began to lower himself into it. As soon as his last limb passed the threshold, Stevie found himself in a tunnel. It was impossible to tell in what direction it was leading but Stevie began to crawl, hoping it followed some kind of logic, even if climbing into the hole in the first place wasn’t the least bit logical.
Now that he was in the hole, Stevie was surprised that he could actually see. From above, the hole looked inky black; yet inside that darkness, Steve’s vision was clear, as if an underground light had suddenly been switched on. Worms and ants crawled along the perfect edges of the tunnel, but as Stevie took a closer look, he discovered they weren’t crawling but hovering, as if an invisible barrier prevented them from reaching him in his crawlspace. Stevie reached out but his fingers didn’t touch earth; instead, he felt a smooth, soft edge, like silk. The bugs seemed to exist on another plane entirely.
Stevie wasn’t sure if he was expecting to see a light at the end of the tunnel, but it seemed infinite with no end in sight. Perhaps the slab had collapsed onto his head and this was death. An actual, physical tunnel to heaven. Or hell. He was going down after all.
Time ceased to exist as he continued on his subterranean journey. He saw more floating insects on either side, even a few spiders, which he was no fan of at the best of times but here he found them strangely mesmerising, knowing there was a force between him and them. They couldn’t touch him no matter how much they wanted to creep over his skin.
He turned his head to look back at where he’d come from. The hole he entered was no longer visible but still the tunnel remained illuminated. Coming to a standstill, he was surprised to find he could hear a faint noise to his right, behind the sanded dirt edge. Stevie thought it might have been laughter but that would be ridiculous. A limitless tunnel was one thing, but human laughter from within the earth itself? But there it was again, unmistakable this time. And glasses clinking. And music. He couldn’t be completely sure, but it sounded like ‘Mr. Brightside’. Of all the songs in the world, Stevie wasn’t surprised he could hear that one in the tunnel. He knew he could never escape Brandon Flowers singing about jealousy, no matter where, or how deep he was, on this planet.
Feeling more and more uncertain as to what he was supposed to do in this situation, or what the meaningful purpose of his finding the tunnel was, he kept on crawling. He could still hear the music; it remained just as loud as he went further into the unknown. He began to worry about the old dear; if this was real, and if she returned to find this hole, she might decide to climb in and join him. And then she’d get stuck, become dehydrated and die down here. He upped his pace, channelling his inner mole as his nails gripped the ground ahead of him.
After frantically pushing himself forward, like a fat seal on land, he saw a light in the distance. The music seemed to grow fainter as he got closer and closer to what he hoped was an exit to the real world and not his eternal damnation. He powered on, propelled by the urge to discover where he would emerge.
Which made it all the more disappointing when he found himself climbing out of the same hole he’d entered. He was a little bit muddier, a little more confused, but still surrounded by slabs outside the same council house in Prestwick.
‘So there you are.’
Startled, Stevie raised his head to see the old dear standing over him, a tray in her hands. She had that same smile which never seemed to leave her face.
‘Ah found a hole.’
‘And I got you some full fat Coke. With ice.’
Stevie clambered to his feet. Had she heard him properly? He knew she wasn’t deaf, and she definitely wasn’t blind. Did she somehow know about the hole?
‘Thanks,’ he said as he reached out for the perspiring glass. There was a rectangular piece of paper sitting next to it. Stevie assumed it was a coaster before realising it was the wrong way around, and there was writing on the other side.
‘I got you a little something. Just between us. You deserve it, slaving away on a day like today.’
Stevie picked up the paper. It was a cheque, the first he’d received since he was a child. £100.
‘Oh no, ah cannae take that, it’s too much.’
‘Nonsense, it’s the least I could do. Missing all your friends on such a lovely summer’s day. In fact, take the rest of the day off. Enjoy yourself.’
Only now, standing this close, did Stevie look at her face properly for the first time; he was always one for glancing at his feet during conversations. She was the oldest woman he’d ever seen. If she were to lie down during a rain shower, the water would gather and form rivers in the cracks on her face. Yet something about her eyes betrayed the rest of her face. They were youthful. An innocence and naivety still shimmering away inside.
‘Ah really appreciate it…’ he stopped himself, realising he didn’t even know her name to thank her. He glanced down at the cheque in his hand, his eyes immediately darting to the signature. Her handwriting was flowery, old-fashioned, and it took him a couple of times reading it over to fully comprehend what she’d written. He almost dropped his glass.
‘Yer kidding.’
‘Is something wrong?’
He checked the signature once more. His eyes weren’t deceiving him. That was definitely an ‘A’, followed by a very elaborate ‘L’.
‘Yer name’s no Alice, that’s… that’s…’ he had the word on the tip of his tongue, but saying it out loud would be strange, bizarre, odd. It would be…
‘Curious?’ she wondered.
Oliver Greenall is a writer, actor and filmmaker from Scotland. His films have screened at the London and Glasgow Short Film Festivals, amongst others. He has appeared on the West End stage and in various television series. His feature screenplay was shortlisted for the BFI/Sigma Films producer acceleration programme.
Concentrate on this, and this only. Get the money.
He walks down the aisle toward the altar holding the long-handled basket; right down the center, he walks. Once at the first pew, he turns. He thrusts the basket into the pew under the noses of the parishioners. Everyone generously contributes. Row by row, slowly he proceeds up the aisle. The basket is filling with money. He reaches the pew where the woman sits; the woman he always watches, who intrigues him. She places her envelope into the basket. But for this, she is forever a stranger. Stony-faced, he continues. For some reason the sight of her makes him glance back at the altar. It’s black-veined marble. The crucifix hangs above, the cracks show in the wood. The corpus is bloodstained. Before proceeding to the next pew, he glances at the woman’s long slender legs. Feelings rise in him.
But no.
Oh, would that he were a statue with no feelings.
A bloodstained wooden statue. Like that Christ.
He thinks of that man from the night before; he sees his face. His mind wanders. He moves the basket slowly so they may put in the money easily. Where is the man now? And somewhere, someplace, the host was being elevated at the very moment it happened.
Somewhere in this big world, there was mass at that very moment.
He moves along the row of pews. Someone is kneeling in the way with his head in his hands. The basket won’t go past him. He won’t move. He wishes to be kneeling too. He wishes to pray with his head in his hands. But—the basket’s just half full. Need to fill it fully. He moves more quickly.
He is the collector.
How ashamed his parents will be when he’s found out—
No. He thrusts the basket out. Now is for the money. Now it is mass. Mass is eternal. Mass is of God. He smiles dimly pushing out the basket. What a laugh; to care about his parents now, now that it is too late. His hands grip the long handle. His hands are clean. The effects of last night’s liquor are long gone. He sees the blood, the cuts, the seeping wounds. He sees the drip of the blood into a puddle. But maybe it’s not that bad; maybe the man survived; he didn’t hang around long enough to find out. Truly he was a coward last night—the basket’s too heavy to hold—he’ll drop the basket—
No! Stop it!
Lord, give me strength. Squeeze the handle. He shudders. The basket moves filling. The organ music swells. Perversely he thinks of a woman he read about once who was enamored of a bull. That was unnatural. He feels unnatural. Now is the time to think perverse thoughts. The dark blood begins to congeal. He steps to the next pew. He thrusts in the basket. What’s it like to be lying on the tracks with a locomotive bearing down? This is how he feels. There’s a locomotive coming. He hears it. He feels it. But this is all fantasy. The money is becoming heavy. His muscles flex. He clenches his teeth. Drinking wine will do no good. Drinking wine does no good. Drinking wine is no good. Wine costs money.
Get the money.
Basket in, basket out—much too mindless. But look at all that money. There’s plenty of money in the basket now. Yes, he must be the devil. Yes, he is worse than the devil. Even the money is evil; the basket’s overflowing now; but no, this is God’s money. Nothing of God’s is evil. Would that he were of God.
He glances over to his family, in the back pew. The thoughts swarm upon him. The money is too heavy. He sees the wife he will lose. He sees the children he will lose. He’s near the end. His glasses are sliding down his nose. He pushes them up. They slide back down. There’s no use. He paid nine dollars for liquor last night at three a.m. He glances back to the priest in his heavy vestments. The innocent holy man. So unlike him. But think of it; think of it; the money becomes his once it’s slid into the basket.
How easy it is to give up ownership of something.
Of one’s life.
A pale slumped old man in one of the last pews gives an envelope. Every rib is showing under the old man’s thin shirt. And the skinnier one next to him is bald; they sit pale bald and bony, like dead men.
But they give money.
In the last pew, he is given money by a scowling man; it is him; it happens to be exactly the way he feels. He turns and looks out over the church; they could all be his brothers and sisters.
They could all be him. But they are not. Since last night, there is a chasm between he and them. If only he had not done what he has done.
But he is at mass now.
He steps to the back wall of the church and pours the money out into a large basket on the floor. He holds the empty basket.
The money’s gone now.
They’re pulling up outside; there are sirens.
But no; he is at mass now. Car doors slam outside.
He gives up the basket. He goes to sit by his wife. He is at mass now.
The back door opens.
That back door creaks so badly why don’t they do something about that back door—after all, they’ve got the money. He knows they’ve got the money. He got it for them.
Jim Meirose’s short and long works have appeared in numerous publications, including South Carolina Review, New Orleans Review, Xavier Review, Witness, Into the Void, Exterminating Angel, Phoebe, Otoliths, Baltimore Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, American Literary Review, 14 Hills, and many others. Twitter: @jwmeirose jimmeirose.com
One younger sister who has never measured up, one younger brother looking for escape
They shared a lifetime of coming second, failing to impress, being overlooked. She had the idea she would beat her sister down the aisle. Once the idea had formed, it took root in her mind and flourished like a Buddleia in a paving crack.
Five encouraging friends
They met in a bar in town, somebody’s birthday. The girls loved his accent, his American teeth and button-down collar. He took an interest, paid for the drinks. She was elated when it was her number he took. He fitted easily into her circle of friends. At her house he took charge of the barbeque, set out the chairs, she handled music and drinks. They went on trips to the coast, country houses, walks on the moors. He developed a liking for tea and English breakfasts.
An inability to acknowledge areas of incompatibility (earplugs and rose-tinted spectacles are useful here)
She realised he used humour as a defence mechanism if the conversation got difficult, but told herself that if he could make her laugh, she’d always have fun with him. She said she’d go anywhere with him, as long as they were together. He didn’t like her taste in dogs or the fact that she had so many male friends. He agreed to a French bulldog named Reggie, though he would have preferred something larger. The sex was great – everything else would work itself out.
Three or more parents (to include at least two reluctant and one enthusiastic)
‘I suppose you can always divorce him, but don’t think we can pay for another wedding,’ her mother said as they shopped for dresses.
‘Well her Mom looks great for her age, but are you sure about this?’ his father said on the morning of the wedding.
‘Don’t listen to anyone else. If she gives you goose bumps, you go for it,’ his Mom said, plucking fluff from his suit.
Method:
Put all ingredients into a large vessel and stir. (You will need to wear protective clothing as the cooking process can get messy)
They honeymooned in Mexico, then he moved into her place. The housemates made themselves scarce. They shipped over some of his things, made room for the gifts from his extended family. She hated the ornate clock he insisted on hanging in the hallway but hoped she could learn to live with it. He decided it was normal for the husband not to have much space in the bedroom closets. He busied himself in the garage, stripping old varnish from her dining suite, sanding down table legs. He wanted to show her he was good with his hands.
When the housemates moved out, there was space in the fridge and an emptiness in the rooms upstairs. They increased their TV package so he could watch the baseball, and got a rescue cat; black and bitter, with a smudge of white on his chest. He scratched his claws on the newly sanded table legs.
Transfer into a pressure cooker and turn up the heat. After nine months, the mixture should become saturated, bitter and completely unpalatable
He took her back home for Thanksgiving, showed her around his home town. She ate his Mom’s pumpkin pie, teeth scraping the tines of her fork. She laughed nervously at remarks
about grandchildren and spent a lot of time on her phone. He wondered if the goose bumps would return back in England.
Back home she started a new job, further away. His contract came to an end and he struggled to find work. Sex became sporadic and functional. Reggie started earning good money as a stud dog. He said he wouldn’t mind being a house-husband, but not in this Godforsaken place where it rains all year round. She said she’d never agreed to move to the US and asked how he could ever have thought she had.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely
Her sister announced her engagement to a partner in a law firm. She got a coil fitted. He discovered that he enjoyed soccer as much as American football, but this wasn’t an interest she shared. She disagreed with his views on American politics, which he interpreted as a personal attack on his identity. One of Reggie’s girlfriends had puppies and she brought one home without consulting him. The hallway clock stopped working one day and neither of them noticed.
Serve with a shot of Decree Absolute
Rebecca Field lives and writes in Derbyshire. She has been published online by Riggwelter Press, Spelk fiction, Reflex Press, The Cabinet of Heed and Ellipsis Zine among others. Rebecca has work in the 2019 and 2020 UK National Flash Fiction Day Anthologies. Tweets at @RebeccaFwrites
Oh, Emily, I’m so glad you’re here! I wanted to talk to you and didn’t know if you’d come.
I see you’re mad at me. I can sense it in your silence. Well, you have every right to be. Sigh. I’m sorry Emily. I’m really sorry. But please, hear me out. One last time. Just hear me out. I have something important to tell you.
I just want you to know…all my life has been…tch! You’re probably thinking why I never said anything before today. I didn’t think this is how things would turn out. Not after all you did for me. Maybe things would have been different if I had, eh? Maybe we wouldn’t be here today? Maybe I wou-sigh. Emily, sorry. You’re right. This maybe business is not helping right now. Just…just listen to me, okay?
Emily?
Just listen. Please.
I remember the day we met very well. I was only nine. Seems ages ago now. The social worker who drove me looked like she perpetually had a bad smell under her nose. I don’t remember much else except her voice. I can still hear it some nights. Telling me…well, telling me all the not nice things about me. How I was running out of chances. How I should be grateful for people like her and you who were saving me from me. I just wanted to jump from the car and run.
You greeted us next to a full trailer, and before I could process anything else, I coughed, gagged, my eyes watering. The onslaught on my nostrils was severe. I heard the social worker struggling to speak. Not wanting to offend, I didn’t look up when you introduced yourself. Remember that, Emily? You even said something about it, remember? How I found the ground very interesting?
I had caught a glimpse of you from the car before we disembarked. Your face looked like it belonged to a kind woman. Kinder than anyone I had known. My heart thudded faster with excitement. But I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I was too scared, Emily.
I remember your dirt-caked gumboots. I couldn’t look up. I didn’t want to look up. So I made myself trace all the shapes the dried mud on your shoes had made as you spoke. At least, I thought it was mud. You told me you were glad I was there. That you were sure we’d have a great time. That the only thing that mattered was the life we’ll have now.
And then I saw your gumboots getting closer. Felt a pair of arms around me and this – oh! how do I describe it? – this sweet, sweet scent enveloped me. It was magical. Intoxicating. I took deep breaths. Trying to savor the fragrance that felt like it belonged to the heavens. To take it all in. To keep it with me forever. My brain freezing, relaxing, letting go.
In that moment, I felt as if everything was right with the world, Em. That everything was right in my world. You were saying something and the social worker was saying something. But the words washed over me. I just remember being hugged. I just remember how you smelled. I had never really experienced the joy of either before.
Oh, Emily. You have no idea how peaceful I felt with you! I was nine, deeply troubled, adrift. But you became my safe space. My anchor. Clichéd but true.
You truly helped me turn my life around. Farm life was difficult to adjust to with its gruelling chores, along with regular schoolwork. My nose had the hardest job, though. I remember gagging at each individual assault as I went about my chores. I never knew how much animals pooped or that I’d be the one hauling wheelbarrow loads of it from one end of the farm to the other. I just tried to remember how happy you were with your flourishing roses and vegetables. You used to laugh at me when I would judiciously close all the windows of the house, but you also always had something in the oven too – a simmering roast, fresh buns, chocolate cake.
That was nothing compared to you, though. Every time you’d hug me, your scent would bewitch me. I would feel the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders. And it’s funny that you had no odor despite being busy with farm stuff all day. Even just being near you was enough most days. You kept me grounded. You kept the demons away. I only had to think about coming home, to you, and I was able to keep my head down and my nose clean. Ha-ha! That’s almost a pun.
What you don’t know is that it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy at all.
You see, it was hard to break habits. It was hard to rewire my brain. I read somewhere that early experiences shape our psyche. And what we think, what we do, what we want to do. Every day, I battled with my fears – of messing up, of losing you, of being alone again. Of being abandoned again. Like every other person before, but this time by you.
It was a daily struggle. Dark thoughts would creep up no matter how busy I was. Laying the hay, feeding the hens, hauling animal faeces, doing homework, having dinner with you, reading before bed. Phantoms lurked in the unreachable corners of my brain and I was unable to banish them.
Do you know what that’s like? Do you have any idea? Tch! Stop saying that. Yes, you took me in and raised me like your own. Perhaps better than how you would have raised your own. But I’m telling you that you have absolutely no idea what a troubled kid actually goes through! Of the daily battles we fight and the gambles we take. Of the dread that follows us like a shadow. You don’t know – you can’t know – what it’s like to only be loved when it’s convenient for other people.
Despite all that, I did well. When I moved to town, got a job, a place of my own, you said you were proud of me. And that’s all that mattered. Till you went ahead and…
And now you sit here, angry, disapproval etched into every wrinkle – yeah, you think I don’t see that? – making me feel like I’m back in the dark. Like I’m nine again and the worst kid in the room. The kid who can’t do anything right. The kid no one loves. The kid who’ll always be alone.
Yeah, holding in your protests and I-love-yous, eh? Right. I know where you’re at now. Pfft. Yeah. I know your deal. What, did you think I wouldn’t find out? That it would be as simple as that to brush me off, huh? Done and dusted. That you could just go and get another kid to replace me? That’s how easy it was for you. We’re available a dime a dozen, anyway, right? God!
Tch! I don’t believe you anymore. Do you think I’m blind? Or stupid? You broke me, Em. You made me and then you broke me.
That’s the trouble, Em. The demons never go away. So, of course, I did what I did. You left me no choice. I had to figure something out, to keep you with me. And I have no regrets. I got you back, didn’t I? You’re here, right now, aren’t y-
Hey, Emily! Where are you going? You can’t leave! I’m not done talking. Emily. Emily. You can’t go. You can’t leave me here. Hey, pal, get your hand off of me! Emily! You have to understand. You’re the only person who ever understo- hey, I said leave me alone! Emily? Emily! Come back. Come back, Emily! Emily, come back! Don’t go, please, don’t leave me with them. Emily, get me out of here. Don’t leave me! Get off! Emily, I have more to say. Please! Emily! Emily! Emily!
Our gowns all rustled in a plume of red, I felt a little like a parrot, perched upon my plastic seat, With spiky sunshine puncturing my skin, And marbled beads of sweat running down our spines That arched and curved in vain attempts To stave off heat that swathed the cooing birds. It was, of course, unfortunate that the heatwave hit The day we were to walk the stage. And yet it strangely added something to The summer dream that day became, Remembered as a Polaroid that slowly burned When my name was called. I smiled and tilted mortar board If only others knew the heat Between that teacher and myself. I shivered as the memory called, The way he gasped the night before, Falling into downy pillows, still hot With rays of sun through afternoons Of heat of which we’d never seen before. He shook my hand, his eyes kept low, I saw the sweat stains on his shirt And wished that I could call him out. Not a woman but a student in this gown, I knew that we would never share a bed again.
Rachel Hessom is a writer based in the UK. She writes daily poetry on her blog, patientandkindlove.com and she enjoys tweeting words that vaguely represent poems. She is currently training to be an English teacher so that that she can pass on her love of literature to the next generation.
Monica picks up a wine bottle from the plastic carton and reads the label – ‘Chateau Saint Veran.’ She looks up at the house; bespoke window shutters, burglar alarm and double spiral Buxus topiaries by the front door. The beam from her mobile phone torch swathes the green glass in stark white light. Monica twists the bottle around to look for the tiny emblem of four arrows pointing anticlockwise around a circle on the bottom left side. Best to be certain that there’s a deposit, no point in carting the bottles around for nothing. The ten empty bottles of ‘Chateau Saint Veran’ chink party sounds against the others as she places them inside her box shaped ‘bag for life.’ Monica takes a pencil and her list out of the small pouch she carries around her middle and adds the house number to her notes on Rue des Tulipes: 23rd April 2020, number 22, ten bottles. For Monica, only harvests of ten and more deserve a mention.
Ten green bottles, Monica chuckles as she pads quietly up the street, opens the boot of her 1993 Ford Fiesta and places her pickings inside, taking care not to clatter the bottles. When the boot is full, she coasts the car twenty metres down the street in neutral. After all, Monica wouldn’t want to wake the neighbours.
It’s a dark but clear night, Venus and a full moon glow in the sky overhead. Monica takes an empty bag, closes the car door and scuttles across to number forty-three. When she sees the fox in the middle of the road she pauses; it freezes and stares. The fox is the size of a small dog. Their eyes lock. He loses interest and slopes off in the direction of the dustbins.
Monica pulls her silicone gloves up, tucks her mousy hair under her beanie and inspects the contents of the recycling box. ‘Macon Lugny,’ and ‘Pouilly Fumé,’ ‘Chablis Prestige 2018,’ – excellent taste and all bottled in Belgium by her favourite supermarket, meaning at least 30 cents deposit back each. She pushes the minor wine bottles aside or removes them to access the depths of the container. Eight bottles from number 44 clatter together in a chain reaction as Monica slots them inside her ‘bag for life.’ Number 52 is a beer drinker, Monica cannot abide that sort, it’s just not worth the effort, all those bottles for so little. She passes it over to rejoice at number 54’s over brimming recycling box; completes the bag and returns it to the car. She treads lightly in rubber soled sneakers. Her grey jacket and navy trousers are equally unobtrusive.
Yellow light suddenly spills out through the windowpanes. Monica blinks but the facade of the house is imprinted on her retina like a chess board. The curtain twitches. Monica scurries past.
Inside number 54, Claire hears the clinking of glass against glass. A light sleeper, her curiosity compels her to rush to the window and peek outside. Since her children left home and she retired from her teaching job, the outside world has taken on more than a passing interest. She sees a stranger pilfering from the recycling containers. The cheek of it. After observing for a few minutes, she realises that it’s a woman. There’s something strangely familiar about her gait. Poor thing, being driven to rummaging through others’ rubbish, she thinks. Wait. The woman is putting stuff into a Ford Fiesta loaded up with shopping bags. A car! Well really! Organised crime in Kraainem! Claire raps on the window.
A groaning noise breaks the silence,’ What are you doing?’ Claire’s husband mutters, ‘I’m trying to sleep.’ He turns over.
Smartphone in hand, Claire takes the stairs two at a time, grabs a coat, unbolts the front door and dashes out into the night. Thank goodness for those Zumba classes, she thinks. As the silver Ford Fiesta rolls past, Claire pushes the camera button, flash! Just in case, she takes a mental note of the registration plate: ‘SS0 203;’ and repeats the combination in her head until she grabs a pen in the hall and scribbles it on a stray car parking ticket.
Phew. So much effort, so early in the day. Claire sits at the dining table sipping filter coffee. She rubs her eyes and yawns. It’s one thing that a person in need is stealing bottles and claiming the deposits back, but in this case the act is pre-meditated and organised. That’s it, organised crime.
Meanwhile, in Rue des Roses, a block further on, Monica’s Ford Fiesta is packed to the roof with thirty-three bags each containing 12 bottles, plus the four extra loose bottles Monica picked up to round the figure up to 400. By Monica’s calculation, that makes 120 euros in deposit back. Some days she is tempted to carry on despite her lack of car space, hiding bottles in a ditch by the park to pick up later, but today she is tired and knows that the glass collection for the adjacent area is scheduled for tomorrow.
Back in the car, a flicker of headlights in the driving mirror causes Monica to sink low in her seat as a people carrier swishes past. Monica engages first gear and drives off, her face low on the steering wheel. She’s home in time for breakfast.
Inside number 54, Claire picks up the telephone and calls the local police station.
‘Hello, this is Claire Wrigley, of 54 Rue des Tulipes and I’d like to report a crime,’ she says.
‘Er… Hello Madam. What sort of crime are we talking about?’ The policeman replies.
‘At four o’clock this morning I saw a woman stealing bottles from the recycling bins on Rue des Tulipes.’
‘Bottles you say?’ comes the reply.
‘Yes. Are you taking note?’ Claire says.
‘Madame, technically speaking we’re not talking murder or aggravated violence in any form?
‘Well, no… but it’s theft, and I have the car registration number of the perpetrator,’ Claire interjects.
‘We’ll make a note and get back to you Mrs …. what did you say your name was?’ The policeman asks.
‘W-R-I-G-L-E-Y, 44 Rue des Tulipes,’ Claire’s dictation is interrupted by a dialling tone at the other end of the line.
‘Really!’ Claire slams the receiver down.
Claire lifts the calendar on the back of the kitchen door to check the recycling dates for the month of May. The next glass collection is Friday, 29th May. Five whole weeks away. Then she has an idea. On her laptop Claire consults the website of the waste disposal company. The glass pick-up day is Friday, 24th April for the neighbouring district of Wezembeek-Oppem – tomorrow.
Upon waking, Monica stretches her arms and legs out like a starfish, then sits up and shrugs her shoulders several times to loosen her joints. Out of habit she places her hand in the dent in the bed where Richard used to lie. Monica’s body aches from the constant bending down to place the bottles in the recycling machine of several supermarkets. Even now, the garage is so cluttered with bags and bottles that she leaves the car outside. One more mission this evening and then she can rest for a few weeks. Prior to leaving, she consults her notes and plans her trip, and fills the car with shopping bags.
Upon arrival in Wezembeek-Oppem, Monica parks at the top of Rue des Narcisses and starts at the odd numbers. Number 3 is prime real estate in deposit bottle terms; a strong, spicy ‘Saint Joseph 2019,’ – five times, followed by a full bodied ‘Saint Emilion,’ – tenfold. She doesn’t lock the car as she trudges up and down checking the plastic boxes and filling her bags. Monica places each bag of bottles in the car and walks from house to house checking boxes. As always, she gently lifts unwanted bottles out and places them on the pavement to be able to access any hidden treasures.
A car cruises past, its headlights shine full beam on Monica. She keeps her head down. As usual, Monica sets the car in neutral and allows it to roll further down the street. Suddenly a car cuts in front of Monica’s forcing her to slam her foot on the brake, she presses hard on the pedal, to no avail. She tries to steer away from impact, but the wheel won’t budge. It all happens in an instant. Monica’s Fiesta shunts into the Range Rover and comes to a halt. The sound of bottles rattling rings in Monica’s ears long after the car stops. She rubs her neck.
An urgent tap tapping on her window wakes Monica out of her trance. Due to the mist on the inside, she can’t see who it is and as the window is broken, she opens the door.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Monica steps out of the car.
‘I’m making a citizens’ arrest!’ Claire shouts.
Lights begin to flicker on and off in neighbouring houses, their glare filters out across the street illuminating both the women’s faces.
‘Claire?’ Monica says.
‘Monica?’ Claire says.
‘From Zumba?’ They both say at once.
‘Well I wouldn’t expect this from you?’ Claire says.
‘This? What is this?’ Monica looks up at Claire.
‘Stealing bottles from outside people’s homes.’ Claire prods Monica’s arm.
‘Well I wouldn’t expect you to pull in front of me like that, causing an accident!’ Monica replies.
‘We’ll see what the police have to say about it shall we?’ Claire pulls her smartphone out of her pocket.
A man’s voice cries out from a house, ‘Keep it down out there!’
‘It’s not what you think.’ Monica replies.
‘I know what it looks like.’ Claire looks down her nose at Monica.
‘Since Richard died my life has never been the same,’ Monica wipes a tear from her eye.
‘We all have our burdens to bear,’ Claire replies.
‘I collect the bottles with deposits that people can’t be bothered to return to the supermarket. Each bottle is worth 30 cents. It may not seem much but multiplied by hundreds every week…’ Monica says.
‘And bank the money no doubt!’ Claire says, starting to dial…
‘The money goes to the Belgian Cancer Foundation.’ Monica replies, ‘I can show you receipts.’
‘B-b-b-b….’ Claire stutters, ’I-I-I d-d-don’t know what to say.’ She touches Monica’s arm. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Look, you weren’t to know.’ Monica, ‘It’s not something I shout from the rooftops.’
‘But your car,’ Claire says. Both women turn to look at the concertinaed bonnet of the Fiesta.
‘That’s why we have insurance,’ Monica reaches inside the car to retrieve the papers.
Monica suddenly finds herself enveloped in an awkward embrace, her arms stretch out by her body, the papers in her hand flutter in the breeze.
‘So sorry,’ Claire crushes Monica’s slight body to her.
One month later. Early morning on Friday 29th May, Claire parks the Range Rover at the top of rue des Tulipes, she hands a ‘bag for life’ to Monica and keeps one for herself.
‘You’ll do the odd numbers?’ Monica asks as she steps out of the car.
‘And I’ll do the evens,’ Claire laughs.
Belgium based writer Sheila Kinsella’s short stories draw inspiration from her Irish upbringing. An avid watcher of people’s behaviour, and blessed with abundant natural curiosity, Sheila lures the reader into a shrewdly observed world via imagery and comedy. Her work has appeared in The Blue Nib Literary Magazine and the Brussels Writers’ Circle anthology ‘Circle 19.’
Our neighborhood on East 59th Street was an urban backwater, a still pool off the main drag where everything and everybody swirled slow and lazy. As kids we hoped — no, we knew — one day we’d catch the current of Kennedy Boulevard and be swept away forever.
Sundays were the worst. Once noon mass let out most people got raptured away to their kitchens and living rooms or to some out-of-town relatives. Real ghost town outside. TV was dull after the Bowery Boys finished their routines. Whatever Mom cooked always involved boiling water that steamed up the windows. Made that apartment feel even smaller.
This Sunday was like every other one. The corner store was closed. Me and my friends Dwayne and Izzy stood at the glass door, coveting the Hostess cupcakes resting on wire racks just beyond the doorway. Cream-filled devil’s food delight with white swirls on top of chocolate icing, taunting us from the store’s dusty shadows. I was five, Dwayne and Izzy were six.
If we bust the window we could get some cupcakes, I said. Dwayne went round the side of the store to the gravel parking lot, came back with the corner of a cinder block and heaved it through the door. The glass shattered the day like a starting gun. Izzy was in and out and down the street before anyone else showed up. Dwayne stood there expecting thanks. I stepped back saying look what somebody did.
The dads paid for the door. I was still allowed in the place. But I never saw the other two after that. Some of us really did manage to get out of that neighborhood.
I heard Dwayne was somebody’s bag man when he got killed. Izzy’s probably in office or in jail. Me? I’ve always been an idea guy. I do all right.
Bill Merklee loves short stories, short films, and very short songs. His work has appeared in Flash Flood Journal, Ellipsis, Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y, Ghost Parachute, Gravel, Columbia, New Jersey Monthly, and the HIV Here & Now project. He lives in New Jersey. Occasional tweets @bmerklee.
Sarah always wanted to live in a world of color, not the ash-gray monotone of her home. But color costs. Color isn’t free. You have to earn it. Her mama died giving birth to Jacob, and Sarah had to become his mama. Her papa worked hard but lost most of what he made—trying to forget, to ease his loneliness.
Sarah had a way about her and could sense what people wanted. Nobody could barter like Sarah. She traded a white platter for a green blanket to cover Jacob, her mother’s ring for his blue jumper, even her wedding gown for Sarah’s tangerine dress that brightened her sallow world.
One Saturday Jacob was playing with the sock rabbit Sarah’d made, and she was sweeping the yard in front of their house. A stranger in a dark suit with shine on the jacket sleeves and dirt in the creases of his patent leather shoes walked up to Sarah, almost knocking her over. There was a glint of desperation in the old man’s rheumy eyes as if he’d hiked miles before stopping there. He carried two large buckets of paint and a short-handled brush. Plenty enough for the whole house.
“See this paint, it can turn your clapboard dwelling into a place where stars come out to get a view.”
Sarah smiled, imagining her walls bright as a summer orange and looked down at Jacob, pulling the rabbit’s button eyes. When she picked up Jacob, he grabbed her hair hard. She set him back down.
“Where’s your Papa?” the stranger asked.
“In town.” Most likely getting pissed, she thought.
“Your Mama?”
“Dead.”
“You tending the boy?”
‘He’s my brother.’
“I see you like tints by that dress you’re wearing,” he said. “I’m going to show you about color.”
“I’m not supposed to let strangers in,” she said.
“I don’t want an argument, but you will hate yourself if you don’t see what this paint can do.”
With his buckets and brush, he walked straight in and looked around the room, noticing the scattered pieces of green and blue. Sarah watched him search for a spot that would give him an advantage. He went to the board with the coat hooks and streaked it with his apricot paint. It looked as if the sun had settled indoors, laying its refracted glow on everything in sight—the wooden table, Jacob’s crib, her papa’s rocker, the shelves stuffed with ragged newspapers, even the pale face of Jesus staring at the ceiling.
“Want these buckets?” he asked.
“Do you see anything you want?” she replied.
“Make me an offer,” he snarled.
Sarah noticed the old man’s gnarly hands, cracked and calloused, and looked down at Jacob’s chubby arms like a baby angel she once saw in the Bible. His fingers soft and shiny. She trembled, suddenly aware that Jacob was her pot of gold.
Chella Courington is a writer and teacher whose poetry and fiction appear in numerous anthologies and journals including SmokeLong Quarterly, Potato Soup Journal, and X-R-A-Y Magazine. Her novella-in-flash, Adele and Tom: The Portrait of a Marriage (Breaking Rules Publishing), was featured recently at Vancouver Flash Fiction. Courington lives in California.
‘The judges were blown away by the quality of the submissions.’ Yeah, yeah. I have read quite a few summings-up by judges of short story competitions over the years, and invariably they go on about how they were astounded by the brilliance of the entries, how so many of the stories could have made the shortlist on a different day, how basically everyone deserved to win and coming up with the winner was an exquisite agony, darling.
Well not this time.
Your stories were all sadly very mediocre, and the only vaguely decent one basically picked itself in a matter of minutes.
The bar was embarrassingly low. Within a few minutes I’d managed to get rid of about 95% of your entries with a quick glance.
Not that I was quixotic or rash in my choices. I began, logically enough, by throwing out all the stories formatted in Ariel, Calibri or Garamond, which are all currently on my typeface shitlist (they know why). Next went stories formatted in less than 24 point. Despite the beat carnivalesque experimentalism of my own prose I’m not as young as I was, and forcing your judge to squint is just bad manners.
Stories with names in title case got whacked next because I mean, who are you, Samuel Pepys!? Then I remembered that I’d recently switched allegiance to title casing from sentence casing myself (it’s an age thing) but the story pile was going down nicely and I wasn’t going to go back and try and retrieve all those printouts from the roadside now. (I was driving overnight to a secret ayahuasca ceremony in Aldershot, so they could have gone anywhere.)
The next thing I did was to go though and identify the story by my ex-wife. It was a story about a bloke with a boil on his forehead who belched a lot, and ignored her dog, and stayed in bed half the weekend eating plain nachos, and wore the same red cardigan for weeks running till it stank. He had a birthmark on his left calf roughly the shape of Cyprus, and ended up (she claimed) in an old folks’ home taking pot shots from his balcony with an air rifle. It was called ‘Yes, Yes, This Story’s About You, You Stupid Sad Bastard’, or something like that.
So that one had to go, which was a shame in its way. I really liked that red cardigan.
Next I got rid of any story with animals in it. It is well known that the cats and their heathen brethren have already taken over the entire internet; these days, I can’t move on my timeline without coming across a video of an otter cosying up with an armadillo, or a pair of excited alpacas doing some moves that look oddly Latin. (Do. Not. Say. Llamabada.) Enough is enough, people! Animals suck. They steal our time and energy, when we could use that vital lifeforce to be out agitating for real political change – campaigning for free mouthwash, demanding an end to cordless dressing gowns, petitioning the powers-that-be for proper research into the mysteries of lucid snoring and all the rest.
I didn’t like any stories that referenced the weather either. It’s just a cliché. Ditto the sea. Ditto stories that began with the ‘The’ or ‘I’. It’s just too late in world history for that kind of shit, man. Read your Pope. Or get elected pope, I really don’t care. Your stories are still out.
I looked for a story by my other ex-wife though she’s not really much of a writer. There was one called ‘Cutting The Toxins Out Of My Life’, which did give me pause.
I also cut out all the stories with stupid or fancy language in. Words like albatross and flummox and frisson. Ditto plinth, helium and Albuquerque. Ditto ditto.
I also removed any stories that didn’t end in death because, really, what’s the point?
After all this critical winnowing and expert filtering, the only story left that was any good was one by this bloke called Donny Pretzel and it was about a man who arms himself with a 23” Sub-Automatic Pump Action Super Soaker Assault Water Pistol, which he fills with a base of tomato ketchup and garlic puree, laced after much experimentation with one part chilli spray to three parts Thai ginger paste, and he goes out and messes up every person who’s ever done him wrong. He gets to shoot them and they get to be covered in red stuff, but when he gets taken to court, the jury find him not guilty because he obviously has moral right on his side and he’s basically just such a charmer. And it was beautiful, it was like the Wild West but he didn’t kill anyone, maybe just got a bit of spice in a few eyes.
Donny, whoever you are, you’re an amazing writer and I know you’ll go far. Reading your story, I felt like I knew you already and you were writing just for me. You’re clearly a very sensitive guy whose been through so much but come out the other side with your talent and significant portions of body hair intact.
It’d be my honour to present this prize to you in person, Donny. So in the meantime I’ll hold on to the cash until you can make it over this way. Try and get here for a Thursday lunchtime if you can. It’s two for one at Pasta Lodge, and we can maybe go for a game of crazy golf afterwards and make an afternoon of it?
I think maybe we could be friends. I think maybe we could start one of those famous literary friendships that people make films about. I think I’d like that. I think maybe you could use a friend. I think I probably could.
Bring your piece if you’ve got one. I googled it in the library and feral pigeons are legal game, but it’s probably best not to try and cook one this time. Also we have to make sure the pellets don’t drop onto the petrol station forecourt next door as there have been a few complaints.
Nearly empty spaces Manifest in the early morning Reveal themselves and other things To be found in place where you didn’t expect To find things you might never have considered To look for in the first place, or even the one that follows The first place
Like urban railway stations Which routinely echo The fact of the city Slightly, time-wise, before It wakes up, as its daily introduction And reveals itself to itself and its witnesses
Sometimes We need silence, as well as early mornings To notice things And sometimes silence is used only As a mistaken assumption Because just as emptiness is not necessarily empty Silence is not necessarily silent
There are spaces within silence that reveal a world Of undercurrents, forgotten incantations, and even Forgotten or denied spaces, beyond the ends of sentences Behind a wish or within unconscious walls of negligence Lingering lonely and sometimes dangerously Lacking memory or courage to be recalled
Silence as absence of interference Is a good starting point for thinking But silence, as an alternative to speaking Elongates distances and misunderstanding Becoming a poor substitute for dialogue
Silence, when used instead of conversation Emulates emptiness and thereby contracts The bridging and breathing- spaces available to us So I like to call out here, to speak these points Where silence has not heard a word for some time.
In the sway of the valley was a paradise, a garden of pleasure not unlike the Garden of Earthly Delights. People lazed on the grass, and in coloured bathers dove into a gleaming pool. There was a thick feeling among us. The dull ache of the sublime. And we never did mind the guards who patrolled, because the grass was very green and the textures so divine.
I felt resistance sliding across the edge of my mind like a third eyelid. Secretly cleaning it of the drugs they gave, and when it was washed I would see, momentarily. I followed the cattle-line of comely, dew-skinned specimens as they trotted along in their patent shoes. By twos we approached the platform to feed. Lab-coated women watched us from all sides, peering over glasses as the queue of glazed eyed wanderers drew infinite patience from their complete lack of appetite.
For the first time I was aware of myself. I was conscious as I approached the platform and sat down to my meal. The drugs were conspicuous, and difficult to avoid. I ferreted copious amounts of powder into my pocket during the flicker of their blinks.
Dinner finishers completed their course in the brothel’s maze, and were encouraged to drink excessively so that the drugs could bloom all the wilder. I found a blonde girl in the corner in a patent leather mini, and seduced her into the back room in order to hide. Almost immediately after shutting ourselves in, a young man burst through the door to join us. It was then that I realised that he too was resisting. I showed him the drugs I had concealed and he nodded to the girl, who had started salivating at the sight of them. I hardly had a moment to think before she buried her face in my hands, consuming such a quantity of powder that her eyes turned ice blue, and she slumped down in the corner.
Occasionally, the guards came in, and the young guy and I had to pretend as if we were having a right old time with the girl on the floor. Somehow, he jimmied a panel out of the wall, and we were able to access the front corridor of the main compound. We remembered this later when we awoke on the grass, sleepy, and touching each other’s hair.
* * *
Again I found myself in the valley. It was a cornucopia of enjoyment–colourful bodies, blissful textures, and breezes honeyed by the blooming. I had never looked to the edge of the valley before, but now I could see a path. It was dirty, indistinct and had bristly shrubs along the way. No wonder our eyes had been repelled from such an unattractive section of the visual field. I crawled and shifted with great stealth! Without anyone noticing, I mounted the winding path, up and up, as it curled around.
A rattle-hiss startled me there, and under the shrubbery a strange spider was poised. Half my size he was–pink and red and yellow and black. His voice was green, and his venom was white. He told me in clicks and crackles (and psychic speech), that Mistress had founded the community below after she had forged a bargain with the Arachanarchons. They hunted once a year, injecting anaesthetising venom into their prey, so that the flesh was made softer and sweeter by the bliss they felt at death. Mistress allowed them to live in freedom in the dense bushland surrounding the valley, upon the condition that they surrender a quantity of their venom on a weekly basis, as a sort of tax.
My mind was so wide at this point, and the spider’s voice so verdant that I scarcely noticed the glint that swished past my ear. I turned, like an animal, my bloodshot eyes burning into the distance where my attackers hid. I couldn’t tell if I was visible or not, but I saw beside me what had darted close. Little tinks and thuds sounded as syringes clattered around me, shot from the guns of the guards. The great spider closed his lazy eyes, and curled into himself like a crab.
I grabbed a handful of syringes, for protection, and darted off into the scrub. It seemed that the guards were not inclined to follow, yet soon I found myself on the other extreme of the ridge, and had to climb down the rock-face in full view of two guards having a cigarette break. I acted as intoxicated as possible, telling them a wild tale about how I had chased a butterfly to the top of the mountain, only to chase it back down again!
They regarded at me strangely but then resumed their conversation, commenting that it was a fantastic day for a picnic. There was an expanse of long grass between the pool dwellers and me. I acted like something they might see–a downy rabbit perhaps. I tickled my whiskers on a dandelion and frolicked back into the flock.
In the water I was safe again, and in a dreamy state of mind I dove, gliding along the length of the pool like a smiling seal. It was under there in moments that were thick with time that I saw him again, and our eyes communicated our resistance.
* * *
I found myself next to him in the corridor with my heart beating fast. Infiltrators had entered the compound. They wore strange white helmets with ink tubes connecting their thoughts with their spine. The ingenious apparatus protected them from the dust that puffed like white flour into the darling sky. My mind kept folding itself like a gigantic map; fold and double and fold. With each crease my mind would skip, and with each spread of map, I would be aware of where I was. Their excited eyes implored us to follow, their weapons cocked in urgency. Mistress had scuttled to the rafters and they had her surrounded. Booms and squeals, clatters and tinks sounded in the distance.
We exited through a series of white tunnels, virgin to my eyes. A train carriage set on a near vertical railway awaited us, hoisting its limp and bedazzled cargo up and out of the valley. Kaleidoscopic spiders as large as unicycles fled in all directions, over hill and over dale. One came right for us! I grabbed a newspaper from an old man who had been reading it, rolled it up into a mean whacking stick, and pelted the arachnid with all my might. Down he fell like a squalling orchid, and I stumbled backward into my silent co-conspirator. Magenta fluid dripped from the paper as the headline caught my eye. “Spider Venom: the Secret Ingredient in Life Saving Vaccine.” We looked at each other and read on.
Although the words jumped backward and forward in the lines, flickering and inverting by turn, an impression of the article’s meaning reached our liquid consciousness. The world was a wasteland, and people’s souls were sinking to their ankles; their sagging life force easily discarded by a careless movement of the foot. They believed the Arachanarchons would bring about heaven on earth! Or at least a semblance of it.
I turned to the old man, who sat listlessly, staring at his empty hands. We could not really communicate. I grasped his face and held it up to my own attempting to make the shape of the spine helmets with my hands. His stare penetrated deep into my eyes, paying no heed to time. Then, he made a gruff face, formed fists and held his wrists together. I looked around me at the long legged beauties with sheening hair as they began to slump. It was an uncharacteristic posture. In horror I felt an intangible sweetness slip from my body as the grey metallic tang of the train carriage became apparent to my nostrils.
It was a coup–an eviction from paradise–to make room for others more powerful than us. To the one who had shared my desire for escape, I turned. “At least now I know my name. What is yours?”
S. K. Balstrup is the author of Spiritual Sensations: Cinematic Religious Experience and Evolving Conceptions of the Sacred (Bloomsbury: 2020) and holds a PhD in Religious Studies from The University of Sydney.After years of academic writing, creative works are slowly emerging from old boxes and drawers, the first of which have been published by The University of Sydney Press and Lunate.
The building with square windows is getting closer.
I have been suspicious of square windows since I measured the one in my bedroom and found the proportions to be inexact. When I told my flatmate, she said: yes, well, they are almost square. I said: we have a word for that.
I have wondered before whether the encroaching building might be a church. It has no spire or steeple, but when I look at it, I think: worship. I pass hours gazing into it and forget everything I am.
I saw someone at the window once. She was looking at me and nodding. The motion was slow and deep, like she was rocking her body back and forth. She rocked for a while, faster and faster, until she hit her head on the glass. Then, the window was empty again.
I have thought for a long time that the figure might be the one moving the building. I sensed it in the way the rocking seemed to happen outside of her. Recently, I have found myself rocking too.
The encroaching building has ivy growing up it. When my flatmate noticed, she squinted and said: that wasn’t there before. We watched the glossy leaves rustle for a time, and when she wanted to look some more, I took her to the window. We rocked together, slowly at first, then faster. The ivy was always there, blooming under the surface the way veins bloom under the skin.
After that, everything was still until New Year’s Eve. With no one to celebrate with, I stood in my bedroom and said: Happy New Year. In response, fireworks burst from the building, lighting up the windows like glistening eyes.
Get back with your rectangles, I wanted to shout. I’ve given you what you want.
Leonie Rowland has an MA in Gothic literature. Her writing has been published by Ad Hoc Fiction, Reflex Press and Horrified. She also has work forthcoming from Dreich, Emerge Literary Journal, TSS Publishing and BlueHouse Journal. You can find her on Twitter @leonie_rowland.
I don’t wear a mask to protect you. Why not? Because screw you. I do it because me.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s great that everyone wears a mask now. Why? Smiling. I don’t have to look at all the goddamn smiling anymore. Before, I couldn’t walk down my own street without everybody smiling for no reason. Some old lady wants to get on the bus ahead of me. Fine, whatever. Then what does she do? Smiles at me. Screw you, grandma, just get on the goddamn bus and let’s go.
I’d go to a restaurant. I’d order a meal. What do they do? That’s right, they goddamn smile at me. Screw you, Trainee, just hand over my Whopper and fries then go screw off and find a mask.
Masks are good. Firemen wear masks. Awesome masks. Big goddamn masks for running into burning buildings to save puppies. I was going to be a fireman once — they begged me to join when they saw my bod — then something else came up. You’re not a fireman either, so just shut up.
One big reason I wear a mask is the ladies. They get one good look at this chiseled façade and the panties just drop to the floor. For an irresistible chunk of gent like me it’s best to cover up with a mask so I can get on with my goddamn business without getting constantly mobbed. Even a professional pussy wrangler can only take so much. It’s always been like that for me, so go screw your ugly self with a frozen broomstick.
I wear a mask because it’s badass. Badass dudes wear masks. Like those badass cowboys rustlin’ cattle and ridin’ into town with masks on and the womenfolk run off and hide in a cellar. Okay, they’re bandanas but same goddamn idea. Then they burst into a saloon and uncork whiskey bottles with their teeth and drink the whole goddamn thing. They take their masks off for that. Then they put them straight back on again and go rob a bank and shoot everybody because screw them.
Then there’s The Mask. You seen that? With Jim Carrey? It’s pretty goddamn out there. You don’t think so? Then go screw a goat.
I’d wear a mask on my Harley, if I had a Harley. And I wear a mask every time I stand near some bro’s Hog. Because I could take that Fat Boy out to Highway 50 and ride that ribbon of freedom into the wide Nevada sunset every goddamn day. No helmet, just a mask to keep the goddamn June bugs out of my teeth.
I wear a mask because I’m a man. A real man. As a real man, I smoke cigars. Big goddamn real cigars. After I spark up a stogie first thing in the morning, I put on a mask to keep that musky, real man aroma circulating all goddamn day. By 10:30 a.m. I’ve inhaled and exhaled so much oxygen-depleted personal man-stink that I start hallucinating like a technicolor lava lamp. I bet you want a slice of that heaven. But no, screw you.
Goalies wear masks. No, not soccer goalies, you goddamn Euro-pansy. I’m talking NHL.
Mostly I wear a mask all goddamn day to show my solidarity with the brave women and men who serve our great nation. Notice I said women first to prove I’m not a sexist. When you look at all the wars we won — Vietnam, Korea, that Gulf War country, and goddamn World War Two — one thing totally stands out. Masks. Our soldiers wear masks in trenches, masks on fighter jets, masks in tanks, masks jumping out of choppers, masks in the jungle and masks in the desert. Nothing says USA! USA! USA! real loud three times in a row quite like wearing a mask.
Because wearing a mask is wearing freedom. It’s goddamn America right there on your face.
Especially a mask with a stylish camouflage pattern or a patriotic Stars & Stripes motif, available in a range of convenient sizes.
And if you order now you can save 20% on a selection of combat compatible facewear to suit all your nationalistic needs. Visit http://www.goddamn-masks.com today and join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.
Or go screw yourself, goddamn commie.
Paul Ruta is an old ad guy who lives in Hong Kong. He wrote a children’s book under the pen name Andy Spearman, published by Penguin Random House. He has talked baseball with Vidal Sassoon and has won a trophy for throwing a Frisbee very far. http://www.paulthomasruta.com
Do you remember when tattoos were cool; when strangers shook hands and hook-ups happened; when women shaved their bodies and men pumped their guns; when reality stars ruled and virtual worlds beckoned; when commuting took hours and the school run was a thing; when the craving for likes trumped the need for affection; when summers were warm and hurricanes rare; when snow came in inches and the seaside existed?
No? Me neither.
But my grandmother does and she swears life wasn’t much better back then.
Wagging a finger, the one with the ring etched in ink, she tells me again. How the world is more pleasant with less people in it; how choice was a headache and the rat race a pain; how the young are so lucky, being born when we were, with dieting an ordeal we’ll never endure, ditto for jetlag, and surgery too; how fortunate we are to have missed the decade of plague, to have slept through the fighting, curled up in our cribs; how blessed we all are to have made it this far, to have lived through the storms that ended more than the war.
Then clearing her throat, she says that soon she’ll be gone. Tutting and sighing, she says not to fret, she’s told me everything so often there’s no chance I’ll forget. But she tells me again, just to be sure.
Keep your eyes on the heavens and your ear to the ground.
I nod and I knead and I mouth along with her lesson.
After fourteen years alone together, I know her spiel. There’s more to come; she’s not done yet. And on she goes. The sky and earth will guide me, she claims. Their language, I’m told for the thousandth time, only needs deciphering, like the poems we pour over when it’s too wild to go outside. But then she stops and instead of finishing in her usual way, with a rueful smile and the bit about greed, she shuffles closer to the fire and stares so intensely at the flames that I’m afraid she’ll fall in. Abandoning my ball of dough, I tug on her sleeve with my floury hand. Her lecture I can do without, but her voice I need. She hugs herself and delivers the ending in a whisper.
Stick to your own patch. Take care of it and it’ll take care of you. You’ve enough to get by. Trust me on that. And don’t get greedy.
I nod again and return to work, but then she whispers new lines that bring me back to the fire.
And pay attention to the world around you, especially to the weather. Because that’s how it starts, small changes first and then-
The rest of her sentence is lost to a fit. She coughs and she heaves and she struggles for breath. I settle her down and wait to hear more; but the pressure has dropped by the time she recovers so I listen instead to the wind.
N.K. Woods studied Creative Writing in the University of Edinburgh. Her work has appeared in Tales From the Forest, The Galway Review, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, The Honest Ulsterman, Flash Fiction Magazine and The Ogham Stone. She lives in Ireland.
The Cabinet of Heed 