Haunted House

Before she died and came back to haunt me, I lived with my mother for two years. They wouldn’t let her out of the hospital bed until they knew she was coming home to someone, and my father had the foresight to die a decade prior. I asked her doctors for a care package. No result. When they told her this, she took it to mean that no one cared.

Behind the dusty velvet curtains in my mother’s spare bedroom was a streetlight bright enough to seep around the edges and keep me up all hours of the night. At four o’clock I’d stand in the window and watch the rain fall like knives and write descriptions in my head of the garden, four metres square of concrete jungle. To the song of her snoring I’d walk along the landing and trace my fingers along the bannisters, planning how to photograph the woodwork for the house listing. When I spoke of my mother, the neighbours’ mouths gaped, horrified at my exasperation, and I made a mental note to warn the next owners they could never be honest.

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Getting Off

            He put the advert in the spring edition of the estate magazine. Kind heart for sale, middle-aged, male, one previous owner. Offers?

            The day the mag went through people’s letter boxes the new woman in the flat above knocked.

            ‘I’m Liz. Just introducing myself.’

            ‘Jed.’

            ‘Some nice people round here.’

            ‘Some.’

            ‘I mean look at this in the community circular. He sounds a proper decent sort.’

            ‘You think?’

            ‘I might answer that meself!’ She laughed, a nice laugh, like a tickle.

            ‘Save yourself the pen and paper, Liz.’

            ‘Oh? Do you know him? Is the bloke no good?’

            He told her.

/

            Liz and Jed, hand in hand, picked over the pebbles to the sand fringing the wide bay which simmered in the summer sun.

            ‘How do you think we’re doing?’ she asked.

            ‘Doing?’

            ‘Us. Doing.’

            ‘Alright.’

            ‘You really are the most understated guy. But then I like a quiet fellow.’

            ‘My wife said I was too quiet.’

            ‘She’s wrong!’ she insisted, a little too loudly. ‘And, look… if you ever want to tell me more about the crash, I’m a good listener.’

            He shook his head.

            ‘When you’re ready, I mean.’

            He grimaced, as though she’d punched him.

            ‘If you’re ever ready, you know.’

            His expression became fearful.

            Talking with him about feelings was like walking on the pebbles beneath her feet. Had his ex had similarly frustrating conversations with him?

/

            She swept up the autumn leaves from the front of the drive. Dead. Same as Jed? Sex with him was OK but he never kissed her before, after, or during it. It was if he were anaesthetised. He told her, once only, details of the school bus accident. Three children had been killed, one being his sister, to whose limp hand he’d clung till they cut out the survivors. Blood was trickling down his head, into his eyes, so he couldn’t see his leg. Nor could he feel it: it was broken. He remembered a claustrophobic feeling, as if he were buried alive. His parents had never stopped grieving for their daughter and passed the infection onto him. He’d become withdrawn, reticent. ‘They treated your leg but not your trauma,’ she’d said last night. ‘You need therapy, Jed.’ He’d not replied. Did he have survivor’s guilt too?

            She tipped the leaves into the recycling bag. When would he kiss her?

/

            Snow was falling on an unusually cold December day. The estate was white, asleep under its shroud. Liz had called it off. ‘You’ve got to get off that bus, Jed. You’re trapped on it. I can’t help you, see. I just can’t.’ He’d be alone this Christmas. For the best really. Nothing lasted, did it?

He stood outside the flat. Snowflakes settled on his head, melted, ran down his cheeks. When the bus had skidded on the ice and turned over, he’d had bodies on top of him. He’d never been as close to anybody since. He went in, closed the door, shook the snow off. 

            He put the advert in the spring edition of the estate magazine. Kind heart for sale, middle-aged, male, one previous owner. Offers?

            The day the mag went through people’s letter boxes the new woman in the flat above knocked.

            ‘I’m Liz. Just introducing myself.’

            ‘Jed.’

            ‘Some nice people round here.’

            ‘Some.’

            ‘I mean look at this in the community circular. He sounds a proper decent sort.’

            ‘You think?’

            ‘I might answer that meself!’ She laughed, a nice laugh, like a tickle.

            ‘Save yourself the pen and paper, Liz.’

            ‘Oh? Do you know him? Is the bloke no good?’

            He told her.

/

            Liz and Jed, hand in hand, picked over the pebbles to the sand fringing the wide bay which simmered in the summer sun.

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Ethnically Ambiguous

Maryam could not quite pinpoint when love turned to loathing. She just couldn’t get her hands warm however close she held them to the small wood burner in the canal boat. Her stomach growled, her skin felt dull and was turning an odd shade of yellow. Nothing to do with her diet of bread, cheese and beer…

Maryam’s income from peripatetic English teaching and occasion au pair gigs seemed to disappear on wood, tram fares and hot chocolates consumed slowly in warm cafes. And the odd bit of hash to warm her lungs.

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Proud to be a Philistine

Sharone did not “get” art.

To her, if a painting looked like a photo, then it was alright but when it came to terms like “colour theory,” “layout” and how the image “spoke,” she could feel the tumbleweed roll across her empty brain.

At highbrow art galleries, she would nod at the sight of melting clocks and say “Hmm, that’s interesting innit?” but couldn’t pretend it meant anything to her.

Tony though had aspirations of taste, speaking freely of the artist’s soul. When it came to purchasing a print to hang on the living room wall, he’d spend hours online agonizing over which one to pick.

“Just get one of a dolphin or tiger or someup, they’re cool,” Sharone would say but Tony countered with “No, no love, it’s gotta matter. Can’t you tell a great painter from a crummy one? Vermeer knew what he was about, Hitler tried painting and his stuff’s shite.”

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OOOPS. I  DID IT AGAIN

Wife with a squirrel problem

Avril Morgan, a slender woman with a handsome face, opened her front door in anticipation of her little totem pole. She was greeted by a man dragging a large coffin-shaped tree trunk up the garden path  Her jaw fell, it was supposed to be six inches, not six foot

Huffing and puffing the red-faced driver arrived, delivery sheet in hand, thrusting it in her face.

“There must be some kind of mistake,” Avril’s voice quavered.

No mistake and I’m not taking it back; sign here. “

After she signed on the dotted line, the driver made a quick exit.

What the heck do I do with it now. Adrian is going to go mad.

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Reserved

I do love a vintage store, but this smell is like something from Hell. At least I am out of the rain though – Britain, am I right?

Surrounding me are a litany of supposedly real leather briefcases and a couple of wooden chairs. I wouldn’t mind a fancy briefcase but where would I wear it? It feels like the flash and suave look of a well-made briefcase died after the second world war. Oh well, I’m not here for me anyway.

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Purgatory

Rees’ Motorpark, out of town industrial estate, 8am.

            They begin to arrive, hand their keys over the counter to Jed ­– I’m here to help – then sit down at plastic tables in a foyer overshadowed by a vast showroom where new electric Fords gather before them like a row of tanks.

            ‘Annual service,’ explains a skeletal old boy, leather jacketed. Former biker? Jed ponders. ‘Aye, down here on the paperwork, Mr Holland. Can I give you a token for the coffee machine?’ ‘Door latch,’ says the next in the queue, a woman in a trouser suit that is nearly as creased as her face. Jed nods politely.

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Cruelty and Kindness

What is retribution,

If not a never-ending cycle of revenge?

They say it is a penalty inflicted out of vengeance for a wrong act,

But they also say two wrongs don’t make a right.

So, can revenge ever reach completion,

Or will the whole world turn blind?

Who deserves retribution,

If not everyone for every wrong they’ve ever done?

Is it reserved for the homophobes, the racists, the liars, the cheats?

Or does it extend to the lazy, the manipulative, the privileged, and the foolish?

Does it even target the lucky?

Who determines retribution,

If it no longer exists solely with lawmakers?

If we now encourage others to design and enact their own form of retaliation,

And as a public judge whether it was fair,

Is it still retribution if we then punish the offender we helped create?

What is retribution,

If not cruelty extended,

Stretched out and continued long after the original offence?

And do you really believe petty revenge could hurt that type of crook?

No, the cruellest gift the Good bestow upon the Evil is time.

Time is the enemy of unhappy people.

Day of the Asters

I sense their presence before I open the door, despite their lack of scent. What’s the point of flowers without a scent? Just as I feared, I enter my kitchen to find it full of them. Asters. I hate the things.

They spill from vases and peer out of pots on the table, the floor, the windowsill. Some appear to be growing directly from the ceiling, strangling the light fittings and creeping down the walls. It’s a floral nightmare. Where have they come from?

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You killed Jesus!

Fat man berates another bus traveller

“Hey,” the man inquired “are you a Jew?”

“Guilty as charged,” Rossen smiled faintly and returned to his newspaper.

“You ashamed of it?” the man asked

“Didn’t have much choice,” Rossen shrugged and wondered if he should leap out at the next stop.

“Ya look Jewish,” the man sniffed.

“How depressing,” Rossen joked “you make it sound like the Innsmouth look.”

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Romans 12:19. Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

Darren, God’s second son, was worried about the family’s legacy. Dad had an image problem, so he went to see him.

“Dad,” he said. “We need to give you a makeover.”

“What for?”

“All this divine retribution stuff,” Darren said. “It doesn’t play well. We need PR.”

“Where are we going to get that?”

“Ring the Pope.”

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Sorry Business

Sunset at Coonawarra was sublime. The harsh daylight and perpetual dust momentarily forgotten. The falling sun hit the rocky range and the skies danced from crimson to vermillion. A thrum of cicadas replaced the chorus of laughing kookaburras. “How good?” thought Craig, as he sank into his grandfather’s rocker on the property’s veranda, savouring his chilled Tooheys.

Then one sunset at Coonawarrah turned the red skies black.

“Boss, boss, come quickly!” said Big Foot, Craig’s right-hand man.

“What’s the John Dory mate?”

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June 2024 Task

HOMEWORK for deadline Thursday midnight, 20.06.24.

TASK: ‘Retribution’. Write 500 words or fewer about ‘retribution’. Your story title isn’t included in the 500 words.

Homework to be in by midnight, Thursday 20th June 2024. Use the contact form or email Pat O’Connor directly.

Meeting at 1.30pm, Sunday 23.06.24, Discovery Room, 1st floor, Central library. Finish at 3.30pm.

Escape

I heard stories about the Eternal Windstream. It will test you; it might break you, but if you’re strong enough, it will take you wherever you wish.

My search for it is finally over. I feel the flow of air and its pulsating energy before me. Excited, I step off the cliff.

The fall doesn’t last long. I spread my wings and enjoy the sensation of the wind in my feathers. And up the sky I go, gaining speed. Effortless.

I look back. The land gets further away. How far can I go now? How far should I go?

The wind gets stronger – now I have to fight with it to stay in the flow.

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Escape from Homophonia

Skreg looked at little Rhodri with tears in his eyes… well not really eyes; eyes is what you earthfolks call our assemblage of sensory organs. They generally work well …..until they don’t. Mine were working fine but Rhodri’s seem to have lost all functionality. Out of a sense of nostalgic allegiance, the partner progenitor had insisted on a name she had come across in the Incubatorium, whilst reading up on Ancestry.

“Rhodri Mawr,  father of seven children or eight, depending on the source, and distantly related on my pater’s pater’s pater’s side,” she elaborated.

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Dai Desert Rat

Billy Thomas was excited. His parents were going to a posh dinner in Swansea, this meant he was going to sleep in his grandparents’ house. A rare treat, they went there every Sunday for tea but rarely did he stay. 

Carrying his bag of clothes he set off, his mam’s warning ringing in his ears to behave. Nan was waiting at the door and ushered him in, hugging him. She smelt of lavender and she was tiny – Billy was almost as tall as her – and she reminded him of a small bird. 

Grandad was ensconced in his armchair; he had a ruddy complexion thickset with hands like shovels. ”Alright our Billy.”

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The Undoing

It was a tiny mistake. A lapse of judgement while I drove to work fuelled by caffeine, death metal, and anticipatory rage. I was only seven miles per hour over the limit, but it cost me my driving license.

“Sorry, Jacqueline,” spat Nigel, my boss, in a tone denoting no sorrow whatsoever, “but I must let you go. Platinum Estate Agency can’t condone recklessness, nor can agents attend viewings by bus, or God forbid, on foot. Vacate your desk.”

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Some Sort of Trouble

‘Are you in some sort of trouble love?’ asked the taxi driver.

Nishi squirmed in the hot vinyl hugging her toddler closer, her free hand tightening on the chubby leg of her five-month old.

‘Please… if anyone asks… you never made this journey’ she pleaded, hiding her black eye.

Nishi glanced back at what had been her home, nestled in the verdant hills, diminishing out of view.

The picturesque village with the 16th century church, weekly fete and mother’s group epitomised a rural idyll. Yet the dream was never Nishi’s, and the othering was relentless. The playgroup mothers asking her where she learnt English. Same place you did, from my parents, when I was a baby she thought but never retorted. The barely hidden speculation on what colour her unborn Indian-English child would be. The titters about their house ‘smelling funny’. She had tried so hard to fit in. Eventually exhausted by Murray’s hostility, she had given up.

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