Feeling vaguely sophisticated, Janelle sipped her chilled Chablis in Sydney Airport’s business lounge.
Life is good. Basically it’s just a series of decisions… and consistently making the right ones, she mused, recalling the roller coaster of the last six years.
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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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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.”
Continue readingHow I came to be in McLaine’s commune on the shore of Puerto de la Valencia is a story for another time, because today, of all days, is about tomorrow.
McLaine was busying himself with his fishing nets in the courtyard at the back of the pre-civil war building housing his community, his wives, Consuela and Pamela were arguing in a mixture of rapid-fire Spanish and Surrey English about the best way to gut hake, and the writers, me included, were sitting on the garden wall watching the TV we rented for the occasion. We’d positioned it there because no room in the house was big enough to hold more than two of us and one of those would have to be standing.
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At times of maximum danger, panic may seem like a rational response. Jess didn’t panic for long, but she was aware of an urgency. She wasn’t the only one facing this dilemma. There were a number of MS sufferers like her (and others who were slow walkers or who needed aids like sticks and wheelchairs) who viewed navigating the hectic road and cycle lane to reach the shops, community and health centres with trepidation.
There was already a zebra with a middle island but this depended on the speed and courtesy of drivers. What with cars parked on pavements and few ramps, life was fraught for those with mobility challenges. So, Jess was on her way to discuss what could be done to make the act of crossing the road less of a problem.
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Red and gold, green and yellow. Riotous explosions of colour, searing through the night skies against a backdrop of the universe.
“They’re beautiful, Momma,” she whispers, bundled up in her best winter coat, with mittens keeping her fingers warm, holding hands and staring in wonder.
“I know, baby,” I say, checking my comm bracelet, anxiety spiking. It’s linked to his.
“Where’s Daddy?”
Thinking back, we should have expected it really.
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As a hybrid Goggapod /Cockaigian, Chief Prommy was trapped in a dual awareness. The cull wasn’t working as expected. The Goggapods, who regarded themselves as The Legitimate Inheritors, were as innovative…. and devious…. as ever,- hiding in the tunnels of Plurian’s moons: shape-shifting so expertly that even with A.I. advance diagnostics they were routinely identified as unalloyed Cockaigians: using non-galactically recognised W.M.D: in short evading all efforts of obliteration. The new order was unambiguous, one word, “Annihilate.”
Comply or Defy,-.that was the dilemma. The sensation of Goggapods crawling over the proximal tendril’s communication device was a by-now familiar precursor to the resultant odour of a singeing short circuit. Of course the Goggapods were not actually crawling, but to The Cockaigne Higher-ups, and in a half-hidden corner of Prommy’s own consciousness, it confirmed the presence of doubt, possibly treason.
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I met Dai on Fabian Way
He had a flask, tea he’d say
Quick he moved, his purpose grim
Did not stop, they were after him
Who they were, I could not see.
And when I did, they were after me.
Across the bridge, up Castle Way
Lord above, too late to pray.
Out in front, a shadow rode.
On a bike, with a cursed load.
Saint Andere, but nor for hire.
A dreadful stare, and spat hell fire.
Down the hill, towards the sea.
Smelt their breath, near Anna Quay.
I will no lie, no perjury
There at last, Marina Surgery.
The wait was long, that much was true.
We were many, the doctors few.
Dr Faustus and Dr Soul
Annual check-ups were never dull.
Apologies to Shelley!
The postmistress had a bad reputation and specialised in being irritable with everybody. She was perhaps in her fifties, but almost of a geological age. You were put in mind of a slab of granite behind the serving hatch in the corner of the mini-supermarket. Her face was stony, her resentment hard.
‘NEXT!’ she barked from behind her counter. ‘First or second? Put it on the scales. ON them, not under them. Where’s it going? WHAT? Gib-raltar?’ She pronounced the word as though it were the most awful place on the planet. Then she forked the parcel off the scales with a plump paw, eyeing her customer in the manner of a prison guard with a felon.
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Fortuitously, the window was wide open when Greg hurled Alexa through it.
‘I’m so bloody sick of that voice that knows everything and patronises me and drives me completely round the bend. Good riddance. I hate you, Alexa.’
Poor Alexa. She had understood that things were not going too well, but this was beyond bad. Leaking and whining she fought her way, with the remains of her power, to a small grove which offered a bit of protection.
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Billy Thomas and his little gang were sitting around a table at the back of the rugby club sipping their shandies.
The steward was keeping a watchful eye, the club was busy after a local derby. Both teams were strutting their stuff to impress the girls. They in turn were pretending they weren’t interested while quietly sizing them up.
The gang looked on from afar. Finally Owen Parry piped up.
”Don’t know why they bother, bitches all of them.”
They nodded as they knew Owen had fallen heavily for a girl, showering her with gifts only for her to turn him down when he asked for a date.
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Hubert approached the freezer door gingerly. The seals were failing and he was fearful of triggering an ejection of its replenished contents. DIY maintenance was not his forté. Opinion on this had been unanimous since the incident involving pergola components, a hammer drill and his newly numbed left hand and truncated thumb. Lifting the door handle and easing outwards whilst bracing with his knee usually worked.
He had been re-examining the previous evening’s chronology – the pier’s shadow in the fading light, the incoming tide and Jenny paddling at the water’s edge. They were discussing wedding pros and cons – woodland versus church – when interrupted by a commotion out in the bay. A boiling murkiness was expanding as it rose from the ocean’s depths. Bubbling and spitting it ran towards the shore; the coral-pink darts of the drowning sun were unable to disperse it. Overhead competing clouds of gannets and seagulls quarrelled in a screaming circular tornado. And at their feet, tickling their toes, the advancing flume line turned silver with thousands of doomed sprats. Fleeing the mackerel’s strike they wriggled and squirmed on the reducing ribbon of sand.
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There’d been an atmosphere of suppressed excitement in the village that morning. The boy was glad to go into the solitude of the woods to search for the fox. It wouldn’t take long. Foxes didn’t hide their tracks, unlike people. He stopped to hoist the shotgun onto his shoulder, then moved stealthily forward. Most of his friends knew nothing about foxes, but the boy knew where they made their dens and when they were most active. He could even tell if they were a dog or a vixen from the muskiness of their scent. The fox couldn’t escape him.
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Putting up the tent, Sam and Evie smiled at each other. They felt like naughty teenagers. It was to be their first music festival. Both in their forties, they had always wanted to go but life had always got in the way. With the twins off on a school trip for a week their time had come. The Hadfield music festival happened to fall at that time.
They had booked a quiet field that overlooked the stage area and had showers and toilets. The weather looked fine, so excitement was bubbling. Wandering around the main area a cacophony of sound and smells assaulted their senses; so much choice and so many people. Although they did notice that a majority of the crowd were quite young, they were determined to enjoy the experience.
The bands started playing, they wandered around getting a taste for each brand of music; some they enjoyed, others not so much. One of their favourite bands was due to play the next night, so they settled for a takeaway and returned to their tent for a reasonably early night.
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The summer city riots had spread to the rural north. The news eventually filtered through to the isolated mining village of Brookover. Its pit had long been closed, a sportswear assembly unit squatting on its corpse. It was the main employer for miles, the owners having brought in scores of Eastern Europeans on the minimum wage to toil there.
The presence of the ‘foreigners’ was a grievance: Polish shops, strange languages in the market square. Their healthy diet marked out the incomers too. They were thin and fit, not paunchy and panting like some locals.
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The immediate situation facing us was frightening. Dank weather summed up the predicament perfectly. On the way to collect Melanie I knew with certainty that both our lives would dramatically change. Whether we could endure the physical and mental anguish was questionable. Could we overcome such an event? It would test our love for one another to the limit.
I arrived near the entrance to the room but was afraid to enter. What could I possibly say to her. Someone in authority caught sight of me and came to chat. Her words were powerful and I felt more at ease. ‘Come in Mr Thomas, you’re both going to need all your strength to recover from this. Melanie is extremely fragile at the moment but with time you will both get through the ordeal. It’s not going to be easy but you can give each other great comfort and support’. My hands trembled as I entered, palms sweating, eyes focusing on her. She was dressed and ready to leave. Her face tearful with unhappiness.
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Our team turned up at the pub ready to challenge our old rivals, the reigning pub quiz champions of Little Nedding. They are notorious cheats of course, what with concealed smartphones and friends planted around to covertly signal answers. But we were in great form, brain cells bristling, which is more than can be said for the stand-in quiz-meister ( the usual one had covid.)
The stand-in chap seemed a bit furtive. He clutched the answer sheets like a symbol of power and made a great show of concealing the pages. Definitely something peculiar about him.
Continue readingAs the children tumbled onto the coach chattering to each other, boys headed to the rear, jostling each other for the best seats. Off on a school trip to a zoo, most had never been before, each wanting to see the large animals they had only seen in books.
Singing all the way hymns and nursery rhymes, what a day it turned out to be. Billy and the boys had to stay with Mr. Jenkins, the headmaster, mouths agog at the size of the bears, and the temple monkeys racing around. Riding on the elephant, pretending to be hunting lions, what great fun; so too taking rides on the camels, for the younger children.
Lunch was on the lawn at the centre of the zoo, then off again to see the lions
Continue readingThe three hopeful finalists sat in the front row, -a young woman wringing her hands, a guy with pronounced musculature escaping a skinny vest and the staid, 50-something, balding Phil. They had been informed the elimination exercise would follow briefing presentations.
Phil surveyed the cavernous, somehow claustrophobic lecture hall. Wood panelled ceiling and walls reminded him of horror films that in an earlier career-phase he had scoured, researching replicable facial expressions to convey being entombed alive.
Work opportunities as a character actor were becoming sporadic; it was the right time to diversify, to move on. The once familiar minimalist sets of The Grand, – a laden bookcase stage right. a chair centre stage, French Doors with greenery and birdsong stage left, were distant memories since the Catastrophe. How he missed the multiple curtain-calls, the whooping and whistling of an appreciative audience, the after-play drinkies with sound and lighting crews, the informal advice sessions to aspiring drama school students! Commercial Crisis Acting had never been on the radar but what could he do? The mortgage had to be paid, and in order of priority, the dog, 3 children and a wife fed and clothed. That ranking was correct. Phil prided himself in being particularly self- aware.
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