Dizzy fingers. Key locking horns with keyhole. I’m buzzing. I’m bungling. The door swings open and there stands Josh.

‘Hey man.’ My first cock-a-doodle-doo.

‘I smashed it.’

‘No shit.’ High five. He was impressed. I could see.

‘No shit’. He grins and passes.

The dazzle from the bare bulb lighting the hallway made my eyes fizzle. A snapshot of a face like unearthly white porcelain flashed on the white wall. My euphoria was sucked out like gurgling the last few delicious chocolate milkshake drops with a straw. No more milkshake. That man with that face had seriously fucked me up. Dashed my hopes of becoming a medic. Such ages ago that I’d buried him deep. Deep man. And today that same bumbaclut had been next to me right through the recording. Man. Freaking shit.

I was frozen in the hallway. A storyboard of his actions played out frame by frame. His cooking station paraphernalia was pistachio green. Marzipan. Served in a dark chocolate coating it’s the best. So inappropriate for a jerk. Utensils placed parallel. Weird dish things with tiny concave centres for the food. Measly portions. Perfectly executed curlicues. Straight lines and silence. Smoothness and symmetry. We’d bumped at the spice shelves. I blustered, ‘Sorry.’ Not a blip from him. That was all. I shoved him away from my thoughts. Kicked him under the prep bench. My own cooking filled my heart, my head, my hands, my eyes, my nose. That’s what had to be.

I slammed my fist on the first door on the left. Mrs P.’s place. She was my side-kick: taster, critic, adviser. When she appeared, she frowned.

‘I’m not deaf. Didn’t you get through?’ She grabbed my arm and pulled me in. She is five foot, old and skinny. I am six foot, young and, right then, jelly. I babbled. She said, ‘I didn’t quite catch that dear. I’ll make a cup of tea. Never mind. We – you – got to the semis didn’t we?’ I sat down in one of the stiff armchairs which were packed with straw stuff which scratched and poked and bit. On the telly a paused and muted Rick Stein was monumental on a harbour holding up a fish. I won! The fish lost. That’ll be Gozzer dangling me after the finals, a rancid smirk cracking the porcelain.

The no-frills flats were built for single people. Mine remains sparse, except for the kitchen. Mrs P.’s living-room was over-crowded and could always make me feel as warm as precious memories. I breathed in the fustiness like it was a premier cru.

The furniture, bulky and sombre, deserves high ceilings and cornices, but this token room is impotent to oust the hidden stories which are curled up inside. There are framed family portraits all over, and knick-knacks and momentos cover the surfaces empty of photos. Mrs P. has no living family. We see each other a lot. Mostly we talk cooking.

She came back.

‘The judges must need their heads seeing to.’

‘No, I got through to the finals. But so did Eric.’

‘Oh well done dear. I knew you would. Who’s Eric?’

‘Gozzer. My old chemistry teacher. I just realised. In the hall.’

‘He’s in the hall? How nice!’

‘No, not here and not nice.’

‘What a funny name, Gozzer.’

‘Mr Goss. He spat. He hated me. I hate him.’ Mrs P’s features contracted into a frown.

‘He spat at you?’

‘No, not today. In the classroom.’

‘Good.’ She didn’t pause for breath. ‘Did Raymond Lenoir speak to you?’

‘He’d not heard of cho-cho.’ Mrs P. smiled.

‘Fancy that. What did they say to you after?’

‘Maria Fornaro said my West Indian veggie meal was inspired. Only that the orange nudged the cinnamon a bit in the baby cucumber dish. Overall, distinctive tastes, exciting textures.’

‘Did everything go as planned?’

‘No mistakes, no crises. A crackerjack of a mango cake. So now, bring on the final.’ I gave Mrs P. a wallop of a kiss. She laughed.

‘I’m so pleased dear. We need cake.’

I was on my own. I craned my neck at a photo on the side table. Must be a hundred years ago. Stiff-under-the-chin collar and goatee beard. Got it! A goatee beard! Gozzer’s new veneer. Sharp as a chef knife. Hair like a tailored oil-slick and iron grey. Pointed nose and bleached blue indifferent eyes: same as ever. My goose pimples were like those I experienced on a daily basis over ten years ago.

The gravitational force of his never to be forgotten delivery was inescapable. Soft voice, slow delivery, flat, dreadful.

‘When any reptile in this room infringes a rule, he or she will pay for it. Dearly. Note: I say “when”, not “if”.’ The sound was bleak like the stillness of the iced over arctic sea. The only movement came from his lips. When he spoke they quite naturally curled into a gift of a snarl. No kidding. The eyes, motionless, looked at nothing. Nothing slunk away.

First homework: ‘1. Memorise my rules.’ (Notable for their idiosyncrasy: HB pencils; diagrams with parallel and vertically aligned labels, lower-case letters, printed; ironed lab coats.) ‘2. THE PERIODIC TABLE.’ (Number one reference and complete intimacy thereof.) From tomorrow.

Tomorrow I, Ambrose, mutated into number one victim.

Dyslexia to Gozzer was posh for useless. Grasp of ideas and virtuoso lab skills worth zero. Ergo – a jack-knifed medical career.

‘Ambrose, you have the brain of a slug.’

‘Ambrose, a stick insect writes better than you.’ Animal metaphors a speciality.
You bet I believed I was a woodlouse. My parents’ verdict: ‘People like us don’t go to university.’

When Mrs P. brought in the cake, molten rock was bubbling red-hot in my stomach. I’d had dreams. Gozzer’s acid had digested them. My new dream, Dishes From Your Heart – I had touched it, grasped it, almost hugged it. Now he’s dumped on me again. I saw my new dream drifting away, trapped in a bubble, too hot to touch.

I watched Mrs P. rise with the lightness of airy dough, and haul it back in.

‘My dear Wynton Ambrose, get your own back.’ My laugh was as brittle as tumbleweed.

‘You’ve got the opportunity. Use it. Put plaster dust in his flour, salt crystals in the sugar. I remember a time way back when everybody was petrified to eat oranges because it was on the news that some were injected with mercury. Deliberately.’

‘Mrs P!’

‘Blunt his knives. Do something.’

‘People, cameras – all over. Impossible.’

‘Beat him. Go. Prepare.’ She opened her door. I didn’t get up. Her threatening cloudy eyes forced her forehead wrinkles up into her hairline.

‘Okay, okay. I’m going.’

Up in my flat I fell on my bed. I woke next day in time to get to work. Supermarket manager. Quite an achievement for a student with straight A’s. Not. More than enough to have studied medicine. But Gozzer had minced my dreams and spat them onto the floor.
It’s a dreary supermarket in a dreary London suburb. My parents are proud. They boast to anyone who’ll listen.

I sneaked past Mrs P.’s door on the way back from work. She’d quiz me. She scared me. What had I planned? Could she help? Upstairs, I read the Dishes From Your Heart final spec. ‘Celebration Dinner for a Golden Wedding Couple. Cook for two. You will serve your themed menu to a couple who are commemorating fifty years together.’ I had no ideas. I was a woodlouse with no ambition, a slug with no trail. I was a reptile who snapped his teeth shut, always missing his prey.

‘Mrs P.’ She waved a notebook and a flask of black tea. Taste buds stirred. My starter motor coughed.

‘Gold, yellow.’ Flashes of squash and apricots. ‘Not too adventurous, not too spicy, light.’ Sure thing. Mrs P. joined in.

‘Special, different.’ Goes without saying. ‘Jaded taste buds, digestion, teeth.’

‘Eh?’

‘They’ll be my age, thereabouts.’ She rattled her teeth. Got you.

‘Now a time-table.’ Mrs P. had a unique gift. With her sane briskness she motivated this wrung-out woodlouse to plan its winning meal.

‘There’s six days.’

I couldn’t let my friend down. Mr and Mrs P. just missed out on their golden wedding. I knew that already. This would be for them. The competition faded. I’d make the full menu on Friday night, and we’d celebrate together. Mrs P. was golden. I’d treat her; do all the planning, develop the dishes, test, taste, tweak. Just me. If the meal got past Mrs P. unscathed, then I’d bust a groove.

I think: not enough time. I think more: man, get on with it. I buy, I fiddle, I cook, I fail, I spit. What’s Gozzer doing? Forget him. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. I practise and go to work. I don’t sleep. Gozzer doesn’t need sleep I’m sure. I forget to order stock, I forget an area meeting, I get caught by speed cameras. The menu’s coming together. I look in the mirror. When did I last shave? Gozzer and the mirror must be married to each other. I invent. I stick post-it notes everywhere. I make up mnemonics, I write ‘stuff it!’ and scribble ingredient names with coloured felt tips. I can memorise. Gozzer, I can memorise! Periodic table – zero bother. A pushover.

What if I could give Mrs P. the best meal ever, win the competition, and stuff Gozzer up? A complete meltdown was the best I could hope for. A long shot though. Too much and I’ll be thrown out. I’ll be happy to rattle him. I’m zinging and wired to go.

Friday night and Mrs P. joins me. She’s dressed up and brings me flowers. I give her a golden rose. I serve, we eat and chat. We drink champagne. We talk about Mr P. As we sip saffron tea to ease our digestion, she says,

‘Nice one Wynton. You’ve really smashed it. I believe that’s how you’d put it.’ Mrs P. knew how to make me smile. ‘Now, you’re not going to let Gozzer whatever-his-name-is spoil it, are you?’

‘Not at all Mrs. P. You bet I won’t.’ Before I went to bed in the small hours I gathered up all the post-it notes and stowed them in a small box. I took the box with me in the taxi next morning. While I was driven through the London suburbs to the studio, I went through all my memos, muttering, repeating, swearing under my breath.

At the studios my body felt like a Formula One car before a race. A team of experts co-ordinated their allotted jobs at top speed until I was powdered, fine-tuned and revving. This was my time and I was going to grab it. Please let Gozzer be put next to me. I deserve that much luck, don’t I?

And he was, and we were off. First, get the lemon and mint sorbet into the freezer, and let fortune burst forth. We met at the spices and herbs. I pictured a post-it note on my toilet cistern. My voice was the clearest whisper ever.

‘Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium; 113, 114, 115; Damn You, Horrible Eric.’ He didn’t speak, but I heard a sort of strangled gasp. We carried on our prep. Was he concentrating, or – or – what? I sneaked a peek. Make the flatbread dough and don’t lose your nerve Wynton. At the warming drawer he joined me. I didn’t want him to think he’d imagined it.

‘Iron, Cobalt, Nickel; 26, 27, 28; Feel Confident Ninny?’

‘Stop….it.’ No more than a hiss. I’d turned back to my station. I’d give it a rest for a while, let him think that was it. I spotted him separating egg whites from the yolks, and mixing them all up. He chucked the whole lot away. I did a secret fist bump with myself.
Next. What next? Don’t let him get to you. A minor victory, that’s all. You’ll get behind schedule, so gather up the ingredients for the orange almond syrup cake, the golden crown for your anniversary couple. They must glow in the jewels of Morocco.

I pictured crystals of sugar raining down on eggs and yellow butter. Selenium 34 Semolina; Aluminium 13 Almonds; Francium 87 Flour. It was working!

Several times more I was able to unsettle him. I heard some china shatter. I saw him wipe his forehead. What if he called someone over? That was my dread, and it was likely. Who wouldn’t complain that someone was trying to unnerve them? I was prepared for this and would take away my failure with a large helping of triumph. I could laugh right in his face. But he’d never admit weakness. Of course!

He was turning into a bull terrier. Growling and holding tight. There was one more opportunity. I loved this one.

‘Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine; 6, 7, 8, 9; Crazy – Noxious – Old – Fart.’ If only I’d had post-it notes back then.

My couple were lovely and appreciative.

‘So full of colour.’ The judges seemed impressed.

‘Subtle spices, fruity, and excellent balance.’ The other couples were celebrating in separate spaces, and I’d no idea what was going on there.

Gozzer and I went back to our cooking stations to clear up. Surely he’d say something now. I was wary and skirted well round him. We were called together and I stood at one end of the line of the four of us finalists. He was at the other end. The two contestants in the middle chatted away. The longer the wait the more I wanted to get home. I realised my head hadn’t seen this far.

The judges came in looking fresh and knowing. They talked to each of us, starting with me. Several times they stopped, for technical reasons or a need to huddle together for a council of war, or so it seemed.

Then, we were all winners apparently. Did it matter who was the Heart Of Our Kitchen? Not to me, not anymore. For the record, it was Deirdre. Look out for her. She may earn a Michelin Star in a few years.

On our way out Gozzer and I found ourselves together in the revolving doors.

‘Ambrose.’ He paused to look me up and down. ‘I once told you you had the brain of a slug. I was right.’ With the sole of his shoe he screwed me into the ground. I withstood him. I didn’t ooze over the floor like he wanted.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’ve given me enjoyment and hope.’I walked into the street, tried to look simultaneously triumphant and casual, rounded a corner and skipped.
I met Josh coming out of our building as I was going in.

‘Well?’ he asked.

‘I’m a winner,’ and I felt the stupidest grin grab hold of my face.

‘Respect,’ he said.

I slammed my fist on the first door on the left. Mrs P, I still need you. We must chew over what I should do next. With cake of course.

I swung her tiny figure into my arms and spun her round the room, singing my new song,

‘I’m a Dyslexic Alchemist.
I stir and beat and mix.
I cannot spell zirconium
but I’m a wizard with my tricks.’ I was careful not to knock over her memories.

 

Bio: Having retired from music teaching Bridgett Kendall came to writing late. Successes: shortlisted in the Fish Short Story contest 2015, the Fish Short Memoir contest 2015, the Doolin Short Story Contest 2016, and the Writers’s Forum contest 2017. She lives in Burgundy where distractions are often limited to cows.

 

Image: IvanPais via Pixabay

Looking back, Krasner blamed the husband. Being stuck next to Goldsmith as one of a group of four men invited to a Saturday Dodger game meant three hours of hearing him pontificate about baseball, politics, books, and restaurants, then rant about traffic, kids, and most of all what he called his pain-in-the-ass wife.

Worse, each time Krasner voiced even the slightest disagreement, Goldsmith bristled. Initially the older man’s responses were simply patronizing, as when Krasner was told, “You’re young. You’ll learn,” or, “I, too, was once naive.” By the fifth inning, due to an excess of sun and beer, Goldsmith’s condescension had morphed into belligerence. “You don’t know shit!” he exclaimed when Krasner countered that Ray Charles was far more important than Neil Young, and that the late Bobby “Blue” Bland, even with laryngitis, would have out-sung Michael McDonald, David Bowie, or Harry Connick Jr.

Krasner knew full well that he could have, and perhaps should have, lightened up rather than goading a guy with a desperate need to be the ultimate authority. But due to an aversion to the loudmouths, taking the high road was not an option.

When, during the bottom of the sixth inning, the bombastic one dismissed millennials as know-nothings too goddamn lazy to think and Too self-absorbed to care about anything but their own dicks, Krasner shook his head. “What the fuck does that mean?” Goldsmith promptly demanded.

“You calling ’em self-absorbed is funny,” Krasner responded.

“Why’s that?”

“Because all you talk about is you, you, you.”

Goldsmith glared, then began to pout, granting Krasner much appreciated time to focus on the ballgame.

The respite, however, came to an abrupt halt at the top of the eighth inning when Goldsmith leaned Krasner’s way. “You probably like French films,” he snarled.

“Love ’em.”

“That figures.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“A guy who’s nothing but a school teacher.”

“What’s that say about your wife, who also happens to teach?”

“Another fucking know-it-all!”

 

All too aware that the private high school where he taught was Gossip Central, Krasner had, with the exception of one frenzied hook-up with an art teacher after her birthday party, avoided entanglements with faculty, staff, parents, and students. Therefore, he was far from happy when Steffi Goldsmith approached him while he was munching a burrito outdoors at lunchtime the following Monday.

“I owe you an apology,” she said.

“For?”

“My overbearing and far too full-of-himself husband. Was it excruciating?”

“My root canal was worse.”

“Not that it’s likely any interest to you, but now you know what I live with.” When Krasner failed to respond, Steffi seemed perplexed. “No comment?” Seeing Krasner shrug, she pushed further. “What’s that mean?”

“You chose him.”

“Thanks for reminding me. Got time one of these days for an off-campus lunch? Or better yet, a glass of wine after school?”

“To do what?”

“If I had the guts I’d say to run away to Paris, but actually for help. I’m finally finishing my Master’s at UCLA, and I’d love to pick your brain about the French New Wave.”

Krasner nodded, then was about to dive back into his burrito when Steffi wandered off with a smile. But another interruption came in the form of the school’s basketball coach. “Careful,” Jamal Stokely said as he neared.

“Of?”

“What’s the easiest way to sleep with a married woman?”

“I give up.”

“Listen to her, ’cause ten-to-one the husband doesn’t. Lend an ear, show some sympathy, and suddenly you’re the nicest, most sensitive guy in the world. Then they can’t wait to say thanks.”

 

At a wine bar after school the next day, with a bottle of Rose de Provence in front of them, Steffi Goldsmith faced Krasner. “For my thesis,” she said, “I’m trying to show that after World War II, youth-inspired cultural revolutions sprung up across the globe. The Beats in this country. The Angry Young Men in British theater. Am I right in assuming that La Nouvelle Vague constitutes yet another?”

“They were certainly young and outsiders. Godard was Swiss, Truffaut had a troubled childhood, Agnes Varda a woman when directors were almost exclusively male. Chabrol, Demy, Resnais, and Rohmer, thanks to Les Cahiers du Cinema, were fledgling critics. They were rebelling not just against the reigning culture, but even more against the proper and pretentious films produced in France at the time.”

While explaining how their quest to make a different kind of film was facilitated by new, lighter, and cheaper cameras, plus cinematographers like Raul Coutard who came from newsreels and could shoot hand-held with available light, Krasner found his wine glass being refilled, then topped off again.

As the two of them finished the bottle, Steffi smiled. “That was really helpful,” she said. “Okay if I ask a personal question?”

“Sure.”

“Were you worried the older woman might proposition you?”

“C’mon –”

“An awkward attempt at seduction never crossed your mind?”

“Well –”

Steffi reached over and took Krasner’s hand. “I have a little office that’s very cozy.”

 

Once, twice, three times Krasner nearly bolted as his dented Volvo followed Steffi’s Range Rover through Santa Monica into Pacific Palisades, where they parked on a street north of Sunset.

Getting out of his car, Krasner again came close to fleeing, then yielded when Steffi took his hand. Moments later, in her office above a dress shop and a French cafe, she was unbuttoning his shirt.

“First a ground rule,” said Steffi as she unbuckled his belt. “I’ve got too much equity for this to be anything more than sex. Clear?”

Krasner nodded as she unzipped his fly. But while removing his boxers, Steffi started to giggle.

“What?” asked Krasner, immediately self-conscious.

“A terrible joke. Ready?” Krasner nodded. “Why,” asked Steffi, “is a blow job like Eggs Benedict?”

“I give up.”

“They’re two things no Jewish guy ever gets at home.” Steffi laughed, as did Krasner, then she feigned seriousness. “Fortunately for you,” she stated melodramatically, “we’re not at home.”

 

While spooning on the sofa twenty minutes afterward, Steffi broke the silence with a question. “Weird for you to be lying here with someone old enough to be your mother?”

“C’mon –”

“How old are you?”

“Almost twenty-five. You?”

“Almost forty.”

“Which means too young to be my mother.”

“Unless I was precocious.”

“And a child bride.”

“So tell me the truth,” said Steffi. “Was this payback?”

“For?”

“My husband for being a dick.”

“No.”

“But it was a factor, right?”

“Let’s not go there.”

“Thank you for ducking. But now that you’ve gotten back at him, what are the chances of seeing you again?”

“Excellent.”

“When?”

“You tell me.”

“Tomorrow.”

 

The next afternoon, cuddling on her office sofa after another torrid bout, Steffi eyed Krasner. “So why are you teaching?”

“Because I’m too tall to be a jockey and too short to play in the NBA.”

“Seriously. Is it what you set out to do?”

“I’m trying to write scripts.”

“And here I am, stealing your free time. Do you like it? Teaching, I mean.”

“I like teaching and writing. How about you? Since it sounds like your husband does well, how come you’re teaching?”

“First, my husband doesn’t do well – he does exceedingly well. But as to why I teach, it’s something I started doing when he was in law school and we needed the bucks. More importantly, it gives me an identity of my own. But so that you know, I, too, do some writing.”

“Screenplays?”

“Short stories mainly. And a novel for which I’ve got to find a publisher. Plus a play I’ve been fiddling with for far too long. But know what’s the fringe benefit?”

“Tell me.”

“This place, which now serves another purpose besides writing.”

 

Because in most of his previous relationships Krasner was constantly, and often relentlessly, the one who suggested, urged, begged, and pleaded for what one girlfriend termed hanky-panky, and another called mischief, he found it surprising, not to mention pleasing, to have Steffi take the initiative.

And take it she did, day after day until Krasner found himself with almost no free time, especially when she began texting him for additional get-togethers on Saturdays, plus quickies on Sunday afternoons.

Even more embarrassing were the presents she started bringing. First was a watch, which he never felt comfortable wearing. Then a cashmere sweater, which he promptly said was too much. Next a Ray Charles box set, then a signed photo of Mose Allison.

When Krasner began to beg off occasionally, then asked for a brief hiatus, not because of diminished interest or an absence of ardor, but simply to have time to shoot hoops, ride his bike, and maybe even figure out what would be his next screenplay, the number of calls and texts from Steffi doubled, then tripled, as did the frequency with which she popped by his classroom to say hello during school hours.

“Am I getting too needy?” Steffi asked one Tuesday while the two of them were lying naked on her office sofa.

“Which one of us talked about having too much equity?”

“That was before we… umm… started. And besides –”

“Yeah?”

“I thought you’d be flattered.”

“I am.”

“But?”

“Occasionally I need some breathing room.”

Steffi darkened. “You’re seeing someone.”

“Not really.”

“Not really? Or no?”

“No.”

“Honest?”

“Honest.”

“Not that you wouldn’t be entitled –”

“But?”

“I’m being silly, aren’t I?” asked Steffi. “I go home every evening to my husband, yet I’m expecting you to be monogamous. Forgive me?”

“Sure.”

Pleased, Steffi kissed him.

 

A month after getting a script to an agent through a guy he knew from a Saturday morning basketball game, Krasner was surprised by a request for a meeting. Girding himself for disappointment, he drove to the agent’s office at the designated time. Then, after waiting impatiently for what felt like three weeks but was in truth thirty-five minutes, he was granted an audience that was over and done with in record time.

Trying everything imaginable to keep from screaming, Krasner strode toward the exit, only to be intercepted by the agent’s assistant. “Unsatisfying?” she whispered.

“Unconscionable, unacceptable, and downright shitty!”

“Wait for me out front in five minutes.”

Three minutes later, Krasner was joined on the street. “What exactly did numb nuts say?” the assistant asked.

“Numb nuts?”

“Prefer His Royal Majesty?”

“He said the writing was wonderful, but the subject matter not commercial.”

“Which means he’d rather have writing that sucks as long as there’s a High Concept? Know what’s rich?”

“Tell me.”

“I read it, not him. I’m Ginnie by the way.”

“Ted.”

“Just like on the script. So what else did the birdbrain say?”

“To call if I come up with something saleable.”

“What if I tell you the script’s terrific?”

“Not in the eyes of agents.”

“Want to bet?”

“You heard what he said.”

“Look, I’ve got a friend who works for a woman I think would get – and really go for – your script. Can I send it?”

“Only if you like Chinese, Thai, or Ethiopian food.”

“Why?”

“Because at risk of getting rejected a second time this afternoon, I’d like to buy you dinner.”

 

Aside from having what Krasner playfully deemed to be impeccable taste in screenplays, plus being bubbly and blessed with freckles that he found adorable, Ginnie proved to be a perfect dinner companion thanks to her affection for many things Krasner adored. What started with a meal in Thai Town led to evenings in Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Ethiopian joints.

Table talk ranged far and wide, revealing shared fondness for films by Claude Sautet and Savage Steve Holland, books such as Pynchon’s “The Crying Of Lot 49” and Chad Harbach’s “The Art Of Fielding,” songs by Slim Harpo and Amy Winehouse, plus a taste for vintage Stan Freberg commercials and silly “Baywatch” reruns.

During their very first meal together, Ginnie brought up business only once by asking a pointed question as they finished their main course. “Got something else in the works?” she asked. “Something dickhead might call commercial?”

“Guess I don’t have the imagination to come up with a girls- or boys-raunchy-night-out, a post-apocalyptic, or a super-hero movie. Seems I can only deal with stuff that in some way or other happened to me.”

“Which is why I liked your script about growing up white in a black neighborhood. It’s the first one I’ve read in ages that seemed derived from life rather than from other movies.”

“Thanks.”

“So what’s your next one about?”

“Once I know, I’ll tell you.”

“Stuck?”

“More like distracted.”

 

Whereas with Steffi everything revolved around bouncing on each other’s bones, with Ginnie, in contrast, Krasner was so chaste that one evening, while wolfing a Hanoi fish dish called Cha Ca, she asked if he was in another relationship. When he said no, which he considered to be not entirely untrue in light of Steffi’s demand that their kinship be only about sex, Ginnie pondered for a moment. “Can I ask another question?”

“Absolutely.”

“Are you gay?”

“No.”

“It’s okay if you are. Even, I guess, if you’re just seeing me in the hope of –”

Krasner took Ginnie’s hand. “Even if that agent winds up hating my script, I’ll still be crazy about you. But so that you know, I’ve just been trying to be respectful. Okay?”

“On one condition. Ready?”

“Sure.”

“You come home with me tonight.”

“Before dessert, or after?”

“Dessert can wait.”

 

Two days later, while lying beside Steffi on her office sofa, Krasner waited for what seemed like an appropriate moment, then spoke. “I think we should cool it for a while.”

“You’re tired of me.”

“Not at all.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Know how you were wondering if I was seeing someone?”

“What about it?”

“Now I am.”

Steffi went silent, closing her eyes for several moments, then sat up. “So what’s wrong with an embarrassment of riches?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“I get afternoons, she gets evenings and weekends. For you, isn’t that the best of both worlds?”

 

Instead of breaking things off with Steffi, Krasner hedged, getting together with her every so often instead of nearly every day. Sensing she was losing him, Steffi spoke up one Wednesday while undressing him. “Charlie knows a ton of people,” she said. “How about I get him to reach out to agents on your behalf?”

“I just signed with one.”

“Without telling me?”

“Who’s the one who said this is only about sex?”

“You really know how to hurt a guy,” Steffi said. “Besides, that was then, this is now. And if I’d known about the good news, we could have celebrated.”

Krasner studied her for a moment, then began hesitantly. “Maybe –”

“Maybe what?”

“We ought to cool this for a while.”

“Why make a decision in haste?”

“This is not in haste,” Krasner said, reaching for his shirt.

 

Two evenings later, while leaving an Indian restaurant, Ginnie elbowed Krasner, then gestured toward a white Range Rover parked across the street. “Is that woman staring at us?” she whispered.

“I-I don’t know,” he lied, leading Ginnie toward his car as quickly as possible.

 

That night, lying beside Ginnie in her Echo Park apartment, Krasner found himself hoping that Steffi’s appearance near Urban Masala had been an aberration owing to a moment of insecurity or pique.

But when he spotted her car in Koreatown the next evening, then caught a glimpse of her cruising past the Mongolian place where he and Ginnie dined two nights later, he knew the time had come to speak up.

 

During lunch at school, Krasner approached Steffi in a hallway. “It’s got to stop,” he stated.

“What?”

“This monitoring, or spying, or whatever you want to call it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s called stalking.”

“Is that an accusation?” Steffi asked, displaying a haughtiness Krasner had not experienced before.

“Let’s call it a request,” he said.

 

Krasner’s hope that his conversation with Steffi would help was shattered by an unexpected call from her husband. “Your overtures,” announced Charlie Goldsmith, “have been totally out of line.”

“What overtures?”

“Of a suggestive nature toward my wife.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Do I strike you as someone who kids? In addition to the Cease & Desist letter which you will receive, I reserve the right to take all appropriate legal and punitive measures. We clear?”

“You’re out of your fucking mind!”

 

The next day proved the surprises were far from over. Upon arriving at school, Krasner was immediately summoned to the Assistant Dean’s office.

“You’re aware of a statement you signed promising no sexual advances or harassment?” asked Tom Cavanaugh menacingly.

“What of it?”

“A complaint has come in.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, are you going to tell me more? Or is this simply an accusation?”

“I believe I’m entitled to an explanation.”

“Without stating what I’m accused of? Or to whom? Tell you what. How about starting by telling me who made the complaint?”

“It’s not appropriate for me to say.”

“Then know what that makes this?”

“Tell me.”

“A kangaroo court.”

“I resent that,” said Cavanaugh dismissively.

“But you haven’t said it’s not true.”

 

After pounding his fist against a hallway wall several times, Krasner was stewing by his car when Steffi Goldsmith approached. “I’m really sorry this has escalated,” she said.

“That’s rich.”

“But there’s an easy way to calm things down.”

“Oh yeah?”

“By simply going back to the way things were.”

“Whoa! Your husband threatens legal action, the school is talking about firing me, and you want to turn back the clock?”

“You know who they’ll believe if it’s your word versus mine.”

“Is that the game you’re willing to play?”

“If necessary.”

“Then maybe you’re forgetting something.”

“Am I?”

“Something called evidence.”

“Such as?”

“A zillion text messages? A ton of presents?”

“You’d do that to my reputation?”

“Wait a goddamn second. I could wind up out on the street, and you’re worried about your reputation?”

 

Check your messages read three texts from Ginnie, and Call your agent said two others that Krasner found when he drove to Venice and sat down on the beach. Gathering himself as best he could, he called Laurie Frankfater.

“Want good news or bad?” Krasner’s newly acquired agent asked.

“Let’s start with bad since it’ll fit in with my day.”

“Four dimwits and one stupid jackass have passed on your script.”

“Know a bridge I can jump from?”

“But –”

“Yeah?”

“A guy who produced a couple of interesting indie films has made an offer.”

“Please tell me you’re not kidding.”

“Not a chance in hell. Put your thinking cap on, or hit the internet.”

“To?”

“Pick a place where you, Ginnie, and I can celebrate tonight!”

 

“Happy now?” Tom Cavanaugh asked after informing Krasner the next morning that the complaint had been withdrawn.

“Do I look like Mahatma Gandhi?” Krasner responded.

“I’m not sure I understand the allusion.”

“I’m not someone who turns the other cheek.”

“Which means?”

“I expect you to make amends.”

“By?”

“Giving me tenure.”

“We don’t do that until someone teaches here for five years.”

“Show me where it’s written.”

“It’s more a convention.”

“For which an exception is about to be made.”

“And why’s that?”

“What if I say my girlfriend’s father, who considers this discrimination because of age and gender, is a litigator?”

“How do I know that’s true?”

“Maybe it’s not, and I’m bluffing. But is it worth the gamble? You win, everything’s peachy. You lose, there are damages plus publicity galore for you, the school, and the wonderful person who complained.”

“I-I’ll have to talk to the Board.”

“You’ve got until the end of classes today.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You want to talk about fair? I also expect a written apology.”

 

That evening, after they ordered bademjan, fesenjan, and a soup called ash joe at a Persian restaurant near Westwood, Ginnie studied Krasner. “After all that’s happened,” she began, “you okay?”

“What’s crazy is I’m fine.”

“Because?”

“For openers, I’ve got you.”

“And?”

“Thanks to you, I’ve got Laurie.”

“Much of that owes to the script you wrote. But go on.”

“Remember how I told you I’d be no good at girls- or boys-raunchy-night-out or post-apocalyptic or super-hero stuff?”

“Because you can only write about what you’ve experienced?”

“Exactly. And remember how I was searching for something to write about?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, guess who now has a whole new story.”

Ginnie smiled. “Tonight,” she stated happily, “you and I are having dessert.”

 

Alan Swyer is an award-winning filmmaker whose recent documentaries have dealt with Eastern spirituality in the Western world, the criminal justice system, diabetes, boxing, and singer Billy Vera. In the realm of music, among his productions is an album of Ray Charles love songs. His novel ‘The Beard’ was recently published by Harvard Square Editions.

 

Image: Varun Kulkarni

Keenly anticipating the indulgences ahead, not least the Squash and Spinach Rotolo, Woodrow turns into Meredith’s street. He imagines stooping to kiss her, her face flushing as she asks how his day has been.

“Well,” he’ll say, “picture me at 6.30 am in a rain-sodden gutter, cradling a lifeless body, thinking – as disasters go, this one is at least manageable.”

Then he’ll tell her how his phone spent its last night on earth in an icy puddle outside a restaurant. And how, briefly, it appeared to be returning to life.

“But of course the colours started bleeding, like a sponge caressing the drizzles of a nouvelle cuisine dish.”

Woodrow closes the car door with some satisfaction, commending himself on that image. That will impress Meredith! He’s decided that this freezing February night will be forever significant as he’s moving their relationship to the next level.

And he’s leaving nothing to chance.

That’s why he stopped by The Rocket Plant last night. Booking the corner table by the window was easy. His directions for background music, Chopin or Satie, were more contentious. But the manager understood when he explained that he’d be sharing the evening with someone special.

“Ah…. if music be the food of love –”

“Rave on!” Woodrow interjected.

The manager was pricklier on the subject of specials, but Woodrow stuck to his guns knowing he held two trump cards: his indisputable knowledge of cuisine and his value as a high-spending customer.

“Firstly, I can’t stand salmon,” he said. “I wouldn’t even want her ordering that! And secondly, you can’t only offer two fish specials! You’ll have pescatarians picketing outside!”

“Vegetarians!” the Maitre D’ snorted.

Woodrow requested the Rotolo, which on a previous visit had been a revelation. “That night, guys, you taught me the genius of salty feta riffing off butternut squash!”

Yes, it was just as well he’d visited the restaurant, even if he had managed to drop his phone outside.

Woodrow approaches a Victorian property converted into flats. He scans the names alongside the buzzers. Meredith! Just seeing it in her handwriting produces internal flutters and a soaring of his spirits. He has never dated anyone quite like Meredith, anyone so confident; so eloquent on so many topics. Robespierre, the sixties, the feeding habits of sloths – what can’t this girl hold forth on at the age of 28?

Pressing the button produces a satisfying purr. He wonders if she’ll be wearing those jeans again; so tight-fitting, she might have just been skinny-dipping in a sea of ink. He takes two slow breaths to steady himself. Last week they’d seen Mamma Mia. Keen to establish his cultural credentials, the musical was his suggestion. The evening had been entirely platonic, but her ready agreement to meet again was enough to fuel a few spicy fantasies.

“About time!” Meredith’s voice snaps from a small speaker.

“I’m actually one minute early!”

Woodrow waits to be buzzed in. Instead the door opens and Meredith’s eyes flash at him accusingly.

“What’s going on?” – her breath is steaming as she speaks. “We’re now ridiculously late!”

“Hold on…” he begins. She’s decked out in something that looks like it was last worn by Emmeline Pankhurst. “I could ask you the same –”

“Where’s your car?” she interrupts.

Woodrow is astounded. The restaurant isn’t booked for an hour. They even have time for an aperitif. He unlocks his BMW.

“And why have you been ignoring me all day?”

Realisation dawns. “My phone died last night. I had back-to-back meetings from 7.30am.”

“For frick’s sake,” Meredith says, climbing into the passenger seat. “There’s a change of plan. We’re going to the Lea Valley.”

A mad dash to East London follows. Meredith explains that she’d forgotten her best friend Grant’s thirtieth. She’s been leaving messages all day saying he must arrive earlier.

“Cancel the restaurant then – here’s their card.”

Yes, Penny’s gone to enormous trouble, she says, dialing – and, no worries, her friends are all gorgeously friendly.

“Who’s Penny?” Woodrow scowls at a Give Way sign.

“Grant’s partner!” – spoken as if to an idiot. “She said to bring you along.”

With instructions to abandon the Sat Nav’s route reverberating round the car, Woodrow is concerned by developments. He thinks back to an argument earlier on with a CEO regarding a damaging story that was breaking. He normally relished such spats – surfing the swell of adrenaline and stress. Today he was distracted by thoughts of the evening ahead: the luscious food, the growing rapport, the flirtatious touching…

“Park the bloody car, anywhere you can.”

They get out and Meredith is marching ahead, constrained only by her matronly skirt. Then she stops, turns, pulls his head down and kisses him almost aggressively on the lips.

“Thanks for being so understanding! Good things come to those who wait…”

She leads him down to the canal, all the while speaking on her phone.

“Yes, a bridge, trees – and a bloody great gasworks!”

Receiving further instructions, she scurries along the tow-path followed by Woodrow who calls, “Where are we heading?” She doesn’t respond. When a man in an Edwardian suit waves flamboyantly from the deck of a canal boat, it’s clear that the situation is complex.

“Is this a fancy dress party?” he ventures, as the boat manoeuvres towards the bank.

“It’s themed – you’d know had you picked up my messages.”

Woodrow mumbles an Anglo-Saxon expletive. The Edwardian gentleman narrows his eyes as he regards Woodrow’s burnt-orange Ted Baker fleece.

“I see you’ve adopted a fairly wide interpretation of Titanic fashion,” he says, dryly.

Woodrow elongates his lips into something resembling a smile.

“Meet Grant!” Meredith says.

“Welcome aboard the unsinkable liner!” He’s pulling them both firmly – the boat rocks as Woodrow plants his foot on deck. “Although, you may not actually fit inside. How tall are you?”

“Six foot eight,” Woodrow says as he scrapes the top of his head on a door frame. Wincing, he descends into a tiny room. Three faces look up expectantly from a table laid lavishly for dinner. What a nightmare. Woodrow tenderly touches his head. Behind the table is an unlikely smorgasbord of images: passengers boarding the fated ship, Kate Winslet – arms joyously outstretched, stiff family groupings, the ruined hulk on the sea-bed. Piano music tinkles from an unmanned keyboard, as if the pianist has abandoned her post, leaving only a spirit behind.

“I’m Woodrow,” Woodrow says, shaking the hand of a sea admiral.

“Yuk!” – the man springs up. “You’ve put blood on me! – you’d better not have AIDS.”

Woodrow is passed kitchen towel while Grant explains the set-up.

“So, we’re all people from the Titanic – actual people. That’s Captain Smith in the toilet, washing your blood away. Who did you go for, Merry?”

Merry!

“Annie Clemmer-Funk at your service. I’m besotted by that name!”

“I just discovered the theme so I don’t have a character,” Woodrow says.

“You can be my husband’s personal valet,” a commanding lady says.

“That’s Penny,” Meredith whispers.

“Time-travelling valet,” the Captain scoffs, sitting back down.

Woodrow doesn’t wish to be anyone’s valet, least of all Grant’s. But to dissent would be inadvisable. He must keep in mind his aim of emerging unscathed from this hideous event. And then his prize awaits – Meredith, and a night of passion.

“What do you do, when you’re not boarding luxury liners?” a lady with a Marcel hair wave asks.

“I’m in PR – disaster management effectively,” Woodrow says, touching his head and discovering more spots of blood.

“Perfect,” says Penny. “Anyway, you’re our servant today. You’re allowed to sit down by the way.”

“Keep topping up my wine and don’t jabber,” Grant adds.

Fortunately for Woodrow, he’s wearing a white shirt under his fleece, so, from the waist upwards, he looks the part. Even better news is that the conversation has moved away from his clothes and his bleeding head.

The first class menu had ten courses that calamitous night, Penny explains. Obviously she couldn’t replicate everything.

“However,” holding aloft a tureen, “I’ve selected the highlights. Consommé Olga!”

“Mmmm – that clarity, that depth of colour!” Woodrow says, sniffing the broth. “Did you use beef or veal stock?”

“Impressive!” Grant says, and Meredith pinches his arm approvingly.

The soup is surprisingly delicate – a promising start. And the white wine is crisp and delivers a decent bouquet.

“A slight hitch,” the captain announces. “Not all our passengers have first class tickets. So, technically –”

“Fessing up!” the Marcel lady says. “Rhoda was in third. But she lost both sons so perhaps you’ll allow her? They jumped into the water together.”

“You know,” Penny says, “it’s fascinating what people did when they were really up against it. In Extremis. Colonel Astor here helped me to a lifeboat then gently asked if he might join me, saying, ‘My wife’s in a delicate condition.’ He was told, ‘Women and children only!’ So he stepped away and calmly met his death.”

“Annie was about to enter a lifeboat,” Meredith says, “but was pushed aside by a woman calling ‘my children, my children.’ She took the last place and Annie perished.”

“Your head’s still bleeding,” the Captain says to Woodrow. “Someone pass him another towel.”

Woodrow sips his soup while dabbing at his head. He is beginning to feel woozy, something not helped by drinking only wine and the constant talk of death.

“What do you do, Penny?” he asks.

“Lawyer – matrimonial,” she says flatly.

“Matrimonial, that’s… to do with… mothers, isn’t it?”

Laughter erupts around him.

“Classic!” Grant screams. The Captain can barely breathe for hooting.

“It’s divorce, cretin!” Meredith whispers into Woodrow’s ear. Mortified, she excuses herself.

“I worry about Merry,” Grant says. “I wonder if she’ll ever recover.”

Feeling increasingly reckless, Woodrow asks what the hell he’s talking about. Meredith has nothing wrong with her!

“You don’t know about Adam and the skiing accident?”

“Her fiancée? Less than a year ago?”

“Amazing guy!”

“And Meredith’s only true love.”

“She’s struggling to cope with that tragedy.”

“And ends up taking all sorts of risks with people like you…” Grant’s sentence tapers as Meredith returns.

“We’ve got a few minutes,” Penny announces. “Let the dancing commence!”

“It just gets better,” Woodrow mutters as the three couples rise. Penny touches the keyboard and Ragtime music issues forth.

“There was, of course, no formal dancing in first class,” Grant points out.

“Titanorak of the night!” the Captain shrieks.

“The Castle Walk,” Penny calls. “Weight on the toes – one – two – three – four – five – six – seven – eight, and….”

Meredith attempts to lead Woodrow around the cramped floor. “It’s basically walking!” she hisses.

Grant peers at Woodrow as he passes. “Oh look! – a daddy-long-legs playing basketball.”

“That’s fine,” Grant says, pulling away from Meredith. “I’ll sit this one out.”

“Don’t be like that,” Rhoda says.

“In any case,” Penny adds, “our main course is ready.”

“I can’t wait,” Grant says. “Best thirtieth ever!”

Penny and Rhoda carry in two serving platters.

“Right, potatoes. And Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce.”

“Salmon?” Woodrow says. “Is there a choice?”

“ It’s not à la carte!” Meredith says.

Woodrow, with his lifelong aversion to salmon, is now surrounded by five people eating salmon, the aroma of salmon, a conversation about salmon, and his own plateful of salmon. He attempts to down a few mouthfuls, glugging wine with each, thinking he might then last out the rest of the course eating potatoes. But waves of nausea are engulfing him and the boat feels like a see-saw.

“You never even bothered doing proper introductions!” Woodrow complains. “Not that you’d care but I don’t even know –”

Suddenly, his sickness crescendos and he dashes outside onto the deck.

When Grant catches him up a minute later, Woodrow is on his knees, vomiting copiously into the river.

“Good thinking – let the salmon be returned to its natural habitat,” Grant says, lighting a cigar.

Woodrow groans and emits a further stream of putrid liquid.

“The next course is Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly by the way. “It has a consistency exactly like –”

The sound of Woodrow heaving echoes off the far side of the bank.

“If you’re up for it, that is,” Grant continues.

“Sod off, Grant” – Woodrow manages and slowly stands.

“Listen Woody,” Grant’s arm wraps around him, “we all met at Durham and we’re like a family. And families, you’re either inside them or you’re not. Anyone who dates Merry, is effectively dating us lot too.”

“Cut the crap, Grant. What’s your point?”

“You’re wrong for Merry. And for us. Personally, I’d rather bunk up with Jimmy Savile.”

Woodrow looks down at the smug face puffing its cigar and, without properly weighing up the options, launches a massive punch in its direction. Grant dodges the blow and Woodrow, connecting only with the evening breeze, wobbles and teeters. Glancing over his shoulder he sees Grant, smiling, as he assists Woodrow over the edge.

And towards the water.

Freezing! Drowning! Swallowing lungfuls – bubbles of death rising. Body assault – a heart attack, yes, Woodrow succumbs – surely dead now – arse bouncing on the silty bed – so how did he feel that? –rising now, arms pumping, hands grasping – then, piercing the surface, Woodrow breathes.

And splutters.

And hears whooping.

Floundering on the water, he looks up. They’re all on deck.

“Nice one, Woody!”

“No one could accuse old Wooders of not taking the role-playing seriously.”

Woodrow swims, hauls himself on to the bank, rolls uselessly on the grass, then rises to his sopping feet. “You’re all a bunch of shits!” he shouts.

The passengers continue baying from the boat.

“You haven’t finished your salmon,” the Captain points out.

“Don’t bother calling,” Meredith concludes.

Covered in silt and slime, Woodrow can feel his jeans encasing his testicles, transforming them into two frozen peas. He continues his retreat, slinking along the tow-path as the howls of derision finally fade.

Okay. If he were his own client, what would the advice be now? Things didn’t go perfectly… There might be reputational damage. But resist the call to act immediately. No need to Tweet or change Instagram bio. A period of reflection and wound licking is in order.

He stands like a frozen kipper outside his car. Amazingly, the remote actually opens the door.

And there, lying on the passenger seat, is a burgundy purse. Meredith’s purse. Perfect. He’ll head straight back to the canal and give the bloody thing a watery grave.

No, do the honourable thing. Contact Meredith, tell her he’s found it. And she’ll have to meet him one more time. And then, who knows…?

No way!

The bitch can make an appointment to collect it from his PA.

Woodrow collapses heavily into the leather seat. He swills some water and spits it out the window. No longer nauseous, he removes a dark chocolate and sea-salt bar from the glove compartment, kept there for dire emergencies. Unwrapping it slowly, he surrenders to the silkiness of the cocoa and the sharpness of the crystals. Sighing, he starts the engine. Chocolate has rarely tasted this bitter and never this good.

 

James Woolf writes prose scripts and adverts. He has been published twice in Ambit magazine, both in 2017, and shortlisted for the Bridport short story prize, the Exeter short story prize and highly commended in the London short story prize. Various other stories have been published or short listed. Website: woolf.biz

 

Image: Bruno Glätsch

I dreamed about you last night. It seemed a little out of the blue, then I felt terrible when I realised that I hadn’t thought about you for a few days. You used to consume me, body and soul. But then I wondered, do you think about me? The last few weeks have been so confusing. I wish I didn’t think of you at all.

Tiny, disjointed, fleeting micro thoughts – danced through my head only to vanish when I consciously pursued them. They could be triggered by anything. The day before it all went wrong, I saw a workman in a service station eating one of those awful boxed salads. The ones that look as though they died in that one portion plastic coffin. I imagine that you would hate them. He looked nothing at all like you, no penetrating gaze or perfect smile. He was as short as you are tall, but for a split second my heart almost skipped out of my mouth. I could hear your complaints from the day we met, replaying in my mind about healthy eating being forced upon you, all for some fancy wedding. I can understand you wanting to look your best, but you already had an unfair advantage over other men. You laughed, patted your imaginary spare tyre and told me how you preferred a thick rare steak that you could get your teeth into, salad was for rabbits. Your eyes shone like lapis lazuli as you leant forward and winked at me, your fingers touching mine, pausing as you returned my pen and the paperwork you had signed.

Whoever said that you should tone up and join the gym, I thank them. I knew you were different to the others when I first saw you in my office, and watching the way you dedicated yourself to your exercise routine was fascinating. Most people joined a gym, attended three sessions and then vanished. Not you. Your enthusiasm was enthralling, every evening I locked my office door and watched the CCTV. I saw you sweat your way through all the machines and then start on the weights. Seeing the exertion on your face, sweat on your brow made my thoughts drift to you and me between the sheets. I just knew you would be a considerate lover and in my mind’s eye your hands were eagerly exploring the topography of my naked body. I would linger in reception while you were showering and then we would chat briefly as you left. “Good workout?” I would ask.

“Great, but I am sure I will ache all over in the morning. See you tomorrow”.

See you tomorrow. Yes, you would.

*

The first time I saw your home, I was shocked and had to double check the address. I was expecting a city centre apartment to match the suave suits I saw you in every evening. It was a three-bed semi on an identikit newbuild estate. That was better though, I came to realise quickly. Much more practical. It would be perfect for our kids. I could see them playing on the front lawn. A girl with your dark hair and blue eyes and a baby boy toddling around, his face framed with a halo of gold curls like mine. Then I was torn in two. Seeing another woman walk out of the front door and get into a car. I remember how my hands were frozen to my steering wheel, I wanted to plough her down. You were nowhere to be seen. I watched her drive away and got out of my car. I walked off my anger and felt my legs burning like over used pistons and the freezing cold catching my breath in my throat. I was gasping, my fists clenching and flexing as I struggled to keep calm. That bitch could never mourn your loss like I do.

I signed up a new client last week: he was older than you and had steel coloured, close cropped hair. No real similarity. He certainly did not have the presence you do. But he wore an aftershave like yours and for a moment, it was like a mask. His voice seemed to take on the same cadence, but his sentences ended abruptly by him laughing at his own jokes like he was a goddamn comedian. I smiled tightly at him but really, I wanted to smash him over the head with my keyboard. If only he knew that the entire time I sat there nodding at his banal chit chat I was thinking about you. The way you had held your coffee cup, the pad of your thumb wiping away the little bead that threatened to roll down the cup like a dirty tear. After you left my office that day, I held that cup to my lips, exactly where yours had been. The kiss we would never have, and we didn’t even know it.

*

After I saw that woman leaving your house, I drove back to work. Lost, cast aside. I couldn’t help myself. I had tried to stop myself from searching for you on social media after my friend request was repeatedly ignored. But I couldn’t. I frantically searched the drawers in my desk, pushing away papers. My fingers skipped over un-popped strips of pills. There, right at the back, where I had left it. I grabbed at my phone, opening apps as quickly as I could and then desperately searching for your profile. It was gone. Deleted. I wished I still had the photos of you, I had saved them on my work computer and then bloody IT company had wiped them when installing updates for the new software. A sense of emptiness came over me. A fragile shell of a person that seemed destined for nothing but an eternity of misery and loneliness. If somebody had touched me right then, I would have shattered into a billion splinters. I needed to feel better. I needed you.

I had one last thing of yours. I reached into the tiny zipped section of my bag. Carefully, I took the crumpled plastic bag out. The tester strip from Debenhams was still there, sat at the bottom. I could see clear water marks where the over zealous counter girl had squirted your signature scent onto a card sampler. It had taken me and her around fifteen minutes to narrow it down to find the right one, after all it wasn’t like I could ask you. I had skipped from the shop, hid the strip in the sealed bag to preserve it. To keep your essence. I held the bag on my lap and ran a torn finger nail across the Ziploc. My once tidy manicure had been chewed to shreds. My chest was enclosed in a vice, my head pounded, and tears pushed from my eyes. I have been doing so well trying to keep you out of my head. I almost succeeded. I love you and hate you.

I opened the bag, to my dismay, the smell was barely discernible from the chemical taint of the plastic. This would not do. The aftershave sample was a poor substitute anyway, after all it lacked the warmth of your skin and the musk of your body to give it a truly authentic smell. In a split second I made up my mind. I knew what I needed to do. I might have promised myself I would be strong, but I am not. A quick check on the computer gave me the information I needed. In just a few hours I would be fine, you would be here, and I would feel so much better.

*

6.15pm. It was time. You were a man of routine, came to work out every evening on your way home from work. I walked from my office. Amelia was standing behind reception picking at her split ends. This wasn’t in the plan. “Go clean up that spillage outside of reception on the walkway” I barked at her.

“Uhm, Ok. Can I get you anything when I come back in? a coffee maybe? You look like you could do with it” she faltered.

I did not have time for her trivial questions. My blood was pounding through my body in anticipation and my mouth dry with nerves. As she walked out, I checked the monitors, then my heels drilled out a staccato as I made my way across the tiled foyer into the changing rooms. The lockers in that gym were opened by a tag that you wore like a watch, programmed with your own code. I held the universal staff tag to the locker that I knew you used. Thirty-three, just like your door number. The door popped open. There. That heady mix of soap, toothpaste and aftershave was punctuated by the natural musk of your body. Weak kneed, I struggled to decide what to take. Stroking my fingertips over the soft knit wool, I slipped the scarf you wore over your coat -into my bag, sure you would not miss it. I closed the door and hastily retreated to my office with my prize. I did not see Amelia looking oddly at me and whispering to the cleaner. Nor did I see my manager standing on the mezzanine with a grim line etched into his mouth as he pulled a phone out of his pocket and punched out numbers. He had never liked me. Later I did not even see the two police standing outside my office door. I was far too lost in your smell, the memories of our brief meetings in my office, our shared stolen moments as we passed in the corridor. I imagined it was you entwined and wrapped around my body instead of your cashmere scarf.

*

I tried to explain to the detectives, I told them that you felt the same way about me and you would not mind. They refused to believe anything I said. They claim you saw my picture and did not even recognise me. “She works at this gym? Oh, yeah. She signed me up a month ago. Seemed nice enough, but now you mention it she has been watching me quite a bit when I visit. I think she must live near me too, I’ve seen her on my estate”. I hate you. But I loved you. Why would you do this? How could you lie about our deep connection, our bond? They went through my desk and belongings and asked me endless questions about my tablets. Why were they unopened? Why did I have so many?

*

Apparently, a mistake on my record claims I have had a caution for stalking a few years ago. We both know I am not that sort of person. Now if I breach my bail by approaching you then I will go to prison. It’s a misunderstanding that I am sure will be cleaned up in time. The PC that waited with me for the duty psychiatrist seemed to feel some sort of understanding. He even said that fledgling relationships can often be complicated, and I should find something new to hold my attention, a hobby or maybe even a puppy. His dog kept him sane, he said. He patted my hand, his big bear paw reassuring and warm against mine. I noticed the lack of wedding ring on his third finger and then saw the early morning sun was peeking through the blinds, highlighting him with golden beams. He made me a cup of tea, stirred it three times like I asked and even brought me a little plastic packet of digestives. As he passed me, I noticed his scent. Homely, like fresh air, fabric conditioner and walks in the park. Closing my eyes and filling my lungs with air, I could almost imagine him walking his dog. A big scruffy Dulux dog. Or possibly a greyhound. Maybe I could even be at his side with a puppy running around our feet as his arm links mine.

 

Image: Gabby Orcutt on Unsplash

 

You see the light fitting is filled with wasps the moment you manage to lever apart the two hemispheres of the cover, but by then you are already falling. The ridge separating the two halves of the plastic casing had been caked in an adhesive strip of grime, and after removing the screws, you jabbed the tip of your screwdriver into this filth and began to prise. You had decided against fetching your stepladder from the store cupboard and had been, until recently, balanced on a child-sized chair you had dragged from the new English teacher’s classroom. One glimpse of the wasps was enough to spill you to the ground. The freed part of the light fitting clattered near you, then bounced away along the corridor. For a moment you lay still, your cheek pressed against the cool of the freshly-polished floor. Your nostrils stinging with the citrusy chemicals that coat the tiles.

Before long, you feel able to pull yourself into a sitting position. The fall was pitiful, really. Fortunately, none of the kids are still around or one of them would have captured it on their camera phone and uploaded it. The entire school would have been sniggering behind their hands for the rest of the year. You clench and unclench your fists, shake them a little to get the blood flowing, before scrambling to your feet and heading along the corridor to retrieve the light fitting.

You approach carefully. The casing has landed the right way up and, although it has shed some of its nightmare cargo as it skidded along the corridor, it is still stuffed with wasps. There are hundreds of tiny corpses in repulsive huddles crammed inside. Twisted commas of hate, their legs curled inwards and their stingers jabbing impotently in all directions. You nudge the fixture with the toe of your boot, satisfying yourself that there are no survivors, and then lean in for a closer look. A mass grave. You poke at the mounds of huddled hunchbacked insects with the tip of your screwdriver. Their abdomens are browned as if scorched. Wings shrivelled and misshapen. You wonder what impelled them to gather inside this plastic coffin if the heat of the bulb was enough to harm them. There are none of the tell-tale signs of nest-building, instead, they seem to have simply clustered inside and waited for death. Deciding to forget the whole thing, you fetch a dustpan and brush.

After sweeping the wasps into a black sack, you replace the bulb and then the casing. It is when you are returning the chair that you notice a single scorched wasp, curled like an arched eyebrow, lying just inside the classroom door. The door was closed when you were changing the bulb and this stray cannot have fallen from the light fitting. Could be there’s a dead nest secreted somewhere. Most likely, it’ll be up inside the ceiling tiles. You’ve dealt with nests before. In the summer, they could be a real problem, but this late in the year, only the new Queen would remain, hibernating inside a ball of pulp and spit. The old Queen, the drones, the workers, all long dead. The entirety of their short, angry lives, spent building a now dormant hive that would be abandoned the moment the new Queen emerged in the spring. No need to go hunting for the nest, it would be dust before long, but you can’t leave the remains of any leftover wasps just lying around. You are sure that their sacs pulse with venom long after death, and you can’t risk a child getting stung. These days, they all seem to harbour allergies.

You pinch the singed wingtip of the wasp between your fingertips and carry it to the bin at the front of the classroom. You have no idea why this one would also be scorched, as it was not crammed inside the light with the rest of them. Dropping the body into the bin, you see that the bottom is already carpeted with a thin layer of wasps. You lift the bin for a closer look and they rustle like paper. Each of the corpses is slightly charred.

Scanning the classroom, you see that the teacher’s desk is littered with yet more wasps. They are scattered across the surface like misplaced apostrophes. The bodies are discoloured, as if lightly toasted. The warped tips of melted wings poke from the gaps between the desk drawers and when you drag the top drawer open, wasps cascade over the lip and flow onto the floor in their thousands. You recoil, knocking the remote control for the interactive whiteboard over the edge of the desk. When you bend to retrieve it, you see that the battery compartment cover has come loose. Four wasps are packed inside. Their antenna withered. Their legs crisped.

You want no further part of this and head for the door, your skin itching with the false memory of a thousand bristly legs brushing against you. There is a divot in the wall, dug by the door handle. A succession of lumpen Year 9s have thrown open the door in their haste to escape the prison of English lessons. The loose plaster inside this dent is matted with twisted insect legs as if the very walls are constructed from wasps. A solitary insect falls from the keyhole and is washed up against the skirting board by the rush of air as you pull open the door.

In another version, you change the bulb without incident.

Another time still, you are outside the classroom, looking in. The glass panel in the door is smeared with handprints, but you can see the English teacher, Mr Shields, camped behind his desk, tapping at his laptop keyboard. It is lunchtime or after school, it doesn’t matter which. A solitary child sits in the middle of the second row of desks. He is staring in the direction of the clock above the whiteboard as its hands creep towards the end of detention. You rap your knuckles on the glass and Shields looks up, his face stained blue from the light of his laptop screen. He crosses the room and with some difficulty, pulls the door three-quarters of the way open and gestures for you to enter.

Are they yours? The wasps? you say. You squeeze through the gap and kick a path through the thick pile of insects that block the door. Following Shields, you ignore the crunch of abdomens beneath your feet. The soles of your boots are coated in mucous and blood and venom.

Shields offers you the vacant seat next to the vacant student. You are telling yourself that you would not react like this. That you would never take the offered seat, but you would. Everybody always does.

When you draw back the chair, a thousand wasps pour onto the floor. They merge with the dense, insect carpet. The student next to you is buried up to the calves but his expression does not change. You ask what is wrong with the boy.

By way of an answer, Shields reaches across the desk and takes the child’s hand. The boy gives no sign that he notices as Shields grips his index finger and snaps. The finger comes away easily. There is no blood. No jagged bone. He holds it up for you. You refuse the offered digit, and Shields tuts and turns the severed finger around so that you can see it is hollow. and as fragile as porcelain.

What is he?

Shields tips the finger and a dark powder, like iron filings, flows onto the desk. He traces his own finger idly through the dust, drawing patterns. He still holds the boy’s finger in his other hand and he gives it a couple of sharp shakes. A lone wasp tumbles out onto the desk. The hairs on its thorax are clogged with the dark powder. Barely alive, it crawls in a lazy circle, once, twice, before falling still. Its skin crisps. There is the faintest hint of burning hair.

Enough. You shove your chair back. Your intention is to head for the door, but the chair’s momentum is cushioned by the drift of wasps that have washed up behind you. You manage only to stumble to your feet, scraping your thighs on the underside of the desk. Your shoulders sag. The prospect of wading through the knee-deep lake of wasps is too much and you sink back into the chair. You are hollow. A string-cut puppet. You will rest your head, here on the desk, just for a few minutes. You are dimly aware of the bodies of the wasps that burst under you. Of the stingers that warp as they press against the skin of your cheek. Your arm is stretched out before you on the desk. It is too close to your face for your eyes to focus properly and your skin is a vague pale smear. Your forearm seems to taper to a thin point before it contracts and expands, then flows towards you like liquid. You can feel them in there. The wasps. They are packed too tightly to writhe, but they quiver and hum and soon they will burn out.

In another version, the classroom is already empty before you arrive.

Another time, there is no classroom at all. Only wasps.

 

 

 

SIMEON RALPH is a writer, lecturer and musician with the noise-rock
band Fashoda Crisis. Currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing
at MMU his work has recently appeared in Bull & Cross, The Ekphrastic
Review and Riggwelter Press. Originally from Essex, he now lives in
Norwich.

 

Image: skeeze

 

 

Tony sat in his pod. He was warm and snug, listening to the horse racing. He had no idea if it was live, or even if it took place in the real world anymore, but the sound of the horse’s hooves thundering down the furlong was reassuring.

He shifted in his chair; it rippled beneath him, altering its pressure every few minutes. A mug of sweet tea appeared from a dispenser close to his right hand, accompanied by a digestive biscuit. In his little capsule all of Tony’s needs were taken care of. He hadn’t seen another living soul for years. That was despite Tony knowing he was surrounded by at least fifty other ageing men, meandering towards death in NewWay Care Facility.

A screen on Tony’s left hand side started to beep frantically. He ignored it. He played this game with the machine every day; exerting a little bit of curmudgeonly independence. It used to madden Jennifer, his late wife, this cunning ability to ignore her calls and continue with whatever he was doing. It became one of their jokes. Ignoring this incessant computer carer, if only for a few minutes, made him feel like she was there nagging him again. He’d give anything for that.

After a few minutes Tony finally gave in and placed his arm in the cuff. Blood pressure, heart rate and oxygenation stats appeared on the screen, accompanied by a smiley face. Then his pills were dispensed. The machine waited eagerly for him to take them and swallow them, before clicking on to standby once again.

When Tony had first seen the pods he’d been amazed by their ingenuity. Gone were concerns about overcrowded residential homes, and a shortage of carers. Instead, these one man spaceships were able to cater for his every need. Food and medication, carefully prepared to avoid allergens and meet nutritional needs, was conveyor belted into the site and delivered to each pod. Exercise was carried out through mini electric shocks to his muscles, ensuring he remained toned and fit, probably more so than when he came here. A touch screen computer gave him access to Ebooks, TV, music, the internet and social networking sites. Temperature regulation did away with the need for clothes and bedding, medication meant his hair and nails no longer grew, and twice daily he was sprayed with disinfectant to keep him clean. A button on his chair opened a hole, into which he could excrete; the waste carried away to a processing site. Even medical emergencies could be responded to electronically. Defibrillators were fitted as standard to every pod.

Yes, there were times when Tony was lonely. He missed the sound of another human voice; especially Jennifer’s. But he’d been just as lonely in his flat. The only care he’d received there was 15 minute domiciliary visits morning and evening; the ever changing carers man-handling him in and out of bed, then setting him up in front of the TV. One time they’d forgotten to come and he’d laid there stranded having morbid thoughts involving Mr Tibbles, his moth eaten cat, finding an alternative food source.

It was when Mr Tibbles shuffled off this mortal coil that Tony decided he couldn’t stand it anymore. The benefits of having his own space and independence were quickly starting to weigh much less in the balance than having all of his needs met. So he’d sold all his possessions, now useless, and cashed in everything to move into his little pod, nicknamed sputnik in his head.

When the horse racing finished, the lights dimmed for his afternoon nap. The chair reclined backwards and the pod gently rocked as if trying to get a baby to sleep. Initially this had made him feel sea sick. He’d flipped urgently through the electronic pages of the manual in a bid to turn it off. However after several attempts at pressing buttons and issuing voice commands, he’d achieved nothing. Eventually he gave up. Over time he had become used to it, and now, lying there, it didn’t take him long to nod off. He no longer had worries bombarding his sleep or a busy brain from a hectic day. Instead, he lay in his darkened shell dreaming of his previous life.

When Tony woke up his pod was still dark. He felt disorientated. Generally, he woke up when the lights came on and his chair returned to a seated position, like in an aeroplane. But here he was still lying down, eyes blinking in the bottom of the capsule. He wondered if it was still nap time and lay there hopefully, but slowly it dawned on him that something was wrong. For one thing the pod wasn’t rocking and he was getting colder and colder.

He started pressing buttons, then jabbing them more frantically. The pod remained stubbornly unresponsive. He was getting close to kicking the thing when eventually the computer lit up. It started whirring as if rebooting. He relaxed and began contemplating what he was going to watch next, a quiz show that was bound to have him yelling at the TV, or a crime drama.

His relief was short lived. The whirring was soon replaced by a message on the screen:

Insufficient funds – payment required immediately.

Tony stared at the flashing words. Money was a distant memory. He had never been a rich man, but he’d thought his savings would see him out. Clearly his calculations were wrong. Lying on the still and flaccid chair he tried not to panic but he was already gasping for breath and he desperately needed to pee. He had spent years in this pod, yet he had no idea how to contact anyone if he needed them, or even how to get out of it.

Hoping there’d be an emergency button like they used to have in lifts, he looked all around him. He longed for a friendly human voice to give him reassurance and tell him they’d “get him out of there in a jiffy”, but there was nothing and tapping the screen just made the message flash faster. Giving up on dignity he started to shout and bang on the pod. He waited, but there was no response. He tried again and was met with silence . His heart pounded. When the time came he’d signed up to a nice morphine fuelled death, not one from lack of food and oxygen, or one that involved him lying in his own faeces. He kicked the computer screen. Apart from hurting his bunion nothing happened.

Just as he was about to give up, Tony noticed a little button next to the door hatch. In the gloom of the pod he’d missed it. He almost giggled at its absurdity. He leant over and pressed it. Slowly the door slid open.

Tony climbed unsteadily up on to his hands and knees and peered out of the hatch. When he’d moved into the pod, everything had looked shiny and new. The place had smelled fresh and airy. Now it looked like an abandoned warehouse. Rust covered the conveyor belts leading to each capsule. The pods themselves were covered with grime and dust. The whole place smelt foul.

At 87, Tony was no longer a nimble man and despite increased muscle tone due to the ministrations of the electro-exerciser, it took him some time to haul himself out. Suddenly he was very aware of his nakedness. He inched passed the pods. There were no signs of life, despite the grinding of the conveyor belts surrounding him. Yet, he was sure that in each capsule there was another man, with money still left, enjoying reruns of the Chase or Midsummer Murder just as he had planned.

Tony focussed on his immediate needs. The first was to have a pee. One of the joys of the pods was that he hadn’t had to hobble to the bathroom every time his shrunken bladder decided it was time. That single press of a button had been a joy. He walked unsteadily, passing row upon row of capsules, until he reached the door, cautiously opened it and looked out. He was met by a long empty corridor, a buzzing florescent light flashing incessantly, and no sign of a toilet.

Close to wetting himself, Tony considered peeing against the wall, but the idea of his ammonia stink adding to the musty smell of the room felt wrong and disrespectful to the other men dozing in front of their televisions. He shuffled further out into the corridor in the hopes of seeing something useful, but there was nothing, not even a pot to piss in. The only thing he could think to do was to ask one of his roommates if he could use their waste disposal system – just for a second.

He retraced his steps and stumbled back into the vast room. He couldn’t get over how deserted it looked. When he’d been lying in his pod he’d pictured a small army of service bots maintaining everything, overseen by a team of doctors and nurses. Maybe everything was done remotely now?

Tony staggered over to the first pod. Things were getting desperate. His bladder felt like it was about to explode. Feeling faintly ridiculous, he knocked on the hatch; quietly at first and then more vigorously. He was met by stony silence. He wondered if the person inside could hear him, or whether like him they had no idea how to open the capsule. After counting to 30 in his head, he tried again, but there was still nothing.

The last thing he wanted to do was barge in on another old guy. It might give him a heart attack. However, he could see no other option. Being found wandering around naked was one thing. Doing it with urine trickling down his leg was quite another. Tony pressed the hatch open button.

With a grinding sound, the door slowly opened on its rusty hydraulics. Before he could look inside, the stench hit him; the sweet smell of rot and decay. He stumbled backwards and began to gag violently. As he reeled, he nearly tripped over the next pod in line. He didn’t have to look to know what was inside the capsule.

Filled with fear, Tony lurched between pods.

With the same grinding sound, the hatches slowly opened.

The smell filled the room.

He was completely alone.

 

 

CLARE READ is reasonably new to writing. Two years ago she joined Marvellous Writers, a community writing group, and hasn’t looked back. She particularly enjoys writing about people that others might consider as underdogs and really likes to explore the internal world of her characters. In the non fictional world, Clare works in the NHS with people with a Learning Disability.

 

Image: J Clear at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

This is a city of night. After dark, it trembles with life.

I work nights, at a gas station beside the Autobahn. Like traffic, life passes me by. From my perch behind Perspex, I glimpse moments of it, wobbling images, no bigger than postage stamps. Funny what you get used to.

I ended up behind glass. An ambition fulfilled in some ways. A sliding partition punched with holes seals me off from people who seem distant, only inches away. As they drift through to their next episode, I am barely a supporting character. A mime.

After weeks on nights, days of the week seem unimportant. I know it’s Thursday when the Club Kids traipse across the tracks, jittery and wild-eyed, and knock on the glass to order candy and cigarettes. Look away patiently, as they scrabble with coins, identifying them by touch, when their eyes play tricks. Then they are gone for another week, sashaying into the blackness. Fortune, not skill, keeps them out of the road. They are so young, they can’t see any danger.

Before I took this job, I was a student of marine biology. But everything was different then. Ruby was still here.

I suppose it is like being in a cage. I hadn’t thought of it that way until Saturday, when a cackling man pressed his lips up against the pane and capered like a monkey until another, broader, man tapped fiercely on his shoulder and ushered him on.

Like any retail job, there are regulars, so habitual you can grab their Cheetos, their gum, their Pueblo in advance. We need only our eyes, a slight gesture; no words. My favourite is a woman I call Sierra. She comes every night for a pack of American Spirit on the way home from the casino where she works as a croupier. Her nails are always immaculate. Looking down at my own ragged cuticles, I am ashamed of their gnawed flesh, the flaked paint.

I could combine my talents, I suppose. Medical experiments. I’ve thought about it. They could pay me to sleep behind glass. Hook me up to a monitor, while they observe, sensor pads on my fingers measuring every twitch, every surge.

For now though, I am here.

Now there is no more Ruby, time is split into work and not work. A loveless blended wallpaper of sleeping and waking. Every night at 2 a.m. I take my break, while Heinrik, the supervisor, belligerently covers the register. I climb the stairs to the bridge high over the Autobahn and cross to the middle. Melding lights below me, I send plumes of smoke up towards the stars.

That night I looked down and saw her, a mystery woman sat on the bench beside the phone kiosk. That’s why she stood out, I suppose. A break from the old routine. I mean, she stood out anyway – tall, graceful, enormous hands. There was a holdall at her feet, one of those huge kitbags. In this city, you see them all the time. Slight, threadbare teenagers, like some wannabe Cheryl Strayed, legs buckling as they’re tipped forward beneath the hulk of them.

I am clockwork. Three nights, the same thing – the green bag at her feet, scrolling through something on a ritzy phone. If I were to cry out to her, my words would drown in the language of the road; whooshing tires, the symphony of horns warning against impulse.

When I was a scientist, a professor of mine gave a word of warning: I shouldn’t mind the cruelty of nature. That the aim. Is always. To try and not be cruel yourself. But I was. This same professor told me I was ‘dangerously ambitious’; as though applying that to my own life like a band aid could prevent me from doing any further harm.

When I was a scientist… A past version of myself. I am one now, still, only lapsed. Like a person who mislays their religion, because it seems at odds with their lifestyle. I’ve mislaid my ambition.

Once my studies were completed, I was cut adrift from my subjects. To remind myself who I am, I go to the reptile house three afternoons a week. Out in the raw plane of the zoological gardens, it’s the most brutal kind of cold. The reptile house is always warm.

++

I sleep Saturday away. When I wake, I struggle to get it together. My one night off: I have to go out, to the Lido, for the band I used to like with the fractious singer, the one with the flamingo pink hair.

The show is over when I arrive. On stage: another band who I do not care for. The crowd is ecstatic, shrieking someone else’s words as though they are their own. Sweat crawls down the walls. My skin feels see-through, fluorescent under the lights. I’m too hot, but know the cold outside is gruelling, so I push my way through to the back of the room. And her. She is taller than I remembered, the flat of one foot pressed into the wall. There is graffiti behind her: Punk Rock is Nicht Tot. The old symbol of Anarchy.

First circuit: I don’t even look.

Circuit two takes in the whole room – plus the bathroom, briefly, to check my teeth, tussle with my hair.

Third one: I go in.

I open my mouth and I can’t remember how to talk exactly. Beautiful people make me nervous.

Waiting for someone?
Not really. I just came to see the band.
I’m good at waiting. Not tables. No, I’d say helpless at tables. But other things.
And I am. Good at waiting. But, she doesn’t ask, doesn’t speak again, only smiles.
I smile back, but there’s a bite. I hate being pitied more than any brush off.
A lull, then:
You have a heavy bag.
She looks up at that.
Big enough, she joked, to carry a body. Ruby’s would’ve slipped in there with room to spare. Pieces of the girl so small and unafraid.

She moves off through the crowd like liquid. Shimmering inside like a Club Kids gel bracelet. Then the lights go out and the crowd’s cries switch from euphoric to chilling. A power cut. The city, so alive at night, is famed for them, striking without warning.

++

A week later she appears in gloaming. She slinks up to the window the bag knocking round her shins. In dimness of the garage forecourt, fingers splayed, she looks at me as though startled that I could exist in real life, as I am often startled myself at the sight of my own reflection.

Her voice is robotic and so low, I almost don’t understand. What she is asking for, in her slow strange way, are those gummy sweets that are sets of teeth – three packets of pink candy, inset with tiny white squares. She tips me five Euro for service I didn’t provide and sails away.

I lost Ruby at night. I was at my perch, playing solitaire with loose Smarties when the road took her. Sailed out into the blackness, as the juggernauts thundered on.

Too much mephedrone, they said. Distorted how things were. The din of the road, pulsing and rhythmic, inviting her out to dance. She thought she had wings. She expected to fly up, over the speeding metal boxes, to catch the underside of the bridge and dangle there, powerful and carefree, her legs swinging. A superhero, a comic book Catwoman. Instead she became a pile of broken bones, a beatless heart at their centre.

There’s a certain number of times the human body can stand a shock. If I scrunch my eyes closed, there’s an outline. I’m not sure if it’s hers. Heinrik is the only one who knows me. He knew me with her and sees that without her, I’m nothing.

In a second, I see my future beside the road. I yell for Heinrik, I need to go on break early, it’s an emergency. Spring up the steps to the top of the bridge and scan the darkness below. Wait. A spill of sweet teeth on the steps to the bridge like a fairground breadcrumb trail to lead me home.

Slick of wet road, lights scampering across. She shivers in the moonlight. My own teeth are chattering, I forgot the trapper coat I wear, still on the peg.

I stagger down the other side, stumbling over the last few steps. She’s bending over. A shooting pain shatters through my leg as I struggle towards her. Wait Please. I run now, thoughts spilling out.

I have so much to tell her. How I am cooped up at night, sleeping the day away. How there’s a fashion in the pizzeria here for dropping rocket on top of everything.

I tell it to the stars, because she is gone and I am powerless and sorry about it. I liked being in control of someone else. I’m not especially proud of that.

 

 

 

 

ZOË RANSON is a fiction writer from Hackney via Walton-on-the-Naze. She writes stories from the very short to the epically long and, sometimes, for the stage.
Twitter: @zooeyr

 

Image: StockSnap via Pixabay

 

My name is Dylan and I am 5 and today The Alien picked me up from school.

It’s always normally mum or my dad who pick me up. But this morning when mum was putting my packed lunch into my backpack, she said –

“Mummy and Daddy both have to work late, so The Alien is going to pick you up from school today. Is that OK?”

I didn’t know if it was OK or not OK that an alien was picking me up from school.

I met The Alien before, lots of times. He doesn’t look a lot like an alien. He looks a little bit like an alien, but a little bit like a man too. Except he’s got different shaped eyes than a man.

It must be a not very well made man costume he wears. He must wear it so people don’t think he is an alien and he looks enough like a man to go into shops and buy things and stuff.

If I worked in a shop, I wouldn’t fall for it though. He needs to get a better costume that makes his eyes a better shape. The colour of the costume is not quite right as well.

“Dylan?” said mum. “Is that OK? For The Alien to pick you up from school?”

One time my big cousin Blake told me about this thing called Alien Abdoption. It’s when aliens come into little boys’ bedrooms at night and abdopt them and take them to their space ships and put things up their bums. The story made me cry and Blake got smacks for it. That was before I started going to school. Now I’m going to school and I’m more grown up and haven’t cried for more than three days now.

“A little bit OK,” I said to mum. I felt like a big boy that I’d said ‘A little bit OK’ instead of how I really felt. Really, I felt scared about an alien abdoption happening to me.

One time mum told me that a girl in my class, Alex, got abdopted when she was two, which is why her skin is the colour of chocolate even though her mum and dad’s skin is normal coloured. One day at school, I will ask Alex what alien abdoption is like, and what it is they put up your bum to make your skin turn brown.

Today at school we got taught about magic “E”. You put it on the end of a word and it changes how it sounds. Plan turns into Plane. Cut turns into Cute.

Then at break-time, Sebastian from my class did a wee wee in his pants and everyone ran away from him when they saw the dark patch getting bigger and bigger on his trousers. He was just standing there crying and we were all round him in a big circle, laughing.

After break, we got a special lesson about how it is not nice to point at people and laugh at them, and instead we should co-exist peacefully. Sebastian got given new trousers out of the drawer where they keep spare clothes for people who wee wee themselves, and the rest of us made pictures of boats using hard pasta. I put a bit of macaroni up my nose and everyone laughed until someone told on us and I got a little bit of a row.

It was a fun day. I forgot that I was going to be picked up by The Alien and maybe abdopted and turned brown forever.

After school finished, The Alien was waiting for me in the playground. When I saw him I remembered how I know he’s an alien.

He came to the big Tesco with me and mum one time, and I was fighting him with the toy light sabers from the toy aisle. Then mum gave us a row and said we should put them back before we break them and cause the man from the shop to get very angry.

Then he told me. He kneeled down and told me he’s actually from a galaxy far far away and he has The Force. I didn’t believe him at first, but he even proved it by stopping just before the supermarket doors and opening them himself without even touching them. He just moved his hand and the doors opened. It was so cool.

When The Alien picked me up today, we walked for a little bit until we were away from the school. The roads got busy and the cars were whizzing past really fast. I know not to go on roads without holding hands with a grown up. But The Alien was very scared about me running ahead of him even though I was on the pavement, always saying – “Careful! The road!”

Then he picked me up and held me high up above his head and did the Star Wars song and ran very fast down the pavement. I was flying like the Millennium Falcon. It was very very cool.

After that, the abdoption began.

We were in a strange place where you had to go downstairs as soon as you go in the door. Then it smelt funny and had weird music on. There was a big fish tank with very funny fish in it. The fish were very orange and had lots of alien flaps, like Nemo if Nemo was from the alien world.

It was a big room with lots of tables, and all of them had other aliens on them. They were in badly made human costumes, same as The Alien, and they were all speaking Alien. We get taught about other languages, but this wasn’t any of them. It sounded like they were singing to each other. They ate different too, with sticks, holding two sticks in one hand like magic and putting the food in their mouths with them, very fast.

The Alien told me to sit at one of the tables. He let me play Candy Crush on his phone. Mum or dad never let me do that.

The Alien has a mum, same as humans do. She brought him a bowl of what looked a little bit like soup and a little bit like grey water with small alien parcels floating in them. The Alien started eating the parcels with his alien sticks. Tunwuns or something, they were called.

I told The Alien about Magic E, and he laughed and said he likes Magic E too, specially on a Saturday night, and then laughed some more.

Then the Alien Mum brought me chips and Coke. Mum or dad never let me have Coke after school. And the alien chips were way better than human chips.

The Alien asked me what Coke was if you took the Magic E off.

“Cok,” I said. It made him laugh a lot, so I kept covering the Magic E on the can with my fingers and saying it.

“You’re one funny little geezer,” he said.

Then mum came. She called The Alien ‘Techno Tommy’, and kept thanking The Alien for doing what he did. Mum and The Alien held hands like what we do with people in school when we line up in the playground.

I think aliens are very cool. I think humans and aliens can co-exist peacefully.

And the alien abdoption was OK, and if they put anything up my bum I didn’t even feel it.

So far, I have not even turned brown.

 

 

 

NEIL CLARK works and lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has writing in Riggwelter Press (forthcoming issue 8) and was recently showcased alongside other Scottish writers as part of Book Week Scotland. He posts very short stories in Tweet form from @NeilRClark

Image: Pawel86 via Pixabay

Darren Goodwater, an underemployed actor who specialized in re-enactment TV programs, never slept much at all and even less after he began to doubt night had an ending. In despair, he threw away his clocks.

“Time management,” was how Darren described the choice he’d made.

No one wanted to talk about the apparent bloat of the sun, or how it set a few minutes earlier each day, or how dawn was delayed until the afternoon. Our new solar reality meant sunrise heralded lunch, not breakfast. We could be forgiven for not noticing at first; the change had happened so slowly — a minute hand on one of Darren’s discarded clocks, or flowers ripening into nuts, or dinosaur carcasses mortifying into coal. Never forget that kidney stones grow in darkness.

Despite the swelling ball of hell above our heads, pundits blamed hotter weather on the global warming everyone had blathered about for years. Dissension percolated while the sun doubled in diameter each week. Record high temperatures boosted social interaction at least:

“Hot enough for you?”

“Why, yes, I expect it is.”

Evenings were longer now. A person couldn’t ease into slumber without wondering if there was enough traction to climb out the other side. What if you got stuck, couldn’t find the momentum, the ramp that launched you back up to a nice shower and talk shows and double espressos? The extended sleep cycle left ample opportunity for two, three, as many as seven dreams in one go. Pure seduction. For many of us, a week’s worth of false things we’d probably never see or do.

“No way I’m falling for that,” Darren Goodwater said in a background noise kind of voice. “I mean, if I don’t wake up, and someone gains an advantage from it…”

A scant four hours of light pressed down on us daily. Instead of sheltering from the routine broil, we staggered from Point A to Point B and took care of day-business while we could. Darren, on his way to the bodega for sundries, finally decided to, well, declare. His internal organs felt especially tingly just then.

He scrambled atop a black & white police car in front of the precinct headquarters. Wilted cops lounging outside on the steps glared at Darren but made no move to stop him. They mopped their brows and waited for better crimes. Due to present circumstances it was preferable to allow citizens to let off a little steam, within reason.

“I’ve devoted my life to the pursuit of art,” Darren told scattered passersby, whose numbers and expectations multiplied as he spoke. “Even if you don’t watch cable TV crime shows, or historical dramas, or local commercials, I was there for you. Or maybe it was for me. All I know for certain is that I was there.”

Wobbly with heatstroke, fatigue, and passion, Darren gleamed atop the car. Too much exposed, sweaty skin; hair and beard curls tight as trampoline springs; bare feet like suction cups. Darren’s muscle spasms animated his tattoos. Stripped down to almost nothing, all of us. Modesty was one of the first casualties when afternoon temperatures started averaging one hundred twenty degrees Fahrenheit.

“We mustn’t allow the day’s heat to drive us into night’s cold headlock!” Darren said. His voice increased in volume and pitch, not that it helped. “What good is our world, our own humble lives, this multi-part episode if you will, if we sleep through the post-climax resolution that explains everything?”

An older gentleman fainted. Speeches and thermal extremes are tough on elders, make no mistake. The crowd that encircled Darren’s police car reflowed itself around the collapsed oldster.

“He’s trying to speak!” someone cried. “Give him room!” shouted another.

Darren jumped down onto the melty asphalt and squirmed through the mob. He bent to the victim, whose mouth opened and closed silently as if in prayer.

“What is it, old fellow?” asked Darren. “Rest easy, you’re with friends.”

A woman took off her wide-brimmed hat and fanned sweltering air toward the victim.

“So damned hot all the time,” gasped the man. “Are we moving closer to the sun, or is it just getting bigger?”

“Why can’t it be both?” said Darren. He was a Civil War soldier waiting stoically for the signal to charge; the murder suspect’s friend and neighbor, ignorant of the accused’s bad intentions.

“Oh, goddamn you,” the man said. His eyes closed and he appeared what is called beatific: all peaceful and dead-like. Then he began to snore.

Darren looked up at the sky; he had read somewhere that dumb beasts rarely did so, only humans. The rising red sun’s ever-expanding perimeter would have matched a rainbow’s arc, except fire filled the curve’s belly. Darren sniffed seared atmosphere and caught the scent of radiation and brimstone. To smell a star — now, that was the stuff of overabundant dreams.

 

 

 

MICHAEL GRANT SMITH wears sleeveless T-shirts, weather permitting. His writing has appeared in elimae, Ghost Parachute, Longshot Island, The Airgonaut, formercactus, Riggwelter, and others. Michael resides in Ohio. He has traveled to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Cincinnati. To learn too much about Michael, please visit http://www.michaelgrantsmith.com and @MGSatMGScom.

 

Image: Remo Puls via Pixabay 

Maria the baker’s wife watched Petros’ Scania truck wheeze to a stop outside Pandora’s bakery. When he jumped from the cab, leaving the engine on a low rumble, she scooted over to the till, shooing Antigone, her ever-so-simple niece, away.

‘Go put the fresh bread on the shelf. I’ll take care of this.’ The morning’s intelligence rattled her teeth with eagerness to spill like a box of dominos on a wooden table.

Petros, called kali mera and headed for the chiller cabinet. He stoically ignored the sugar-laden pastries, piled on the bakery counter, assaulting his nose – his Mirabelle would be hurt if he bought one. He grabbed the bottle of redtop milk she’d asked him to pick up took it to Maria, waiting, waiting at the till.

‘One Euro-fifty, please Petro mou.’ Maria put the bottle of milk in a green plastic bag. ‘You know, ever since high school, I’ve admired the way you thumb your nose at what others might say.’

Petros handed over two Euros. ‘What are you talking about?’ Shit, he shouldn’t have said anything. Whatever it was he didn’t know, he also knew his not knowing would fuel her tongue further.

‘Mirabelle’s new butterflies.’ Maria’s tongue snaked across her lips. ‘They’ll look lovely against the pink, Petros.’

‘Maria, for the love of God, stop talking in riddles. Against what pink?’

‘The new house. I hear she’s chosen an interesting shade of pink for it.’

‘Pink?’ He’d just left the building site. Lenin hadn’t mentioned it.

‘More heavy on the cochineal coconut-ice pink than a delicate shell, if I understand correctly.’

‘What the hell is coch…coconut-ice and what has it to do with the colour of the house?’

‘It’s the shade. Of pink. Dark pink. You mix carmine dye from the cochineal insect –’ Petros stared, open-mouthed. Had she gone mad? ‘– to condensed milk and coconut, with some icing sugar and vanilla and you get a lovely dark pink mix.’

‘Maria, forget the cooking lesson, just tell me what you’ve heard.’

‘Antigone! Get back to here,’ Maria shouted.

As Maria walked him to his truck, Petros stooped to catch the barrage of her whispered exclusive.

Grim-faced, he gunned the engine and drove off, showering Maria and her smile with gravel.

Ten minutes later, his brakes hissed to a shuddering stop outside the crumbling mud-and-wattle house he and Mirabelle had endured for thirty years.

‘Pink?’ he said barging into the kitchen.

‘Petro mou,’ Mirabelle dusted her floury hands on her apron. ‘What is it?’ her fingers fluttered to his cheek, leaving flecks of dough impaled by his stubble. ‘What is it my darling?’ She prised the plastic bag from his clenched hand and put the milk in the old fridge behind the backdoor. Mirabelle finished patting the dough on the wooden table, slid it into a white enamel bowl and covered it with a butterfly-print tea towel. After placing the bowl next to the hot oven to prove, she smiled at her husband, a man as malleable as bread dough in her hands and said, ‘Sit, my love and tell me what’s bothering you.’

‘Pink. They say you want to paint the house pink.’

‘Who says, my darling?’

‘Maria. She says –’

‘Maria? The Village Gossip?’

‘Yes. She says that Antigone –’

Antigone? The Village Idiot?’

‘Well, yes. Antigone says that Stella –’

‘Stella? The Village Tart?’

‘Stella told Antigone,’ Petros said, ‘that you’ve ordered pink paint for the house. Dark pink.’

‘Does she? Interesting.’

‘What’s interesting?’

‘How would Stella know that? Don’t you think that’s interesting, my love?’

Petros looked at his darling Mirabelle. Thirty years and still he hadn’t figured her, or any woman, out. But he had learnt it wasn’t worth the effort to try. They never made sense.

Mirabelle, washing her floury hands, was still his raven-haired Aphrodite, even at fifty. He knew the men in the village envied him. Mirabelle never nagged, never scratched his tired mind in their feathered bed for snippets of gossip and never complained when he went hunting or fishing. He watched her lovingly rinse tomatoes and cucumbers in the running water. She was as soft and sweet as candyfloss. She never flirted, never ever gave him a moment’s trouble. He smelt the walnut cake working its magic in the oven and eyed the pyramid of freshly fried keftedes flecked with parsley on the kitchen table. God he loved those little meatballs. Her cooking was truly a gift from the gods.

‘Is it true?’ He was sitting perilously close to the meatballs.

‘Is what true?’

‘That you want to paint the house pink.’ Saliva dripped like a waterfall in his mouth. He swallowed. ‘Bright pink.’

Mirabelle walked over to him, her plump moist hand reached out, plucking a keftede from the top of the pile. She popped it in his mouth. ‘Let me get you a beer, my darling, you look worn out.’

Petros closed his eyes and chewed slowly, savouring the shards of flavour detonating in his mouth. The cap from the Keo hissed. He opened his eyes as Mirabelle poured the liquid gold into the chilled glass she kept in the fridge.

‘Drink that Petro mou, I’ll make a salad and then we can eat.’

‘But Mirabelle, everyone calls it “The Palace.” When the village hears you want it pink…’ Already he was imagining the smirks and sniggers in the village coffee shop. Tension returned, knotting his shoulders.

‘I don’t understand you, Petro.’ She turned away from him and began chopping a fat red tomato. ‘You come charging in here like a bull because of something a whore told an idiot who told a gossip. Village prattle never bothered you before.’

‘But a “Pink Palace?”’

Petros eyed the delicious pulsation of the dimple nestled in her pudgy elbow.

Maria’s rhythmic chopping action speeded up. ‘If any of them had won as much as you on the lottery, do you think they would even stay here? In the village.’ The dimple became furious. ‘Oh no. They’d be off to the bright lights of Nicosia or Limassol, moving into an apartment in one of the new towers by the sea so they could say they’re neighbours of Elton John and his fancy man.’ Mirabelle turned aiming a glossy cucumber at him. ‘And they’d be driving there in their fancy new German cars, wearing fancy Gucksi sunglasses and carrying fancy Louis Button handbags.’

‘Calm down, my sweet.’ Petros’ fingers edged towards the meatballs. Before he could snare one, Mirabelle stood over him, planting her hands, one still clutching the cucumber, either side of the dish.

‘Haven’t I been a good wife? Mother? I’ve never asked you for anything. I’ve given you three fine sons. And Christina.’ Petros looked up abandoning the meatball, his eyes transfixed by the brilliant butterfly clip in her hair; a plastic corpse pinned against the enhanced black sheen of Mirabelle’s hair. ‘I go to church on Sundays; slave day in and day out to keep this crumbling house clean and to put good food on your table in this miserable kitchen.’

Petros looked around at the peeling cream plaster, the chipped enamel sink and winced when, as if on cue, their twenty-five-year-old Frigidaire compressor cranked to bronchitic life. She had a point.

Mirabelle went back to the sink and sniffed loudly. She fumbled with her butterfly-print apron and dabbed her eyes.

‘Mirabelle, agapi mou, my love, I didn’t mean –’ Petros rose and folded her in his arms, carefully moving the knife away.

‘All I’m asking is a nice new house, Petraki mou, with room for the children, and God willing, grandchildren to live.’ Her voice dropped with a soft hiccough and her eyes filled with tears. ‘After all you’re getting the new trucks. So, I want it pink. My darling Petey-poo, is that too much?’

‘Of course it’s not too much, my angel.’ Thirty years and she still made his heart crumple.
‘And Lenin told me you said I can’t have the columns.’

‘Don’t you think six columns are a bit much, Mirabelle mou?’

‘But I’ve dreamt of living in a house with columns since I was ten.’ She gasped loudly, fighting back the tears. ‘Like in Dallas.’

‘I know.’ Shame filled his heart. She was right. She never asked for much, not really. ‘Perhaps we could have two small ones, in the front porch, eh?’

‘Can we?’ Mirabelle trembled and sniffed loudly into his chest.

‘I’ll call Lenin in the morning and tell him.’

‘You’re such a good man. Finish your beer, the pourgouri is almost ready. I’ll finish the salad, then we can eat.’

‘I’ll tell him to cancel the paint order as well.’ Petros sneaked another meatball into his mouth.

‘Whatever you think best, Petro mou.’ Mirabelle spooned the bulgur pilaf into a Pyrex dish and laid a terracotta pot of sheep’s yoghurt next to it. She slid the glistening salad, speckled with rigani and coated with thick green oil pressed from their own olives next to the pilaf and meatballs.

‘Where are the kids?’ he asked.

‘They’ll be in later. Let’s eat now and then we can watch the news and Greek Idol.’

The long-awaited rain arrived in the night. The next morning, Petros left to pick up a container from Limassol. Mirabelle watched him stop to pick up Yiayia Katarina. The wizened old crone flagged him down with her knuckled oak stick every Friday to hitch a ride to see her grandchildren in the next village. No one, not even Grandmother Katarina Hajicostas herself with her nut-brown face, ravined by wrinkles and the tufts of cotton-wool hair slipping from her black headscarf, knew how old she was. For forty years, she had worn widow’s black, head to toe since her husband went down with his ship in the South China Seas. Petros jumped down to help Katarina into his cab, his great hands cushioning her scrawny bottom until she got a toehold. The truck drove towards the old Limassol Road, but Mirabelle was watching another widow. Every morning, for the past six months since her husband died, Aglaia Papasavva made her pilgrimage to the church. And every morning she looked that bit thinner, her widow’s dress billowing a bit more and her black stockings sagging deeper around her ankles.

Dear God, Mirabelle thought, Aglaia must be the first and only sixty-two-year-old anorexic in the world. Mirabelle turned her gaze to the far side of the field where their new house was rising like Aphrodite from the seas.

An hour later, when a flatbed truck pulled up outside the yellow container reincarnated as an on-site office, she pulled on her mushrooming boots and waded across the field of dewy mustard flowers and butter-yellow Lazarus daisies to have a word with Lenin Blackeye, owner of Lenin Mavromatis, Construction Inc.

Lenin sat at a metal desk, shuffling blueprints, in a haze of pungent Gitanes smoke.

‘Kali mera, Kyria Mirabelle.’

‘Good morning to you, Kyrie Lenin.’ She swatted the smoky air. ‘Put that vile thing out. Did Petros call you this morning?’

‘He did. Two small columns, in the porch.’ Lenin sipped his muddy coffee. ‘I’m just amending the blueprints.’

‘Six columns.’

‘But your husband said –’

‘Mr Lenin, something strange happened yesterday.’

‘Look Mrs Mirabelle I can’t put six columns on the house. What will Petros say?’

Nothing. He and Lambros are leaving for Sweden tomorrow to pick up the new trucks. He’ll be gone for two weeks.’

“I don’t feel right about this. We hunt and fish together. We’re mates. I can’t go behind his back.’ Lenin’s hairy hand scrabbled like a tarantula across the blueprints. ‘Where in God’s name is my mobile? I’m going to call him.’

‘I really don’t think that’s a good idea Mr Lenin.’ Mirabelle’s hand nailed his hand, stilling it. Lenin looked at her. A logjam of worry furrowed between his eyebrows and his eyelids dropped like slats. ‘Not unless you want me to tell your dear wife Margarita, my best friend, about you and Stella.’

Lenin ossified in his chair.

They stared at each other. Neither blinked.

Three deep breaths, two uncomfortable swallows later, Lenin said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do.’ Mirabelle lifted her hand and wiped it on her skirt. Lenin had started to sweat. It really was quite unpleasant. ‘I hate to think what it would do to her – and to you. After all, your mayoral campaign would go the way of a lamb at Easter if you were to lose Margarita’s financial and social support.’ Lenin eased another cigarette from the blue pack, even though one still burnt in the ashtray, and lit it. ‘Not to mention your reputation.’

His other hand, reaching for the coffee cup in a show of insouciance, sent a wave of sediment over the plans when Ajmal, a Pakistani labourer, clattered through the door.

‘Hey boss, cement truck’s here. We start pouring?’

‘Mrs Mirabelle, I need to go –’

‘No, you don’t.’ Mirabelle turned to the labourer. ‘He’ll be out in a minute.

Ajmal backed out. Female obstinacy smelt the same in any language.

‘Mrs Mirabelle, be reasonable. Six columns? It’s too late.’ He looked up from the ruined plans. ‘And Petros will kill me.’

‘Pity, Mr Lenin. I hear the DISY people don’t like candidates with any aroma of sleaze. Not to mention illegal labour. You know what hypocrites Conservatives are; they’re almost as bad as the Church. And Father George’s support is always crucial.’

‘You have no basis for such accusations.’

‘Really? You and I discussed the colour of the house on Wednesday afternoon.’ Mirabelle waited. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong.’ Lenin said nothing. ‘Thursday morning Stella tells Antigone who tells Maria, our very own BBC World Service, that I want the house painted pink. Now who, I wonder, told Stella?’

‘It could have been anybody –’

‘But I told you I wanted to tell Petros myself.’ Maria said.

‘Well, I don’t –’

‘And isn’t it Wednesday nights Margarita always stays with her old mother in Larnaca?’

‘You are putting me in a very difficult position, Mrs Mirabelle.’

‘I think you’ve put yourself in a very difficult position, Mr Lenin.’

‘I need to think about this. I really think we should discuss this with Pet –’

‘By all means. Do whatever you wish. Good luck with the campaign, Mr Lenin. Oh, tell Margarita I’m making her favourite for our pilotta session tonight. Loukoumades. She and Maria say my sugar dumplings are the best. Of course, Theodora is more restrained as is fitting for a priest’s wife, unless there’s gossip on the table. Then she eats everything.’ Mirabelle stood and opened the door.

‘Wait, my dear Mirabelle.’ Lenin rose from his chair, head shaking, tongue tutting. ‘Perhaps you’re right. After all a house is a woman’s domain. Six columns it will be.’

‘Thank you, Lenin.’ Mirabelle walked over to him and kissed one cheek then the other. ‘I knew you would understand.’

‘Nothing. Nothing.’

‘I must go. I promised Petros rabbit stew tonight.’ At the door, Mirabelle stopped. ‘And Lenin?’

‘Yes.’ His smile, which had dropped like a tart’s knickers, did a rapid rewind.

‘Don’t cancel the pink paint order.’

‘No, Mirabelle.’

Mirabelle stepped down from the container and walked to where the men waited for Lenin. She looked at the embryonic house. She didn’t see grey concrete, pipes and wires; she saw a pink Dallas mansion alive with a wonderful profusion of the painted metal butterflies handcrafted and painted by Haitians, which she had ordered from Constantina’s gift emporium.

 

 

 

Image: StockSnap

 

My name is Suzanne and I live alone. You know this. Lou Reed was singing ‘Perfect Day’ on the radio when I woke up this morning. Today is the anniversary of your proposal. I spin the memory in my hands.

The day you proposed I awoke on the edge of morning to a curtain of silence creeping in from the lake. The cabin creaked as it adjusted, our fire of the night before still hanging in the air. Sliding one leg out from under the woollen blankets that warmed me the rough floor met my skin. My feet led me to the door that opened onto the sunrise. You had gone to get breakfast and left a note on the step pinned down with a stone that we’d brought from the shore –Marry me. So every day rises with hope.

I feel vain when I tell you that my appearance upsets me, but I was quite beautiful before the TFM (Truck Flattened Me) day (not quite, very, you insist, still are). I got rid of my mirrors. Now people see only one thing.

So here I am on our special day, shuffling from bed to where my chariot (stair lift) awaits. It was carrying shipping containers, the truck. We were on the M20, coming back home from a cycling expedition. You know this too of course. Your hand on my knee, driving. I fed you coffee and gossip. The bikes were in the boot. We should have bought a roof rack.

I scan the photographs as I go down. Every stair a different view: laughing me, salted sun streaked hair on my surf board; jubilant me, astride our road bikes on our first sportif. I look for a glimmer of recognition of what was to come but our faces are wide open. It took us five hours to choose the bike that you wanted for me, complete with Shimano brakes and made entirely of carbon. I could lift it with one finger. It entered your back and punctured your chest at seventy miles an hour with the weight of the truck behind it. The lightness meant nothing, after all.

‘Are you excited?’ you’d asked as you paid for it, your enthusiasm eclipsing mine.
‘Of course’ I’d replied, ‘I can’t wait’.
‘Finally we can do those trips we’ve always wanted,’ you said – smiling, looking beyond me to the maps and plans that lay ahead.

They sawed my bike from your body to get you out. Cut the handle bar from your chest. My Shimano brake was lodged behind your thoracic vertebrae.

The chariot is slow, chug chugging downwards on its steel tracks. They don’t make these for people who are in a hurry, with places to go. My wheelchair at the bottom greets me. It has forced me to be grateful.

Outside the kitchen I hear music. I dare to dream. The strain of an orchestra, a jazz guitar. We loved our music, you and I. Summertime would wash us up on a beer-strewn beach, deck chairs and umbrellas carving people into an array of bodily parts; a partially buried foot, a naked thigh, blonde hairs trapping specks of sand. The sea mingling with guitar chords. We’d wiggle our toes in the salty sea, the cold shocking us into sobriety. I imagined fish festivals below (always dreaming, always one foot here and one foot there, you said, laughing).

I push through the past and open the door to find my kitchen transformed into a jazz bar. The kitchen sink is a cocktail counter, the table a stage with an orchestra playing upon it. The French doors now lead to a cobbled street bathed in decidedly un-British sunlight. Smoke floats hazily in front of the cupboards and the slate tiled floor is smooth and shiny. It must feel cold against warm feet.

Some people would have been shocked by the discovery that their kitchen had become a jazz bar, but I take it all in my stride (no pun intended). After a TFM day nothing surprises you. Just as I compose my ‘this happens to me all the time’ face I notice Leonard Cohen, standing in the corner. We resolutely disagreed on Leonard, you and I. You thought him bleak and full of sorrow. I thought him full of hope. Ironic that you left and he stayed behind.

I accept his outstretched hand and he sweeps me onto the dance floor that used to be my hearth, holding me close as we sway to the music and talk of tea from China and the sailors on the water. I breathe in the husk of him, pressed against my jutting ribs. I feel his hand against my back that broke.

All too soon the smoke is thinning and the music fading. Leonard’s sweet lips are upon mine but briefly and returning me to my chair he whispers, ‘I’m your man.’ It feels cruel in the circumstances. In the smoky dimming room he loses outline. He wanes and then is gone. You did not fade, you just blew out.

I wheel myself back to the bottom of the stairs and start the ascent. Beyond this wall is the garden we never grew, barren and dry beneath its walls. Rake and shovel leaning where I left them. Hiding places unfound. The air is still with the dances we will never dance and silent with the songs we will never sing. The barbecue waits. You had been going to clean it for a long time.

The scent of Leonard lingers, lemongrass and oranges. I had forgotten what dancing feels like. Your absence keens and I am again broken.

I swing my patchwork body onto my bed and my torso tilts into the mattress under the weight of you beside me. I wrap my absent legs around your invisible body. You forgive me for Leonard, ‘we only live once after all’ you say.

We laugh at our private joke.

 

 

 

HANNAH PERSAUD is represented by Laura Macdougall of United Agents. Winner Fresher Prize 2017. Runner Up InkTears 2016/2017. Published in numerous places.

 

Image: Gemma Evans on Unsplash 

My name is Juliet, and I work from home. I am a cog in a machine, and as long as the machine functions, I require no maintenance.

Every day, or sometimes every other day, I am sent a batch of ergs. It is my job to turn the ergs into phlebs, and once this is done I send them back for checking, or sometimes I send them directly on down the chain. Occasionally, whole weeks go by when I am not sent any ergs, then they all come at once, on Friday evening, a muted firework display of flashes in the corner of my screen. Party time.

The ergs come to me from various sources, different email addresses, only some of which are linked to faces. They usually lack any kind of fanfare, and are accompanied by limited metadata. A one-line brief is metadata. A cheery sign-off, of the kind people once used when they wrote letters, is metadata. These days, most of the sources have dispensed with the metadata, because they know that I know what I am doing.

This knowledge is the only power I have, and it helps that my work is obscure. The weakness in my set-up lies in the fact that because the work is obscure, not everyone is convinced that it takes any skill, or indeed that it is necessary. Changing an erg into a phleb is not difficult, but it can require ingenuity. Perhaps the erg is not quite an erg at all, and so it is virtually impossible to convert into a convincing phleb, but still I must attempt it. Usually I can get away with making the defective erg the closest possible approximation of a phleb, even if it might not hold up to scrutiny. My sense of what will just pass muster is finely honed; I have dealt with a great many substandard ergs over the years. Anyway, most of the phlebs will be consumed rapidly and thoughtlessly. Some will never see the light of day at all.

It can happen that not enough time is allowed for the process of transformation. I have tricks to make it more efficient, but it takes as long as it takes, and I have to eat and sleep and work on other ergs. And yes, there are the ergs that are just not very good to start with. Ergs that have been dashed off, created by non-specialists, copied from other ergs. I’m allowed in theory to send ergs back, but in practice I rarely do. It’s usually so much less trouble just to give them a bit of extra manipulation and get on with the next. One of the reasons I am sent so many ergs is that I process them without any fuss.

I work alone, but I am not alone. There are armies of us, working away in our rooms, changing ergs to phlebs 24/7 and scratching out a living. As a veteran operative I make a reasonable income, but finding the time and the mental discipline to enjoy what I earn is a challenge. It can seem that the line of least resistance is simply to return to the screen after a break and process a few more. It’s been years since I left the apartment complex. My work doesn’t require it, and everything can be delivered, even if the drivers complain about the nineteenth-floor address. I have a treadmill in the spare room, though it’s gathering dust and I am slowly expanding to fill every corner of my chair.

Usually, I get no feedback on my work. Rarely, I will receive a phleb back again for a second look. This used to upset me, no matter how politely phrased the metadata, but as the years have gone by I’ve consoled myself with the fact that it’s only a tiny percentage of my phlebs that don’t hit the mark – and after all, I am still human. I think they would like to pretend that we aren’t, but there’s not yet any getting away from that awkward fact.

It’s true that as lone operatives we’re vulnerable. The ergs are not big enough on their own to require more than one of us to work on them; they are carefully portioned to be just right to occupy a few hours or at most a couple of days of one person’s time, so we never work together. I suspect that many of the phlebs we produce are destined to become pieces of a much larger whole, but I will never see the completed article. I wouldn’t know where to start looking for it. And if I did find it, I mightn’t have the capacity to understand it, having dealt exclusively in fragments for so long.

I’ve been turning ergs into phlebs for nearly twenty years now, and the expectation is that I could do it for at least another twenty. I’ve made most of the improvements in my technique that I ever will, although there’s always room for more. None of us will ever attain perfection, though we can die trying.

*

While I wouldn’t say I was happy exactly, this state of affairs was stable, and I fully expected it to continue for the foreseeable future. I didn’t want to rock the boat; falling out could have been so much worse, so much less controllable. But then something happened that I hadn’t ever allowed myself to imagine. One day, the ergs stopped coming.

It wasn’t common, but there had been times when I’d gone more than a week without ergs, and then usually there was a flood of them – but this time, it had been ten days, and then a fortnight, with none at all. The screen seemed to echo with the lack. For hours each day I would sit there, waiting. Trying to find other things to think about. Fiddling with my split ends, picking my nose, worrying at the frayed edge of the seat cover on my chair. I played games with myself, daring the ergs to come when I wasn’t looking. But still they didn’t arrive. The sun rose behind the blinds each morning, and then set again until the room dissolved around the point of the blinking cursor, and eventually I would go to bed, ergless still, and adrift. I had no one to turn to.

In the early days, I used to chat with other operatives online, but gradually the talk faded as we all figured out what we were doing, and realised that the time spent interacting was time spent not processing, and it wasn’t rewarded. I don’t know. Perhaps the newer operatives still interact. Perhaps my contemporaries never stopped. But then I didn’t know where to get in touch with them, any more.

After a month of tumbleweed – no ergs at all – my confidence had plummeted to its lowest level and I felt barely human, more like a dust ball in the corner of a room, or a smear of dirt on the floor. I hadn’t exactly led a life replete with meaning before the erg-drought, but now there was literally zilch. I was a pulsating nub of nothing, encased in a fat human shell. There were tracts of untracked time that I can’t now account for, like waking nightmares, when I know I was absent but I couldn’t tell you what I was doing. Without the regular drip of work, my life was shapeless, treacherous, a marsh in thick fog riddled with traps.

It was out of this utterly wretched state, somewhere between periods of fitful, useless sleep, that I gathered my senses and finally decided to do something I had never done. I hadn’t done it because I hadn’t ever needed to. Oh, I knew about it from those early days of gossiping and comparing, but none of my closest online buddies had done it either, and we all smugly looked down on those who did: those who went soliciting.

It is easy enough to find a way in. Though it’s not formally sanctioned they want you to be able to solicit if you need to. Otherwise, the whole thing could so easily break down. Those gleaming formal procedures depend on an underlying dark web propping them up, keeping things going. So a few clicks and taps, and I was in already, and putting myself out there. Asking for it. If I closed my eyes I saw flashes inside the lids of a past life in which I walked, but now it wasn’t beside a babbling brook or across rolling parkland, faithful dog at my side and the sun in my hair. No, I was stalking a dark, narrow, rain-streaked pavement, wind whipping my bare legs, on unfamiliar heels, trying not to wrench an ankle. Waiting for the scrunch of tyres on tarmac beside me, the throb of the engine restrained, the window wound down. The voice asking: ‘How much, love?’

I ignored the first two that came by, but then I realised that was stupid; there was no point my being there with that attitude. So when the third one slowed beside me, and the tinted glass zipped down, and the question was asked, I called back my price.
He looked me up and down, long yellowed teeth like those of a giant rodent glinting in the sodium glow from the other side of the car. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, laughing, but not unkind. ‘I’ll give you half that.’

‘Three-quarters,’ I said, forcing a smile, hoping there was no lipstick on my teeth. ‘I’m very experienced.’

He laughed again, as if he enjoyed the game, and told me to get in, re-zipping the window and popping the door open with a smooth click. Inside the vehicle was warm, smelling of synthetic lily of the valley and fag ash. It was good to be out of the rain and off the street. He put a gloved hand on the white of my thigh, frozen like cheap chicken and painful to the touch.

‘How many?’ he asked.

‘As many as you can give me,’ I said. He held all the power and we both knew it, but I tried to pump my voice up with assertiveness, like an expensively poisoned face.

‘Let’s try five, see how we get on,’ he decided. ‘And for that figure, let’s just say I’ll be expecting something special.’ But he didn’t give me them right away, though by then I’d had enough of the comfortable car and was already desperate to be back out there, submersed in the black evening, fumbling towards anonymous safety. He reached for the glove compartment and drew out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter, lit two and puffed out the smoke, passing me one of them through the choking cloud.

‘But I don’t—’ I started, and he chuckled and said, ‘Oh, but clearly you do.’

He watched as I smoked the whole thing down to the filter, gulping in scented blue air and then spluttering it out, spit flecking the dashboard. His hand was back on my thigh, just resting there the whole time. Then when I had stubbed the thing out he flipped the door open again, and ejected me on to the pavement with a smile flickering around the edges of those lips, between patches of bristle where he’d shaved carelessly. Flash of those curved, wicked teeth in a half-smile as he waited for me to get down on the rough ground, sharp stones puncturing the skin of my knees. ‘Payment on receipt,’ he said, cold now. Only then, when he’d seen me beg, would he give me the five ergs.

*

I worked through the first four as if in a trance. It had been so long since I’d processed anything I was slow at first, and I had to keep going back to check that I’d done things right. Mostly I had, and I made only small, non-essential adjustments and tweaks on the second pass. My confidence seeped back. These would tide me over, I thought, until the machine cranked into life again, as surely it would. It always had.

Despite their irregular provenance, those first four ergs were unremarkable in terms of quality. They were much like all the others I had ever worked on. Tangible yet weightless, they didn’t linger in the mind. As I finished each one I sent it back as requested, and after a short interval, I received payment as promised.

The fifth erg was different, so I saved it for last. For a start, it was much bigger. As I said, most take only an hour or two to process, sometimes a couple of days. I can usually tell before I inspect them, simply by noting the size of the attachment. The first four had all been roughly equal in size in terms of memory, and they had each taken the time I would have expected them to, and no more. They seemed to have come from similar sources, perhaps even the same source, though they were, as ever, not closely related. They hadn’t been problematic in any way; in fact they had turned out quite lucrative, and for a while I wondered if I had after all been too quick to dismiss a viable income stream. My knees had healed and were it not for the haunting scent of lily of the valley still clinging to my hair like mist, I might have forgotten the ordeal of procuring the things. It had been a business transaction, I told myself. Nothing more.

However this last erg, I estimated, based on its size alone, would take me a fortnight to process: quite a different beast from my regular fare. I had three weeks remaining before it was due, so after sending off the fourth erg I decided to go to bed early and start afresh in the morning.

From the moment my eyes flicked open, I knew the day would bring something unexpected. I had a peculiar lightness inside as I made coffee, and wondered if I was falling ill. I still hadn’t taken any regular deliveries of ergs, but there was time, and I think I was dizzy with the anticipation of working on something potentially quite interesting. Catch of the day! Like a tuna, valuable and glistening, barely breathing, in my inbox. Perhaps it was something important; it seemed like a mark of trust. The closest thing I could imagine to a compliment, it had come to me for a reason. My cheeks flared in the dawn’s half-light, as I carried the mug to my desk.

As soon as I had the erg there in front of me, I knew it was unprecedented. It’s hard to find the words to describe its terrifying beauty; it was beyond that. When I first laid it out for a look at its entirety, my stomach turned over and I felt as if I was falling, and like I might vomit; the bitterness of bile at the back of my tongue. Behind my ribs my heart was out of control, and I took a moment to slow things down, swallowing, taking deep breaths. I closed my eyes and pushed my chair back on its squeaky wheels, physically removing myself from proximity to the erg.

When I was calmer I regarded the erg again. This time the response was different. There was no longer the shock of the completely unfamiliar, and I could begin to appreciate the erg’s particular qualities as I examined it from all angles, letting it flow over me and around me like water, unfolding over time. It wasn’t static, it was changing, as it revealed itself to me: never resting, not still for long enough for me to begin to get comfortable or to understand it. Although I no longer felt sick, it made me dizzy to be near its precipitous edges. After a few moments of exposure, again I pushed back my chair and stood up, then went to the kitchen for a glass of water. I filled the glass right to the top and held it against my temples, then drank it all down and went back to the computer for more.

Now when I returned to the erg it was like an old friend. But no, that’s not quite right, not as human as a friend. Geometric and alien yet strangely familiar, like a virus or a radio wave. The touch of a human hand was somehow all over it, but it was tuning in to a frequency at the heart of things, picking up signals from beyond anywhere I’d ever been, with no beginning and no end. If there was a truth, this was telling it.

Usually I measured my working hours, but I’d forgotten to set the timer going. I only know roughly how long I was with the erg, experiencing it, because the next time I moved my chair back to stand up, back aching and bladder screaming, everything had gone dark again around me. I had wasted an entire day unable to act, existing purely to behold the erg, and I was exhausted. Still, I told myself I had plenty of time, not to worry, and I crawled off to bed, spent.

The next day, I woke late. My sleep had been troubled, and the sun was already high in the sky and streaming in through the blinds when I peeled myself off the bed, sticky and musty with sweat. Eyes closed, I felt my way to the shower and steamed under the water, trying to make sense of the thoughts that had hammered at the door to my dreams all night long. Everything pointed to one simple fact. There was nothing I could do with the erg. It needed no work; it was already there. It had always been already there. Any change I could make would be superfluous and would weaken it, perhaps fatally. It would be dishonest.

My conviction was strong as I let the scalding water wash over me for the longest time. It remained as I soaped myself all over, then lathered my hair twice and watched all the bubbles spiral their way to oblivion. It was unwavering as I stepped out into the fug of the bathroom, wiping away the condensation on the mirror and seeing my own disbelief confronting me through bloodshot eyes. But I knew there was simply nothing I could do. I was right. I would send the erg back untouched.

*

Of course, Rat-man wasn’t satisfied, and he insisted on a meeting. ‘I can’t accept this,’ he spat, bald as that. ‘You’ve done nothing.’

‘I told you,’ I said, impersonating bravery, ‘I’m experienced. Sometimes it’s as much about what we don’t do. Restraint can be the hardest lesson.’

‘It’s not good enough,’ he hissed, drawing on his cigarette, that left hand there on my thigh once more, skin shrinking slightly away from it. ‘I can’t let you get away with that. That’s not work, it’s not worth anything.’

‘But I can’t make it better,’ I said. ‘It’d be a lie. I won’t do it.’

‘If you think I’m paying for this, you can forget it,’ he said. ‘And don’t think you’ll be getting anything else from me, either. Probation’s over, darling, and you’re not up to scratch. I’d wish you luck for the future, if I thought you’d have one. Get out.’ The door popped and the glove was on my back, and then I was lying on the pavement, inhaling his exhaust, cheekbone grinding into the dust.

*

I’d never tried to find the originator of an erg before, though the information is there, buried in the metadata, if we care to look. On this erg, I found a series of tiny numbers, like a bar code, in plain sight, and when I ran a search on the code there was an address associated with it.

Preparing to leave the apartment was a trial. All my walking shoes were petrified with disuse, pinching as I pressed my swollen feet inside them. I picked up my keys and slipped the third finger of my left hand into a ring I hadn’t worn in months, always loose but now fitting perfectly, with its carnelian eye. In the hall mirror I saw a small, round brown sparrow of a woman blinking back. So insignificant that at least no one would wonder where I was going. The frigid blast that hit me when I exited the lift shaft on the ground floor sent me scurrying back up to the flat for more layers, but in the end I was out, moving along grey, block-lined streets, the paper with the address in my pocket, worn smooth by nervous fingers. Grains of sleet worked their way between collar and skin, and my toes were numb, but I kept going.

The creeping numbness was a distraction from the crumbling of my world. I sensed that my existence as I knew it had ended, without my really understanding why. Had I been a good worker? Had I done everything expected of me? Had I performed as well as I could? I knew the answer to these questions was yes – but still, it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

The blocks grew sporadic and then died out, around the same time as the sleet. I undid the top button of my threadbare coat and descended into a steep-sided, fragrant combe, wooded with tall trees whose highest branches were brushed with gold. A blue butterfly led the way along a narrow footpath scored through the thick ground cover. The slopes were obscured by a green sea of broad, curving leaves, dotted here and there with white flowers like sleigh bells. And that teasing scent on the breeze.

At the bottom of the combe I skipped over a river, light on my feet now despite the shoes. Jumping over the crystal waters I felt something flip: a lurch in my stomach and a subtle realignment of the world. But I shook the feeling off and started to climb up the other side of the valley.

As I ascended the steep slope, I was thinking of the originator. Did he know what he’d created? Did he understand its power? I couldn’t decide if he was old or young; the erg suggested either or neither – it could have been born of bitter experience or the naivety of hope. I imagined that he lived in a very grand house, not an apartment, and perhaps he had a family. I hoped he would be home alone when I knocked, though. I should have felt anxious about turning up unannounced, but I was hoping instinct would carry me through. I had to tell him what it meant to me, tell him how it moved me. Tell him that it had changed my life forever. For the first time in decades, I was following a feeling.

At the top of the slope, the trees thinned out, I left the valley’s microclimate behind, and the sleet set in once more. I shrugged deeper into my coat and checked the address; I was still heading in the right direction. Apartment blocks closed in around me; a neighbourhood like my own. The blocks grew denser until I was in the thick of the grey once more, standing at the bottom of a block. This was it. Into the lift, up nineteen floors, and I was level with where I started. Strange! When I reached out to press the doorbell, the ring winked at me, red like a warming ember on my right hand.

I waited for the originator to open the door, blowing on my fingers and stamping my feet. It opened just a crack at first, and then wider, and I caught my breath. There was the originator of the wondrous erg: a small, round brown sparrow of a woman, blinking into the hallway in confusion.

 

 

LIZ JONES writes novels and short stories, and is currently studying part-time for an MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. She also works as a freelance editor of non-fiction. She lives in Somerset with her family. Find her on Twitter: @ljedit

 

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