Short Stories

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Made by Me

He had a little light lunch before they came for him. A slice of his favourite hickory smoked ham, some mature self-levelling brie and a crunchy red apple—sliced thinly through the mandolin as he preferred it. He washed it down with a cup of tea, made with the choice of leaves his wife brought with her when they married; that he had come to love over the years. Not too much for him these days; he didn’t need the energy at his time of life.

The doorbell rang the same chime she’d chosen, the last time they remodelled. When he’d moved to the seniors’ complex, they had been kind enough to send a man round to disconnect it from the old place and fix it up for him. The electrician was kind and helpful. “Anything to make it comfortable for you,” he said, “We want to make it just like your real home.”

“Grandpa. Grandpa. Are you ready.” The little girl squealed at him. Excitement he could hear in her even before he opened up.

“Come on. Come on. Are you ready?”

She came through the door in a bluster, hurrying him along gathering the things he’d placed on the little chair by the door in readiness for their afternoon’s adventure.

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by

Madame Mère

“Look. There it is. Right ahead of us.”

She is jumping up and down as she stares at what looks to me to be yet another random old building. The heavy heat of summer is already stifling, and I can feel the sweat running down my back as I take another draught from my water bottle.

“See. The green balcony that hangs out from the first floor?” She points way out over the people, traffic and general bustle of the vast piazza.

I peer over and make out a yellow-brick block, far away in the distance. The balcony sticks out incongruously and—as far as I can make out—uniquely, right around the angle of the building.

“Ah. OK. I see it now. What’s so special about it?”

“It’s not what’s so much special about ‘it’, but more about who.” She leaves this lingering in the air, and she is gone, me scurrying behind, trying to keep up.

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by

Turncoat

Warning: Do not try this at home.

There were fewer tourists around in winter. A few of his regulars would drift in throughout the day. But nothing like the old days. Before they all decamped to the cheaper presses down at Wapping.

Today’s yuppies wanted trendier haircuts than he provided. The refurbished antique barber chairs with their shiny chrome feet, pomade and ‘man-chat’ held little sway in the new world order.

On quiet days, he read the paper from front to back. Foreign wars; footballers’ salaries and more spouting by the Mayor of London, who hardly anyone liked. It could get even the most positive of men down.

The doorbell tinkled along with a draught of cold wind.

“Get out alive will I, Buddy?”

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by

Book Keeper

He moved it around every so often. When he found himself tripping over the pile of books on the floor one more time and he knew had to find some space. Books came, books went, that was his view. Some of them he even read. Some of them he didn’t, such was the obsession he had with his books. ‘One day I’ll read it’, he would say to himself and then a fad or fancy would wear off and some other passion would take its place.

Now and then Allan would do a charity shop run and amongst all the other trivia making that final journey out of his doors—stuff which had bubbled to the top of the discard pile—he’d have a ‘library’ clear out as well. Each time he found himself making a decision on the scruffy book, with the substantial brown paper covering (like no-one does any more, he told himself). He’d look at the last page of the story (without reading the ending of course, for that was a heinous crime) and see that it was over a thousand pages long and sigh, put it back on the shelf and tell himself that one day, he would make the time to do justice to ‘Gone with the Wind’.

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Passing Through

Topic: No One Can Know| Word Count: 1500| Genre: Thriller

Bedecked in black, she tiptoes across no-man’s land, barren ground she knows well. Rock and dust and debris soaked with the secrets of many happier days gone by.

The guards in the watchtowers are on their high alert, tension raised through the recent flare-ups. Male or female, if they catch her, they will not be tolerant. Whatever her cover story, she will be challenged to make them believe her. There are consequences for crossing into the walled city without permission, whoever you are.

Over time, she has listened to the people who know; the gaps she might exploit, but they come with no guarantees, for conditions change all the time, not least the shift patterns and state of alertness of the guards, her biggest concern in the exercise. With the night’s patchy cloud and partially shrouded moon, she knows where she can get through as safely as anywhere. And as she gets closer to this, the most vulnerable point in the trip, she feels herself tense. Her knowledge tells her to take a few, brief moments to breathe deeply to centre herself and keep calm.

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by

One Last Time

“That will not be necessary.”

I look up, and raise my eyebrows a little, proffering the card once more. This time I wiggle it a bit. He remains stony-faced.

“OK then, thank you,” I retreat.

I place the black card back in my wallet, and he gives the formal smile you get from reception clerks who ooze obsequiousness as an art form. Like a secret and invisible medal, cloaked by a coating of supposed professionalism, illicitly giving them license to be the superior, whoever was on the opposite side of their counter.

“My pleasure, Madame.”

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by

Payback Time

The acrid smell and metallic taste in her mouth gave way to a frantic hammering just by her left shoulder. She flinched at the angry, ragged monster berating her from outside. The window exploded as he smashed his way through, in a desperate quest to open the door.

“Out. Out. You have to get out,” he screamed, now tugging at the door with both hands, thighs braced tightly.

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by

Burned

She climbed three flights of stairs, resting between floors, hardly breathing even then from the stench of urine. She held the four carrier bags of groceries up in the air for fear of putting them down, into who knew what.

Finally, she turned onto the landing and she peered over the ledge as screams stabbed the echoing quadrangle from the desolate gardens below.

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Selling Up

He edged the silver Mercedes into nervy traffic going Eastbound towards the City. Red brake lights sparked all around, as uneasy drivers were spooked by the downpour they were locked into at sixty miles an hour.

It was only after a period of acclimatization to the conditions that Jacob noticed the opposite carriageway, where there was no traffic at all. It wasn’t much further before the cascade of ominous blue flashing lights exploded into view. Here he had to be even more wary, because drivers’ attention on his side was distracted, trying to rubber-neck a chaotic scene they could barely make out.

He noticed the catastrophic damage to the upside-down vehicle, the unusual colour of which made him peer more closely than he should have. In the magnetic spell of the image, he only just avoided the fast approaching back end of a container truck, hastily applied brakes causing it to fishtail a little. He managed to stop within a whisker of his own disaster.

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Lockout

Adele knew the exact moment she noticed something was off. There may have been other occasions secreted in her subconscious that made her more sensitised to it, but this particular occasion was the one she recalled.

It was a Thursday, when he arrived back from Pisa. One of what he described as ‘bloody’ business trips.

His return seemed normal and yet there was something that didn’t quite fit. At the time, it was more of an instinct; an inkling somewhere deep down inside her that gave her a feeling all was not right.

It was only later that night and after they made love, she realised what it was. Jack smelt differently. He’d bought new aftershave and although he was one of those men who had a glass shelf full of potions, it was one she did not know. She looked in his bathroom the next morning after he’d gone to the office. Expensive. Foreign. New.

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