Short Stories

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Time Served

The starchy white linen cloths covering the tables are fighting an inconsistent breeze that is annoying the street. Tall bland canyons of office blocks seem to be positioned in such a way that it’s always windy here. Hence the name, I guess. Still, it’s bright and warm enough for this time of year, and the scurries of brown leaves chasing the traffic offer me something to look at as I wait.

I nurse my beer and make it last. I’ve got to watch myself these days at lunchtimes. Alcohol and I have always been buddies, but only on each other’s terms. My agreement is to drink some of it and stop, especially this early in the day. Alcohol’s deal is not to pursue it when I’ve decided to stop. In general, it works on both sides. Anyway, I want to savor every moment while I’m with her at last.

She’s dashing across the road, avoiding the lanes of traffic, impatient as they are. She looks both ways, even though it’s all moving in one direction. It’s a one-way street, the thought of which makes me laugh a little to myself, for the irony of our meeting after all this time. . .

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Il Ne Pleut Jamais, Mais Il Verse

He met her in one of those trendy little cafés in Montmartre, where the waiters were snooty when he tried his bad French on them. He went there some mornings, doing nothing more than watch the world go by. Until today, when the girl slipped and fell on a pavement greasy from the drizzly rain that had begun to fall on sun-drenched stone.

He dabbed her bleeding knee with a fresh linen handkerchief. The one he always carried for such eventualities. Just in case.

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A Traveller’s Tale

The flight was late out of Kastrup. The week had caught up with air traffic and at the end of the day, some Friday evening flights were not going to be on time, on any week in the year weeks, especially when Heathrow was at the other end.

Across the lounge, planes of varied colors and nationalities were taking off down the southwesterly runway up and over Køge Bay towards a setting sun. Off to all points of the globe. But my tracker app told me that my tardy flight was still only just landing – let alone departing – in the next few minutes as was expected.

She grasped my attention as I tried to make the best of the complimentary but lukewarm chili – with rice – and a glass of supposedly good quality South African Merlot.

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Bring on The Red

 

Note – some expletives at the very end!

He raised the glasses to his eyes and scanned to the distant horizon. The land was grey and dismal and the sea almost black. Between him and the far coastline hints of squally rain misted his quest for the vessel he was looking for. With the binoculars away from his eyes, he scanned the sky above and to the west and saw the weather was closing in quickly.

The ferry was almost halfway across the Channel now and would be in the docks within the hour. It would take another hour to unload the trucks and tired and out-of-season holidaymakers but today, his target could be off first or last, there was no way he could tell.

“The ship is on its way,” he spoke clearly into the radio as he faced away from the drizzle on the wind and turned up the collar of his heavy coat. It was going to be an unpleasant wait, even though he would be able to get back into the warm SUV for a while until they began disembarking the vehicles.

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Two Rights

The coins jangle in her pocket as she tip-toes along the stinking streets. The drains gave up long ago, so negotiating an acceptable path is not easy. Apart from the odd whimper, the child is silent as she tries to keep up. After the months of unspeakable chaos following the army’s entry into the city, the children became more durable.

There are crowds along the way this morning, though few seek the same destination as these two as they make their way to their particular market.

She has saved from her meagre income for weeks. A penny here; a shilling there, forming a target for her to aim at this day, to overlay the everyday goal of survival. It gave her a focus amid the desolation. Moments of hope in her monotonous and fearful days amongst the hunger and sickness and the air-raids.

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Party Time

She awoke with a start. Nothing she could quite put her finger on, but she had a sense of a something that woke her in that moment.

The soft breeze brought with it that distinctive saltiness from the deep blue sea in the distance, wafting the lace curtains, newly cleaned for the occasion and showing off their delicacy in their sculptured dance. Their intense whiteness complementing the 400 thread Egyptian cotton sheets upon which she lay. Anna was insistent on these, preferring their cooling softness, without the sheen and slipperiness of an even finer quality.

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All’s Well

As he paused, his hoary breath slowed after the dash from the forest. Left. Nothing. Right. Nothing. The track showed nothing, but that meant little, for there were dangers secreted everywhere. High above, he could hear the waves lapping in the gusty, North-easterly wind, straight from the Steppes.

There were three of them that morning, and as the light faded, he was the only one left. For a few moments, his smallness lingered in his thoughts. After all, what difference could he make, in the bigger scheme of things?

The backpack felt heavier and he reminded himself that the purpose of the mission must be his focus for the next few minutes. Looking around at the silence once more, he lowered the canvas bag to the floor and retrieved the small, intricate mechanism. He would only have one opportunity, for the patrols were consistent along the roadway that ran along the top.

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Together Again

Brickwork was all that was between them these days, and little good it did, for they hadn’t spoken for over thirty years, for a reason neither chose to remember.

Now, each of them left alone in the world, they continued with their long-forgotten feud. Two women whiling away the dog days of their lives empty and routine, of no comfort to anyone, least of all themselves.

The doorbell rang on a Tuesday, much to Mildred’s surprise.

She woke from her mid-morning doze with a jump and hurried as best she could to the door, checking her hair and other presentation as she passed the hall mirror. Not perfect, but she would do.

“Hello, Mrs Jenkins, how are you today?” He didn’t wait for an answer as he bustled his way through his bag.

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Those Little Words

Soft blonde curls lay on their pillows. Two near-mirror images face each other with only a nightlight to see them, somehow making more of them, in that angelic light.

Every evening, Julia always feels a little choked when she walks in and looks at them. It would be ten years tomorrow she brought them home and she can never make sense of where the time has gone. She tip-toes over and pulls the cover up a little on Isabelle and pushes teddy back into bed with Melissa. She stops and smiles once more as she leaves them.

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Closing In

You see a flash of orange across the square, just for a moment.

It’s the first time that you’ve actually seen him, but you know there have been other times recently when you sensed him as well.

It was a him back then. Always a him. For that’s how you know they do it. Every time.

He’s gone now, after he knows you saw him. Not that he was anyone you actually knew.

~~~

But you did know of him, from the other times.

That one time in the back street in Siena. And the other time way up in Ravello, way across the valley from the restaurant. The pizza was the best you’d ever had and Michel was with you. He almost threw you off guard for a while. Those beguiling eyes that he used so much to his advantage, peering deep into your soul.

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