life

An Apology

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There was a time when I regularly posted a piece of original Jane Stansfeld creative writing every week. Then I began to dry up and suddenly the Covid -19 pandemic came and changed everything. Don’t worry I and all my closest family are fine. It has taken me over a year to become re-energized to write. I greatly admire those who didn’t let a nasty little virus upset their creativity.

When I began to write this post I was prepared to apologize that ALL my creativity died. Then I remembered the Covid-19 chair seat cover that I made in 2020. I post an image of it ready to be upholstered onto a dining room chair.

Let me decode the image. The grey thing in the center represents the virus itself as we a led to believe that it looks under a microscope. Below the virus is a “standard” face mask. Around the edge is a chain to represent the lock downs, Two golden keys float at the top and three padlocks hold the chain together at the bottom. The locks represent the holds exerted by federal, state and local jurisdictions. On either side, inside the lock-down are medical symbols pointing at the virus as they seek ways to immobilize or kill it. The eight blue flowers are forget-me-nots to remind us to remember those who lost their lives to this virus. You will see that the forget-me-not buds are pink – they turn brilliant blue with yellow centers when they open. I sign and date all my tapestries at the bottom. It took about eight months to design and implement this one.

Now that we are into 2021 I pledge to myself that I’ll engage in additional writing creativity and possible more painting. I’ve done one tapestry a year starting with 2015 and now intend a break to encourage other avenues.

Confumbulum – a short story

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The little girl, Terry, looked up as her mother lent over to serve scrambled eggs onto her plate. Although she was seven-years-old she was a skinny little thing who looked more like a five-year-old. She wore dirty green corduroy play shorts topped by a green sweater. Her clothing was dirty. She sat next to her nine-year-old sister who was clad in identical, equally dirty clothing. They had spent a joyful day playing outside in a wild garden making dens from branches, cut grass and leaves.  Both girls sat on newspaper covered chairs, so arranged by their mother to protect the chair seats.

Just as the scrambled egg was about to be served onto her plate Terry made her proclamation;

“Mummy, I don’t like scrambled eggs.”

“Nonsense” responded her mother “you have always loved scrambled eggs. I’ll give you one spoonful. You can taste and remember that you love them.”

“No Mummy, I don’t like scrambled eggs!” Terry was emphatic. She looked at her sister who was about to proclaim that she, also, didn’t like scrambled eggs. Their mother intervened and glared at the older girl mouthing the words.

“No, you don’t.”

The older girl kept quiet.

Their mother rasped to the older girl, “You eat your eggs and show Terry how good they are. I’ll also put some on my plate.”

“As for you,” she glared at Terry, “eat your toast while I go to the kitchen to see if there is anything else for you to eat.”

She returned with a look on finality on her face and announced with a flourish,

“Confumbulum, especially for Terry.”

Terry looked at the pink food, with the consistency of scrambled eggs. She stared while it was being served onto her plate.  If her mother hadn’t looked so stern she might have declared another dislike. Instead she accepted the honor of a special food and  murmured “Confumbulum” as she ate.

 

 

 

Long Time Dead – a short story

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Iris opened her front door to a crack and peeped outside. A bright sun shone through the trees, throwing dappled shadows on the ground. She shielded her aching eyes accustomed as they were to the closed-in-gloom of her copious home. She wished that she hadn’t accepted the Shaw’s invitation for this meant that tonight she would have to make herself presentable and emerge from the safety of familiar furniture and food. She shut her eyes, and continued her attempt to come up with a plausible excuse which would allow her to cancel. As she stood there, riveted in thought, a shaft of sunlight fell upon her upturned face. It felt warm, possibly even reassuring. It softened her mood. In the far distance, she could hear the Cathedral bells announcing evensong. Brief moments like this afforded her some satisfaction for her choice to live in Durham so far north from her son’s residence in Cambridge. Her wildest dream was that her husband would return to her and take up his position at Durham University.

At 6:45 pm Iris emerged to take the short walk up the road to the Shaw’ home. Their invitation was for 6:30 pm, but although Iris had spent the best part of the last three days preparing for this outing, she was incapable of being on time. Even as she shuffled along the street, she continued to go through the litany of excuses that she had reviewed to enable her to skip the dinner. When she arrived at the house she stopped and let the aroma of stocks planted in the front garden wash over her. She turned, although the stocks smelt pungently sweet, she thought that she could hurry home and call Mrs. Shaw to claim an acute allergic reaction. She stood and rummaged in her purse in search of a handkerchief with which to authenticate her excuse; a tall thin sickly-looking woman, casting a long shadow across the blue and white flowers. Before she found a suitable handkerchief, the front door opened and Mrs. Shaw, an apron around her waist came out. She grabbed Iris’ hand and offered warm words of welcome. Iris followed her inside.

Inside, Dr. Shaw greeted her with a “gin-and-It.” She accepted the drink and exchanged small talk with him and the Evans, who were neighbors from further up the road. At 7:00 pm a bell rang, and they adjourned to the dining room where they were joined by the Shaw’s two teenage children. The dining table, with a highly polished mahogany finish was elaborately set with silver, crystal, and china. It glowed invitingly. Someone had prepared name tags in rich black calligraphy. Iris wondered whether these were the same ones that had been used the last time that she had had dinner with them.

Iris groaned inwardly when she saw the dinner service, how she hated those plates! She assumed that they were used to stimulate conversation. After all who could resist a dinner plate carrying a pungent Scottish proverb such as:

“There is no greater fraud than a promise not kept.”

Wasn’t this a proverb that could steer conversation into a lengthy analysis of the current political debacle?

As she walked around the table, Iris quickly read each plate’s message. She wondered whether the placement was random, or whether some were placed to aptly describe the person who was to use it. For example, could;

“It’s a sad house where the hen crows louder than the cock.”

refer to the Shaw’s marriage in which Mrs. Shaw was clearly the dominating spouse?

Or could,

“Bees that have honey in their mouths have stings in their tails.”

refer to Mr. Evans, who spoke so kindly, yet in Iris’ experience, had never performed a single neighborly act?

Or could,

“Alcohol does not solve any problem, but then neither does milk.”

define why Mrs. Evans, married to that bastard, drank so heavily?   if so, then the explanation and confirmation came with her possible retort?

“You speak of my drinking, yet you don’t know my thirst.”

Maybe, Iris thought,

“Many people are alive only because it is illegal to shoot them.”

aptly described the Shaw’s delinquent teenage son who was excessively rude to his parents? Then again, perhaps he was better than he seemed. Certainly, his mother doted on him. So, could,

“Do not judge by appearances; a rich heart may be under a poor coat.”

describe him better?

All these questions mellowed iris’ mood, but when the saw her place setting, she hesitated with an inner anguished palpitation. This did not alter her Parkinsonism frozen face. “Why, oh why” she thought, am I given the same plate every time, clearly it isn’t random. Why do they always give me the one engraved?

“Be happy while you are living, you’re a long time dead.”

THE MIND-BODY EXCHANGE

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This story uses the premise of a mind  / body exchange as used in my last post.

For over thirty years I, at present a very wealthy man, was a lowly security guard serving the once billionaire, George X. I remember that I hired on the same day in June 2020 that Oxford University announced their breakthrough development of a mind-reading machine which could facilitate memory downloads similar to the Vulcan mind reads made by Dr. Spock on Star Trek. I hoped that a position on George’s staff, would enable me to read George’s mind and find and imitate the means of his success. I envied him as a strapping thirty-year-old self-made man who had just turned his first billion. I thought how good it would be if I could do likewise. However, over the years, the closest that I came to mind reading was what I heard as I stood at the back of his lavish office. I was the suited. silent one, ever alert, ever watching, witnessing his many suspect dealings. They were always astute, always unyielding, and always to his betterment. Regrettably, all my attempts to mimic George’s transactions back fired. My only consolation was to observe the inverse relationship between George’s personal life and the size of his fortune. Year after year, the richer he became, the more his personal life suffered until, over time, he degenerated into a very wealthy, lonely recluse.

I couldn’t understand George’s one odd, seemingly out of character, business transaction. It was the way that he poured cash into the Oxford University research. Following a scary bout with prostate cancer he increased his funding and took to calling Oxford every Friday morning. At last, almost thirty years to the day I had to admit that George had the Midas touch for Oxford announced, with a few reservations and caveats, that they had constructed a machine which could accomplish  the complete exchange of bodies between two willing persons. It was one of those “ah ha” moments for me – I was sure that my sixty-year-old employer, now cancer free, but forever complaining about his physical aches and pains, wanted a new body. I was right and watched him set aside funding and begin his search for the ‘perfect’ match.

It didn’t take long for Nations around the world to respond to Oxford’s discovery by declaring all mind / body exchanges as illegal and defining the individual as a sacred, inviolate combination, of mind and body. George was, as usual, unphased by legalities. He called in his representatives, increased their remuneration and bound them to secrecy. The search was to continue. I am proud to tell you that it was I, the silent security guard, who found their man. I had Nathaniel, or Nate, the son of one of my drinking buddies, to introduce himself to the search committee. George’s specification called for a healthy thirty-year-old so that he could pass off the exchange as his prolonged youth. I must say that Nate looked remarkably like the George I met when I was hired. Nate said that he was willing to undergo the exchange for the hefty fee of one million per year differential, or thirty million. He said that he intended to use the money to pay off his debts and establish leisured affluence for himself and his relatives.

I stood, silent as ever, as I listened to George making his plans. He arranged for the clandestine exchange to take place in Oxford. Immediately thereafter, he planned to go to Switzerland to spend a month in a Sanitorium so that he could return to his life with an explanation for his renewed vigor and youthful looks. The thirty million was transferred to a Swiss Bank account set up in Nate’s name. When asked about his plans, Nate said that he intended to go to Nepal to join an Everest expedition so that he could answer inquiries about his rapid aging by blaming the conditions of the climb.

Before the exchange took place, I was dismissed back to George’s New York penthouse. I was instructed to await his return. Imagine my surprise when, less than a week after the exchange, who should I see but George entering the granite and glass lobby. I was perplexed; if the exchange had been aborted or gone wrong, this was, indeed, George in his own body. However, if it had gone ahead, this couldn’t be George in Nate’s body, it would have to be Nate in George’s body. I stood transfixed wondering how I ought to respond to this unexpected anomaly. The man I saw came up to me and shook my hand. He inquired about my family and invited me to dine with him. This confirmed my suspicions as over all our years together George had never asked about my well-being, or invited me to dine with him.

Nate was miserable. He told me that he had come to the building because this is where his body wanted to come. His explanation seemed odd, but I am a good listener and let him talk about his issues. His unhappiness was on three scores. First, George’s body was far more decrepit than he had been told. He said that he was finding it difficult to adjust to the reality of a sixty-plus year-old body. Second, George’s body had a mind of its own; keeping doing things that it wanted, such as returning to George’s penthouse, rather than doing as Nate wanted. He said, even over the short span of less than a week the body’s desires were becoming increasingly persuasive. Nate’s saddest woe was that when he went to withdraw from his newly set up Swiss bank account, he found that it had been emptied of all but thirty thousand. We went to George’s penthouse and called Switzerland and received confirmation. “Yes,” they said, “Nate himself came in and drained the account.” So, the thief was George who now looked like Nate. I didn’t put it past George to  do this as I  knew him to be a despicable, greedy, double crosser! Over our dinner wine we commiserated together and thought about George’s meanness. We asked ourselves how could George, one of the richest men in the world, steal like that? We speculated on the lost thirty million. We went on to commiserate on all the philanthropic things that George could be doing with his fortune if only he were a better person. In fact, we spoke as though the fortune was ours, and we were sharing it for the good of others. Out of pity for Nate I paid for the meal.

As I went home, I pondered on our talk with the Swiss bank. That is when, it hit me, if George, in Nate’s body could pass as Nate and be able to transfer money out of the account into another account under George X’s name then why couldn’t Nate, in George’s body, claim to be George, and move it anywhere he wanted? I found Nate early the next morning. I shared my thoughts with him. He laughed so hard that I feared that his old heart might give up. But no, laughter proved therapeutic. We began with the millions stolen from Nate’s account. The transfer went so smoothly that we decided to reach deeper into George’s horde. We knew that we only had a month. We worked hard combining Nate’s computer and interpersonal skills with my knowledge of the intricacies of George’s business gained during my decades of silently standing on guard in the back of that sumptuous room. By the time that we expected George to leave the sanitarium we had everything wrapped up. There was so much money that we split it 50/50. In the span of a month we had both become billionaires.

We wished that we could have seen the face of George, in Nate’s body, when he left the sanitorium, and discovered that he could no longer access his property. We speculated on how long it would take for him to realize, that the world now saw him as Nate, with two assets; his young body and the thirty thousand that he had, so “generously,” left in Nate’s account. We gave each other hi fives and placed bets on how long it would be before George, in Nate’s body came crawling back with an offer of a reverse exchange accompanied by a payment. My friend,Nate in George’s body, said, when the time came, he’d gladly do it for twenty-nine million, nine-hundred and seventy-thousand. I told him that he was being unnecessarily generous.

JURASSIC REVISITED a short story

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Susan unlocked the door and stooped as she entered to avoid hitting her head. At seven feet, she was nick-named “shorty” for she was the shortest person in her group. She felt secure here and was glad that they had chosen this house with its high ceilings and robust construction. She placed her basket on the floor and called, “I’m home” as she removed her hat and outer clothing, which completely cocooned her and shielded her from the sun’s UV rays. Then she took up her basket and made her way to the kitchen where she placed the basket containing three large eggs that she had found on the counter. She thought that they were chicken eggs, but it was hard to tell as chickens were now the size of ostriches, and their large eggs could be confused with those of the larger reptiles roaming the land. Her spoils unloaded; Susan hurried into the main room to join the other five residents of the house sitting in a circle before a crackling radio.

“Did I miss anything?” she asked.

“They just announced that this is to be the last transmission.”

“So why the silence, surely there is no-one to put on commercials?”

“Something happened!”

Susan reached over and gently twiddled the knob. The radio emitted static and then they heard a voice,

“Today is momentous because it is the fiftieth anniversary of the first sun spot emitting X2X as observed by University of Texas astrology student Tony Clearwell. It is also to be the day of our last transmission. We ask that you copy and save this record for the future. We hope that one such copy will be found, possibly even a million years henceforth, a mere ripple in the 4.5 million years of the earth’s existence. It will help to explain the demise of our failed humanoid culture.”

While the transmission droned on with statistics, facts and figures to be saved for the future, Susan let her mind wander. She remembered her grandmother reminiscing, about Tony Clearwell, in her faint old voice. The matriarch told about the ridicule that his first observations had received. She spoke of the acceleration of global warming and the rising of the seas. She ridiculed the 2019 prediction by some of the collapse of humanity within a decade. She always concluded with a comment that farmers were the first to observe the curiosity that all living things were getting bigger. Susan remembered her happiness in the thought, which she took to her grave, that global warming was a blessing.

Susan remembered that her mother shared this belief until it became obvious that things were not OK. She told her daughter,

“At first scientists explained the unnatural growth as being a positive result of   global warming with its prolonged warmer growing seasons and increased rainfall. The unprecedented growth of all living things, exposed to sunlight, including humans, quickly became problematic and stimulated scientists to look twice. We now know that Tony Clearwell’s X2X, a previously undiscovered UV ray, promotes rapid, almost uncontrolled growth in both flora and fauna. Scientists suggest that this X2X UV light is what created the Jurassic age, and killed the dinosaur age when transmission ceased.”

Susan sighed as she thought about the accelerated Darwinian way that dramatically enlarged reptiles, insects and the general spectrum of fauna were adapting to their enlarged bodies and the rapidly growing flora. No one had yet seen a facsimile of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but she imagined that it was just a question of time.

SPRING – a poem

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At  present I am preoccupied with visiting grandchildren and so I dug up this poem, written in the early 1970s when I lived in London, and edited now in 2019. Grandchildren can’t relate to this time before even thier parents were born, the senitments are universal so I hope that some of my readers may enjoy it.

I am a child of the night,
City born and thrust
Into the darkness,
Of faceless urban millions,
Sharing stereotyped desires,
And mass-media emotions,
Predicted and predictable. 

But, today I was free.
For today I saw the sun shine,
A warm spring sun,
It dried the ground,
It nuzzled nature to action,
Even as I was excited, delighted,
My heart uplifted by the globe.

Then joyful, I sang,
Forgetting the gray city,
Forgetting the tubes and fumes,
Forgetting humanity, my heritage,
And like the March hare,
Madly exulted in the sun,
My heart worshipped a pagan God.

Leslie a short story

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At present I am reading short stories in Amy Hempel’s new collection “Sing to It.” In these stories most of her polished prose is in first person and reads as a stream of compelling, and of-times surprising consciousness. At first, I was confused by her style but after reading a few of the stories I tuned in and let her messages haunt. I can’t duplicate her style but admit some influence and offer this purely fictional tale for your comments.

My routine is simple. I rise before the sun, don an attractive tracksuit and run. I adopt a three-mile circuit. I warm up on the short distance down the west side of Shoal Creek to the park at fifteenth. Here I cross and turn to run up the east side of the Creek where the trial is located next to Lamar and is lit by street lights. Then, at a mile and a half, when the sun has risen, I turn left across a bridge and take the path on the west side of the Creek. I enjoy the dappled sunlit path, the green trees, the earthy smell of the ground, the bird song, and the gurgle of the water in the Creek. In one place, the path opens up, and I pause to take in the magnificence of nature. I do some jumping jacks while staring at the way that the morning sun highlights the Creek. I promise myself that one day, I’ll return with watercolors and easel to paint this beautiful scene. Invigorated, I climb the bank to my apartment, shower, put on an attractive blouse and business suit, and drive my short commute to work.

On the way, I stop at my favorite coffee shop for a sweetened café latte. There are two baristas. From the way that they interact with each other, I assume that they are close. Jose, the taller of the two, always serves me. He must see me in the parking lot for, when I enter, he has my order ready. We exchange pleasantries. One spectacularly beautiful morning I tell him that I had an invigorating run along Shoal Creek that morning.

He asks: “Did you see Leslie?”

I tell him that the route is generally deserted. He comments that Leslie visits the coffee shop each morning with an identical order to mine. We both laugh, then I turn half expecting to see Leslie, instead I see a car entering the lot with the favorite Austin bumper sticker. It reads: “Keep Austin Weird.”

I turn back to Jose and remark, “That Leslie, as a confirmed cross dresser, is well invested in keeping Austin weird.” Jose agrees with me.

I arrive at the office and open it up for the day greeting the staff and my partners with a serene sense of wellbeing tinged with superiority. When the mayoral election comes around Leslie’s name is on the ballot. Leslie as mayor – now that would be weird. The winner is Kirk Watson for another term. I like him and admire the astute way that he brought the rampant city environmentalists and the needs of in-coming employers and their developers together.

His thesis was quite simple, “The environmentalists and business leaders have the same goals.”

His premise startled every one until he explained. The environmentalists wish to protect the green Austin amenities, such as the Barton Creek greenbelt, Shoal Creek, and Town Lake, to name a few; to do this, they need Council’s support and funds. The new comers and developers come because they wish to enjoy the green Austin amenities, such as the Barton Creek greenbelt, Shoal Creek, and Town Lake. They expand the tax base and bring funding for the environmentalists.

Everything evolves and so does my morning run. It begins with an appearance where the west trail comes to my favorite spot, the place where there is an opening commanding a view down the Creek. The man, yes of course, it is a man, is completely naked. He stands fifty feet from me obviously posing for my benefit. I pretend not to see but catch his actions as, he pees an impressive long arch into the Creek. I’m a little taken aback by his presence but not frightened. He is too far away, and I can run. I wonder if he is Leslie, who is known to camp somewhere along this Creek. I do ask myself why Leslie, who likes to be seen as a woman, should wish to assert masculinity to me. I calm myself by telling myself that this person, was caught by surprise, and is as startled as I am.

My office overlooks the street of the coffee shop and, beyond, the way into Shoal Creek. Late each morning Leslie appears calmly walking up the street. He, or should I say she, is perfectly clad in women’s clothing. A clean chin, how does one shave in the woods, full make-up, skirt and blouse, hose and the highest high heels, surely uncomfortable to walk in? To top it all I keep reminding myself that Leslie is enrolled as a mayoral candidate, yep, Austin weird.

Sometimes I meet others on the trail. It is rare. I greet each with a hearty “Good morning” glad that we are always passing. Leslie still appears from time to time, or I think that it is Leslie, always the same place, generally sparsely clad. Sometimes there is a wave of a hand. I respond raising my arm. Time passes, spring becomes summer and then Fall. It is still warm I wear a skimpy top and shorts. The dawn is getting later and my run through the woods is in half light. I begin to fear seeing the naked / sparsely clad one, because something has changed. I can’t put my finger on what, but my sixth sense tells me that things are different; I consider altering my route but don’t.

It is Friday the week before Thanksgiving, and my nemesis jumps out in front of my path. He holds something in his hand. It looks like a gun. I’ve never seen him this close. His chin is covered in stubble. I’m now convinced that he is not Leslie. He motions to me to step off the path into a stand of bushes. There’s a rug on the ground. He wants me to lie down. I am trembling. I must obey. There is a yell, and my assailant is attacked from behind; he drops the gun. Leslie yells,

“Go away you perverted creep. I’ve had my eye on you. You are not welcome. Go.”

Miraculously, my assailant runs off. Leslie picks up the gun and hands it to me. I feel stupid when I look at it and see that it is plastic. I am embarrassed to have been held up by a semi-naked man with a toy in his hand. Leslie gives me a smile and disappears.

I do not call the police for their presence would surely be a poor thank you to Leslie. At the coffee shop, I talk to Jose and arrange for free coffees for Leslie. I don’t explain why. I merely remark, “I’m keeping Austin weird!” Jose nods in approval

I make one additional change; I adopt a new run route around Town Lake.

BRIDE IN THE BATH

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Marie disliked her brother-in-law George Smith. It was a disturbing aversion which she couldn’t understand, for she deemed him to be, like Mary Poppins, “Practically perfect in every way.” Perhaps it was this very perfection, which triggered her dislike, or perhaps, deep down, her dislike was the result of an innate sibling jealousy. When she watched him objectively, she found his good looks and healthy physique pleasing and couldn’t help but wonder how much her sister, Anne, must enjoy her intimacy with such an ideal masculine specimen. 

Before the wedding, she tried to explain her sixth sense reservation to her parents. They suggested that her sense of foreboding was ill-founded. They pointed out his solicitous kindness, and the way that he appeared to adore his wife. She told them that she wondered whether his interest in her sister was triggered by her status as a wealthy woman. They told her not to be jealous. They informed her that her fears were unfounded because George, himself, had suggested an elaborate pre-nuptial agreement.

****

A few days after Anne’s ecstatic telephone call to tell Marie that she was pregnant Anne received a call from George. He was weeping and stammered his appalling news. Anne drowned in her bath. He requested that Marie call their parents as he asserted that he was too distraught to make any further calls. No-one could understand how Anne could have drowned until investigators postulated that she must have accidentally knocked her hair dryer into the water. Her autopsy confirmed that she had died from the combination of heart attack and drowning. This diagnosis had some appeal to Marie’s family as a few years earlier one of Marie and Anne’s school friends had died in a swimming pool accident due to a heart attack and subsequent drowning induced by a short in a faulty under-water pool light.

When Anne’s affairs were wrapped up, it transpired that she and George hadn’t signed their pre-nuptial agreement. Anne’s grieving family decided not to contest the inevitable and did not challenge the transfer of her assets to her unhappy widower. Marie even faced her dislike for George and joined her mother in helping pack up his possessions in support of his proposed relocation to “get away from it all” as he put it by taking up a new position in London. They used a hoard of old newspapers which Marie’s mother had saved for such an occasion.

It is a strange phenomenon that old newspaper stories frequently catch our attention as we use them to wrap-up fragile items. In Marie’s case, it was the photograph of a widowed husband standing outside his house, which caught her attention. He was clean-shaven while George was bearded, but something about the eyes got her attention. She took a pencil and added a beard and moustache rather as she had adorned pictures in her youth. She pointed the picture out to her mother. “George doesn’t have a twin brother, does he?” she asked.

“No dear, don’t you remember he had no family at the wedding.” Her mother reached for her reading glasses to better scrutinize the newspaper photograph. “Didn’t he say that they were all killed in a car wreck when he was a teenager.”

Marie stopped her packing and read the headline “Wife drowned.” This was accompanied by the photograph which caught Anne’s attention and instructions to turn to ‘Drowned’ on page A6. She sat down and read on. The names were different, but the circumstances were remarkably similar. Marie was so disturbed by her find that she contacted the police. They reviewed her evidence and although they agreed that there were similarities, they told her that they didn’t think it  sufficient to open the case for further investigation and certainly didn’t want to change their report of accidental death to murder.

****

George disappeared from their lives. Marie’s grandfather died and left her a fortune. Even though much of the family deemed her slightly insane as a result of her ongoing obsession about her sister’s death no-one contested her inheritance. Now that she didn’t need to work, she spent most of her time searching newspapers and obituaries. Her dedication was rewarded and she found him living in Hollywood under a different name. By now, she was so embroiled in her murder theory that she determined to catch him, and elicit revenge herself. She changed her name, died her hair, lost weight and moved to Los Angeles. Here she mixed with the rich and famous constantly manipulating until she managed to meet him, the George Smith, who married her sister, now going under the name Francis Brown. He invited her on a date, and she found herself attracted to him. Could it be. She wondered, that her original dislike really was a manifestation of jealousy?

****

She accepted his marriage proposal. They had a quiet chambers exchange of vows and purchased an enormous house with a lap pool. Francis told her that he liked to swim in the morning as part of his fitness regime. Before she did what she knew that she had to do Marie picked the lock to his desk and searched his papers. At the very bottom, she found his scrap book containing a jumble of images of not two but three wives all of whom had died in their baths. At this moment, Marie knew him to be a ruthless murderer. She ought to have gone to the police, but she didn’t. Instead, she researched electricity on-line and when she was confident that she knew what she was doing she switched one of the pool lights from a GFI circuit to a regular one. Then she wiggled the light and adjusted the worn wires so that a short would occur. Meanwhile, she managed to avoid marital intimacy by claiming a yeast infection sincerely hoping that the pool light would do its job before she ‘recovered.’

They were married less than a month when she saw her chance, while he changed into his trunks, she turned on the lights. They sparkled seductively in the morning light. She took her coffee and sat in a beach chair next to the pool. She blew him a kiss as he dove in. He came up spluttering clearly in the onset of cardiac arrest. He shouted to her but she smiled, and waved. She shouted “Remember them, remember Anne.” and slowly ambled inside to call 911.

Marie skillfully acted the bereaved wife and waited until he was interred before she ‘found’ his secret journal and alerted the police so that he could be named the ruthless serial killer that he was. She thought it poetic justice that she should inherit his vast assets but after the police dubbed him a murderer, she magnanimously contacted each of the bereaved families and restored to them the equivalent of their daughter’s assets. Then she emigrated to New Zealand to distance herself from the terrible memories which haunted her, and away from her fear that someone might question the strange way in which he had died.

Underground Initiation

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The Northern Line has become my line. Every day I board in Earls’ Court, where I live, and ride its cranky elevators deep into the earth. Then I follow the black Northern Line signs and take my train. I stand swaying with the masses of other commuters until the train whirls into Russel Square where I emerge for a brisk, I think cleansing, walk to our office in Bedford Square. Sometimes the crowds throw me back five years to the time when I was a nineteen-year-old student riding this same line. Only then things were very different. On that occasion, it was night. I rode from Earl’s Court where I had been at a late-night get-together to Russel Square the closest station to my student digs on Bedford Way. As I doze off in my wedged upright stance, I relive every moment of that ride………

It is late, there are no standing room only crowds, indeed, my coach is empty except for me and a noisy threesome of young men. I select a seat a reasonable distance away from them and am pleased that they exit at South Kensington. I am now alone rattling through space. He boards at Hyde Park, the next stop. I am surprised when he selects to sit in the seat beside me even though he has the choice of the whole empty coach. I am penned in with a seat in front and this man on my right.

I pretend that he isn’t there. I can feel the warmth of his body as his presence rubs my right shoulder. I smell his body odors, smoke mixed with unwashed human, sweat. He grunts, and I quiver. Green Park passes we are still alone as we run through Piccadilly. His body odor becomes more oppressive. I consider trying to get off. At each station I hope that someone, anyone will board. No-one does, we continue to be alone. He is fidgeting with something in his lap, I turn and see what I have never seen before. I react with a quiver and start shaking; Leicester Square, Covent Gard, Holborn, the stations take an eternity to pass. I stare and try to turn away. I make a futile attempt to ignore what he is doing. As we roll into Russel Square, I stand and say,

“Excuse me, this is my stop.”

“Mine too” he gives a toothy grin.

He lets me pass, my body rubs against his. He touches me with his hands but I wriggle and am free. I run down the platform and vault up the escalator. I think that I can hear him behind me, but I’m not sure. I am too terrified to turn and look as this might slow me down. At the top, I am thankful to see that the ticket booth is still manned. I rush up and whisper,

“Help! A man! He exposed himself to me,” I turn “he’s…….” but he wasn’t – he had disappeared.

The ticket clerk jumps up and opens his door. He invites me inside. He tells me to sit down while he calls his station manager. The manager arrives. He is an elderly, old enough to be my father. He puts a kindly hand on my right shoulder I try to make it erase the memory of the touch during my ride, but it doesn’t. He and another man usher me into a very warm inner office. They offer me tea. It arrives hot and strong. I warm my trembling hands on the surface of the mug. Although I never add sugar, I do so now as the brew is strong. They want me to make a police report. I am calmer now. I let the glow of the tea permeate my body. Once we have got past the easy questions, name, age, residence et cetera we get down to specifics. I am so flustered that I can’t describe him. His smell maybe and his noises but these men are not interested in this information, they want specifics.

“Circumcised or not?”

“I don’t know”

“Did he ejaculate?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well,” they shrug,” describe the size. Describe what you did see.”

I look at their anxious faces, and notice their leaning-in body language. I realize that they are deriving as much pleasure in this debrief as he took in sitting next to me. I stand and thank them. I say that I must go now; maybe another time. Yes, I’ll complete the report tomorrow. I rush out and, with a renewed spate of energy, run home to my apartment. I lock the door.

The incident still haunts, even though I am beyond that fear. I handle things differently. Recently I rode a late tube home and found myself in an empty car with a man wearing an expensive Burberry raincoat. Like the other, he sits next to me. I know the routine, he starts fiddling and opens his coat to reveal his goods. I turn to him and remark, in a bored, matter-of-fact voice of irony,

“Put that thing away. I am not interested.”

He does just that. He gets off at the next station.

THE CAMPING TRIP

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15

This one is under 300 words, and  so I classify it as  flash fiction.

Amanda listened, wide-eyed, to her elder brother’s report about his Boy Scout’s camping trip. He spoke of s’mores, ghost stories, flickering flames, camp-fire cooking, the aroma of wood smoke and the beauty of the stars. His discourse gave Amanda and her younger sister images of a cozy home-from-home, little wonder that Amanda begged her parents to give her a tent for her tenth birthday. 

When the tent arrived, Amanda requested a camping trip. Her parents weren’t excited by the thought of an out-of-town excursion, and hit on the idea of a camping trip in their premises. The weather forecast was good, no rain predicted.

Their father arrived home on the day of their camp to find that his daughters had already managed to erect their tent. They were blissfully playing house with an assortment of dolls and stuffed animals. He and their brother set up an adjacent tent. They cooked hot dogs on a portable BBQ and roasted marshmallows before a chimaera.

When it was time to sleep their mother kissed the children and told them that she was going inside to her very own comfortable bed. She invited anyone who wished to follow her indoors. An hour later, her son joined her. He explained that night sounds of coyotes, and distant traffic was eclipsed by his loud snoring father.

“Two fifths,” said his mother “Three to go.”

At midnight, the girls woke up with a shock for it was raining and wet inside their tent. They gathered up their wet toys and ran into the house.

“Four fifths,’ said their mother, “One to go.”

Before joining the family inside, their father, woken by the kafuffle, ran to the garage to turn off the irrigation system for the girls had pitched their tent on top of a lawn sprinkler.