'Wreckage' by Sheila Scott

Carpet. Thick pile. Both feet now. She struggles to stand. The crash has stolen months. Time, hope, lives, taken so fast. It’s her first time, upright and alone. She can’t, mustn’t, remember what alone feels like. Medics, family, carers, she’s been surrounded by unwanted company. Just one misjudgment broke her body and too much more. The blue flashing light marked her, alone, as the sole survivor. She stands and her blood pools too low, too far, to sustain. Her body folds, takes her to her knees, drops her on the floor. This wreckage from which she feels she should never have been allowed to rise. She lies and waits, waits to be alone no longer, waits to be no longer.

'Ding Dong Bell' by Zoe Critchley

Ding dong, bell peals rang out from the local church. Their knell mixed with the chatter of the group of nosy townspeople that gathered at the gate to the farm.

“What is it?” someone asked. 

“Pussy’s in the well!” someone else told them. She wasn’t actually called Pussy. Her real name was Cat - Catherine Kitter - but children could be cruel, and adults could turn a blind eye. She had been working as a farmhand to make some extra money. Her family were poor, you see.

 “Who put her in?” 

“I’ve heard it was that little Johnny Flynn, the farmer’s boy.” 

As Johnny Flynn would have it told, he and Cat had been playing. Johnny Flynn was full of malice. He would never have played with her. He would have pushed her, though. 

“Who pulled her out?” 

“I don’t think they have yet! They are still trying!” 

“Who found her?”

 “That little Tommy Stout from the butchers, you know?” 

“My god! That must have been horrifying for him!” 

Nobody cared about Cat. 

“What a naughty boy was that!” they always said of Johnny Flynn, “What a naughty boy he is!” 

Johnny Flynn would not suffer consequences. He never faced any music. They dismissed each and every transgression because they thought he could and should be trusted, every time; trusted not to break the school window; trusted not to set fire to the heather; trusted not to try to drown poor ‘Pussy’ Cat Kitter. 

Poor Cat Kitter, who never did him any harm. She never did anybody any harm.

 They replaced her with a real cat, you know. That was what I heard. The real cat could not milk the cows or sweep the yard, but ate all of the mice in the farmer’s barn, so was considered an improvement.

'Chickens and a Tilting Axis' by Stella Turner

            

Do chickens have lips? That was all that was typed on a sheet of paper, left lying on the seat of the train. What a stupid question! Chickens have beaks, never liked birds of any description because they peck. Feeding ducks always held me in dread, children offering up stale bread. I imagined torn digits and blood squirting out big time, mothers fainting and fathers beating off the predators.

I open up my lap top and type in the three words. Varieties of fowl appear and a detailed description of beaks and a positive no to lips. One definition is an indirect way of saying no like is the pope catholic or do camels cross deserts are for yes.

I look up scanning the faces of my usual companions. Creatures of habit we all seem to want to sit in the same seats at the same table. Miserable Mike who always scowls, Arty Farty Pamela reading the galley leaflets with a dreamy expression all over her pale face and Gorgeous Greg who seems to be asleep the entire journey and miraculously wakes up seconds before his stop. Made up names of course we’ve never spoken to each other. Wonder what they call me Aloof Adele or Efficient Elaine? I pride myself on my sharp business suits, severe hair style and designer briefcase.

I watch her read the note. Will it start a conversation? She’s so beautiful but has eyes only for the bloke that sleeps all the time. He has perfect symmetry. Girls appreciate that. Thought I might invite her to the Chicken Festival. No chickens just great music, great food and great company. Start of the Summer Equinox, the earth’s axis tilting like she tilting mine. Would it hurt to start a conversation with her? Do Chickens have lips?     

'The Snow-Devil' by Amanda Jones

 

Snow. By the time they’re seated, it’s full-blast. When Sophie swiped right, she hadn’t envisaged this. Dinner in a Michelin-starred restaurant, miles out of town. He offered to pay for cabs so she could travel separately. She said they would go together, so he collected her in his Daemon.

 

The restaurant is one she would have conjured herself – paneling gleaming in the lamplight, crisp linen, smiling staff. He orders Bloody Marys, shrimps and turbot for her, oysters and rare steak for him, insists she tries the dripping meat when it arrives. When he goes outside to smoke, she follows him for air, breathes in the bitter aroma and coughs, even though he has put the cigarette out. They take their time over dessert and coffee, and, when they go back to the car, it is entirely white, a coffin-shaped hump amongst more rounded ones.

 

He says that they are stranded, he’ll get rooms, don’t worry, he’ll pay and, of course, they will be separate, but she still goes with him to check. The receptionist smiles knowingly and offers them two separate keys, saying the numbers under her breath, and they have a final brandy and go up in the lift together.

 

When they get upstairs, Sophie realises the numbers are meaningless -  they are adjoining rooms with a connecting door - and she sees his smile and wonders if he knew. At least there is a key to the connecting door, so she locks it, thinks about moving something in front of it, but decides that’s overkill,  that it will be fine.

 

Next door, he blows lazy smoke rings and laughs, glad there’s no cigarette, glad he doesn’t need one, because devils don’t, and he decides to wait an hour before going next door.

 

 

'Chance meeting at the chip shop' by Cheryl Powell

I bumped into Bluebeard outside the fish and chip shop in town. He looked like a rock god in all that black leather.

‘Oh, hi! Long-time no see,’ I gushed, awkward. You know how it is. 

He didn’t recognise me. 

‘It’s Jenny. Bridesmaid, remember? Lavender taffeta.’ 

I hadn’t spoken to Loretta since the wedding. The bitch was too tied up with her tycoon husband and jet-set lifestyle to stay in touch, and I was working my way through a string of lousy husbands. Always messy. 

So here he was, Bluebeard, frighteningly handsome, massive beard oiled, combed and displayed on his chest like a rack of crow feathers. 

Then he remembered. ‘Jenny! Of course. You look wonderful‘ He worked his eyes over me, slowly, then smiled, a flash of gold tooth.

‘And how is Loretta?’ I kept my voice bright, though I couldn’t really care less. 

‘She’s back at the castle.’ He stroked his beard, fingers rimed red beneath his nails, and smiled.

 She would be, I thought, and remembered the Lamborghini's and the stable of Palominos. 

So, anyway, we’re both going in for fish and chips – I chose the cod but, understandably, Bluebeard wanted something finer and ordered Dover sole. We carried on talking in the street, me stabbing at the chips with the wooden fork, he making surgical cuts to the Dover sole with a scalpel taken from his top pocket. 

Finally, he invited me to his castle, and I saw the glitter in his eyes. Result! To be honest, I can’t pack fast enough. But I do need to prepare; grind the boning knives and meat cleavers, sharpen the hooks. Just in case, like all the other times, this relationship doesn’t work out. 

'Winners vs Losers' by C.S. Bowerman

I win. I throw my raging waves to your shore.   I know I am stronger.   I eat you away.   I change your shape.    With fury you feel my bites.   There is no escape.   With gentle caresses I will seduce your sands.   Without you realising, I will still be winning.    I am greater than you.   My arms reach wide whilst you huddle like a ball of garden twine.    I expand and breathe.   I can watch you dissolve if I wish, or I can turn away and find another horizon.   Life is in me.   Hidden or visible.   Known and unknown.   I sustain as I wish.   At all times I win.

And at all times I lose.   My angry waves cannot digest polymers and plastic bottles.   Plastics that hold me in, imprison me at source, that feed the arid land lubbers, who throw them back to taunt me.  Your plastics strangle my creatures and choke my white horses.   They cough and vomit on my radiant crystal shallows.   Too much debris for even one as tremendous as I.   My outrage is vast.   Bubbling emerald fires from the ocean floors.   Thunderous and crashing attacks that I spit on you with disdain.   I do steal but my nature is not as cruel as yours.   I take but with grace and oh so slowly.    You bite my blue hands.   Tie them with polythene.    

Magnificent fury fights diminutive ignorance.   A fight to the death.

 

 

 

'The rush of it all' by Audrey Niven

 

‘Follow me,’ she said as she brushed past me without stopping.

Looking ahead in the crowds I couldn’t tell which way she would go.

And I wasn’t sure why, but I wanted to do what she asked, and my feet just took me.

She turned left, down a lane and through an archway and along one echoing side of a paved courtyard that gave out onto a wide green parkland on the other side.

Her heels click clacked, click clack, click clack, and my feet followed, dumb, in their plimsolls, behind.

Far ahead now, she was running, her high heels in her hand, hair bouncing in the wind, her skirt blowing up, showing her tanned legs. 

I raced after her, all thought of college gone from my head, not even caring where we were going or how far I was from the start of my day.

Catching up just before the line of trees, I reached out and grasped at her wrist.

The skin was so thin I could see the veins there swimming with the life of her.

I wanted to kiss her.

‘Oh,’ she said, like she was surprised to see me there.

‘No-one has ever been brave enough before.’

'What Was That You Said?' by Lynda McMahon

What was that you just said? How am I supposed to feel about that? How would you feel if I’d said that about you? Well, you wouldn’t like it either would you? Why did you say it to him anyway? You know I can’t stand him don’t you? Well don’t you? When did you tell me he’s your best friend? Was I drunk? I’m not really that bad am I? Why do you stay with me then if that’s how you feel? Who do you think would put up with you? How do you know I said that? Who told you? When did you see her? Didn’t you tell me you’d finally finished with her? Didn’t she get the message? Or is she too thick? What do you mean you didn’t finish with her? What has she said to you? Do you believe her or me? Why do you believe her Didn’t you tell me she was a liar? What do you mean, that’s me and not her? Do you love me? 

Where are you going? Are you coming back?

'Going From Bad to Worse' by Cath Barton

Frank was late. Late for his own wedding, with sweat trickling down his back and a sick feeling in his stomach. At the church they would be cursing him, Natalie’s mother saying she’d always known he was a shirker, Natalie herself doubtless in tears. Sam, his best man, was mumbling apologies at his side, but Frank wasn’t listening. He was in meltdown, his shirt sodden now.

‘...Faithful, as long as we both shall live...’ In the rehearsal the exchange of vows had gone so smoothly; he’d had a bad feeling about that, a presentiment that something would go wrong on the day. Currently it was about as bad as it could get. Tomorrow they’d laugh about it, or would they? Indecision had been his downfall too often in the past, and if he didn’t act now he knew he would regret it as long as he lived. Out of the car and running, that was the only way, Sam lumbering behind him.

Neither of them saw, as they ran towards the church, the ring box fall from Sam’s pocket, open as it hit the ground and the wedding rings tumble out and down a drain at the side of the road, to be lost for ever.

'Celebrate' by Mileva Anastasiadou

Figurative man always talks in metaphors.

Long before he approaches, he has counted all possible outcomes, he has made up all appropriate sentences, he has thought of imaginative ways to get through, to speak the truth.

A shadow in disguise, a formless figure in the dark, he talks to me gently.

Slow are his moves, tender is his voice, as he speaks and his words linger above my head, before they enter my brain, my heart, my soul.

He moves like a ghost, he floats like a cloud in the sky, as he gets closer and closer, speaking his truth.

*

Figurative man always speaks the truth, but he speaks it softly, he speaks in poems, or paintings, or music, he never throws his truth onto my face, like a ball I have to catch, or like a bullet.

In time I see through him, I understand.

Clouds of doubt vanish, as he steps closer.

Truth is hard to swallow, so he paints it, he colors it, he bakes it into delicious cakes, into notes and celebrations and letters and words, beautiful words, metaphorical words my mind doesn’t understand but my soul nods, my heart agrees.

I can see him now, approaching me, I know his agony, his fears.

Oh how he fears me, as he comes closer, I may be too blunt, I may hurt him, while he speaks softly, he speaks tenderly, always in tactful metaphors, his truth deafening but smooth.

Not that he cares, but figuratively speaking, figurative man is a poem, while I am a short story, a poignant flash, yet too straightforward to be understood, but I hold his hand and I know, I know well, he makes me better and that together we are prose poetry and we will change the world.