2018

Another year's stories posted and once again, thank you to all the writers.  I have started a new blog for our third year so please travel with me to the 2018 short short stories virtual world and pick up the first starter idea of the year.

Three Ships

She had never been one for Santa and angels and dreams coming true, but she needed a miracle, it was true. Especially this year. So when the figure appeared to her that night, she had no choice.

It was Christmas Eve and after she had secretly delivered presents under the tree to surprise her mother the next morning, she was more tired than her age suggested. She had never been so tired. She was inwardly and out drained as if she had run marathon after marathon with all resources depleted, no juice left.

“Maybe I’m coming down with a cold, “she thought, so she made herself some Echinacea tea and, after saying her prayers, snuggled into bed, where her cat soon joined her.

“You look like you’re having a lovely sleep,” she heard from far away. “But you must wake up now.”

She was instantly awake, in that way one has of going from complete oblivion to total awareness when faced with something urgent.

“Sit up. “

She did as she was told, her heart racing, every sense aware. The cat had suddenly leapt off the bed and scooted out the door and the room was cold. She saw nothing, but she heard.

“You are at a crossroads. Come with me while I show you something.”

And like that, while her body sat on the bed, she was yanked from it, from inside out, and suddenly she was flying far far above the ground, through the sky, through the stars. Completely aware, completely conscious and free and light as a bird – a lightness that was impossible to describe. But she saw the houses, the streets, the trees – she saw it all like they show it in the movies and she marvelled that it really was like in the movies.

She was stopped over a huge body of water, on which sat three ships. One was sparkling with gold and diamonds, but it was leaking and sinking. One was a beautiful wood – sturdy, with intricate delicate curly designs along the outside - and the third, simple and empty.

“Why am I here?” she asked. “What are those ships?”

“The possibilities.”

She began to be lowered, slowly at first, then suddenly she was plummeting towards the ships at terrifying speed.

“What’s happening?” she cried. 

“Choose!”

“Choose what?” she cried as she sped towards the ships.

“CHOOSE!”

“That one!” she uttered before she knew what she herself was talking about, and she instantly awoke.

The door creaked open and the cat scooted back in and jumped back up on the bed, while her heart continued to pound.

For several minutes she could not move or speak. Sweat beaded along her brow.

Then she heard it – music from the kitchen below:

“I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day on Christmas Day
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day in the morning…”



Jasmin Webb

A journey across the pond

The cool wind had guided my sailboat to the centre of the pond and I was concerned that the ducks would take a hostile approach to this unidentified floating object and attempt to sink it before I even had a chance to get to know my new Christmas present with its impressive sails and sleek lines. I imagined it resting on the bottom of the murky pool amongst mud, weed and broken bottles tossed in from passing drunks. Some council worker would claim it for his own when he had to clean it prior to some foreign dignitary visiting town, despite my slightly wobbly seven-year old’s effort at engraving my name and address into its side.

“It’ll be okay Jackie-boy,” my grandfather assured me as he crouched beside me and threw his arm around my shoulder. Despite my wanting to believe him, all I could think to do was cover my eyes with my hands…

                                                           ..............................................

…and I could see the bones in my hands as if I was looking at some X-ray machine.

"Face away from the blast, place your hands over your eyes, don’t be alarmed," the instructions reverberated over the tinny sounding loudspeakers on the deck. Moments later the light was brighter than we could have potentially imagined, as if God had plugged one hundred thousand lightbulbs into himself directly. Maybe this is what Reverend Paterson was talking about in church when he took mum’s funeral.

We were all excited about the prospect of visiting the South Pacific; the recruitment film had promised a life of adventure and all us lads had seen the native girls of the islands in the National Geographic. The senior officer placed the papers in front of me and provided me with the pen with which I proceeded to scribble Jack Forrester Hewitt.

..............................................

“Thanks, I guarantee you won’t regret it Mr Hewitt,” the crew member assured me as I handed my signed form for the island tour the next day. Mary and I returned to our regular chairs on the upper deck of the ‘Star Princess’ as we awaited the evenings entertainment and seating for dinner. Not being as sure-footed as I once was, much of my time was now spent sitting gazing over the ocean from the safety of a secure deck chair. In the late afternoon sun, passengers start to get excited about the presence of migrating whales and many clamber for their digital cameras and phones as a hail of flashes ignite the air. When my eyes readjust to their surroundings, I look to the starboard side and see a small yacht, sails fully set, hurling itself fearlessly into the setting sun. For a moment I see the hint of green and blue that my toy sailboat once had. I feel a light weight on my shoulder but there is no-one there. I expect my grandfather’s hand to reach down and scoop it up.



Andrew Hawkey

I saw three ships

“One for you,” She handed a red envelope to my Fiona. “This one for you,” She gave another to Angie.

“And this is for you,” She extended a white envelope with a green and red ribbon wrapped around it towards me, smiling brightly.

“Oh, I don’t celebrate Christmas,” I smiled in return, not reaching out.

“Still welcome to join us,” she insisted, jabbing the card towards me with a warm smile. “My house, 6.00 pm on the 23rd. Don’t be late!”

She hollered away, skipping to her next invitees on her list. Fiona closed her locker with a shrug and smile, looking over my invitation.

“You know, Ashley, it would be nice if you did celebrate Christmas with us for once. You never come to any of the Christmas gatherings held,” Angie commented, slapping on some lip balm.

“This is the first time I’ve been invited,” I state matter-of-factly.

They shrug at this and we start walking. Fairy lights lit up the usually dark and gloomy hallway on our way to class. A few miniature Christmas trees, replicas of the big one in the school canteen, stand to remind us of the cheer and warmth that the Christmas spirit brings. The Christmas spirit I never seem to have. We pass by several classes before Angie reaches her homeroom and we bid her farewell.

“I heard he’ll be there,” Fiona smirks a few steps before I enter my first class for my first period. “You sure you don’t want to come?”

“Who said I wasn’t coming?” I laugh and wave her off, entering the chemistry lab. “Hey,” he greets me, pulling out the chair beside him for me to sit.

“Hello. Are you coming to Kirsten’s Christmas gathering on the 23rd ?” I ask as casually as I can, sitting down beside him. He furrows his eyebrows at me.

“Yes, are you finally coming to your first Christmas party?” There’s a laughter in his voice and a twinge of a smile on his lips. I nod in response. “We’ll have to make it a special one, won’t we?”

“I’ll see you there.”

********************

“You look fine, Ashley,” Fiona reassures me, her hands on the steering wheel as we park near Kirsten’s house.

“Beside, I’m sure he’ll love it,” Angie teases, earning a laugh from Fiona.

“Your first Christmas celebration! I’ve never been this excited since my birthday!” Fiona squeals.

“That was two days ago,” I mutter under my breath as we leave the car. We enter the mansion Kirsten calls her house and are immediately greeted with blinding Christmas lights and reindeers hanging from the ceiling. We come right in time to see Kirsten stand on a platform holding a mike.

“Welcome everybody, and Merry Christmas! To begin our celebration, let us join hands in song,” She motions for the band to start playing music. “I saw three ships come sailing in...”

“On Christmas day, on Christmas day,” My friends started joining in and soon, a choir of people began singing too. I glanced around the room hoping to find a glimpse of him, but I fail to do so. Instead, I listen to everyone else sing and cheer to a song everybody but me knows.

“Our Saviour Christ, and His lady,” His voice suddenly rang in my ears, although it was only a whisper. “So you came.”

“Only for you,” I replied, earning a grin from his handsome face. “On Christmas day, on Christmas day.”



Katya Tjahaja

Saturday 16 December 2017

They call it the City of Sails – boat ownership is higher per capita than anywhere else in the world – but draw lines on the map from the coasts – north to south, east to west – and those lines intersect on my kitchen table.

I see a lot more cars than watercraft.

I was surprised to actually get a park just along from the ASB Waterfront Theatre.

Sails are rarely seen on the Manukau Harbour – in that harbour there are no beaches, mostly mud, they pipe the city’s shit out there beside the sacred river at Otuataua, the people are Polynesians in state houses – Polynesians: the greatest seafarers and navigators that history has witnessed.

Here on the Waitemata Harbour – rich tossers’ sleek white craft are moored. Heading up the gangplank: ‘How was it last night, debaucherous?’ ‘ … threw it in your face?’ ‘ … jumped off the balcony’.

Further around – Fullers ferries to Waiheke, a man playing the bagpipes.

And at last, at Queens Wharf – AIDAcara: registered in Genoa, gross tonnage: 38,531, a capacity of 1,186 passengers with 360 crew. This explains the unusual percentage of wrinkled Caucasians in pairs on the waterfront today. The Waste Management Oil Recovery tanker is pulled up on the dock beside the ship.

The crowds thin as one proceeds east past Admiralty Steps to Marsden Wharf. Huge red iron fences with ornate gates keep people from the water’s edge with overstated Victorian hauteur. Thirteen strands of electrified wire above the iron spikes indicate that even today the golden rule prevails – those with the gold rule.

At Marsden Wharf is berthed NOCC Atlantic, a giant object with all the grace and elegance and curvilinear art nouveau detail and decoration of a concrete block. Trucks rumble into its cavernous rear end.

Beyond the NOCC Atlantic is a small rock that is the place that on 18 September 1840 Ngati Whatua chief, Apihai Te Kawau, granted land to some visiting folks from across the ocean. Himalayan blunder!

I stomp on further along Quay Street. ‘Let the World be Nuclear-free’ the mosaic exhorts from the spot where French agents murdered Fernando Pereira.

I am almost at the Spark Arena, halfway between Storage Shed One and Storage Shed Two, while astonishing, yellow, War-of-the-Worlds machines roll about tossing shipping containers around before I realise that I am not going to be able to get any closer to the sea. I can glimpse, beyond the buildings, an orange ship with a black funnel with two pale blue stripes.

I turn and head back. I saw three ships.


Barnaby McBryde

The Electric Coconut Christmas Tree

On Stoddard Road, just across from the medical centre, The Auckland Samoan Assembly of God church is an old factory building, large, with a warehouse roller door on the side for trucks to back up to. The car parked on the road outside has prayer beads and an Arabic inscription hanging from the rear-vision mirror.

The motorway runs along behind the building. Next door: Panel and Paint, on the other side: the Elegant Knitwear factory, then an overflowing dumpster and Tulja Centre. Tulja Centre is a mall. What an excitingly modern idea it was in 1974, fresh from the distant home of capitalism – the shops are inside! Not a verandah in sight! But not so exciting now. And don’t think Dubai. Tulja Centre doesn’t have a ten-million-litre aquarium with 300 species of fish nor an indoor rainforest. It is mostly deserted, it has four shops on either side of its central passageway. Roti Hut and Hyderabad Kitchen if you want to eat Indian food; Nims, Sakhi and Devotie if you want to buy Indian women’s clothing; Sona Sansaar if you want to buy Indian jewellery or a few elephant deities …

If you approach Tulja Centre from the other direction, as you avoid the kids on bicycles, weave amongst the women with headscarves, the black man in a thick down jacket on a hot summer day, the old bearded man in dishdash and skullcap, a series of smells reach you as you walk – incense from the vegie shop, spicy cooking smells, linen and washing powder from the giant laundromat. There are a more than reasonable number of barbershops, a couple of tailors, a TAB and ‘a name you can trust’ Mohammed’s Halal Meat.

At Deliciously Pasifik you can buy Samoan taro or Fijian pink taro. There is a security guard outside the Post Office. Hip Hop bursts from passing cars and across the Siasi ’O Tonga (NZ) Trust Board sign – an incomprehensible green tag.

And at the back, left-hand corner of Tulja Centre – Café Abyssinia.

And in the central walkway of the mall – the electric coconut Christmas tree. It brushes the, admittedly low, ceiling. The trunk is green plastic but the coconuts are green plastic lit from inside and the ten or so meager fronds are made from plastic tubes with flashing lime-green lights inside. The tree rests on a wooden board and an unapologetic electric cord is plugged into a socket in the wall.

‘Ganna’ he calls it – the commemoration of the birth of Christ on 7 January. He recalls the white netela the people wore as they headed to the round stone church in the evening, the songs, the processions, the candles, the walking home in the silence at 3 a.m.

No flashing trees, no presents – the holy service, the feasting: Ethiopia before The Derg killed the Emperor, before the Red Terror. About the time they were building the Tulja Centre here.


Dhiraja

General Pause

Back home, there had been a heavy fall of snow, turning the field beyond the stone wall into a Christmas card. A proper Christmas, she thought, not this hot, off the clock, barbeque and strawberries antipodean version.

Charlotte paused, one score left to clean. Outside her window, a builder in a Santa hat was packing up his tools, whistling tunefully. He caught her eye, and waved.

“Merry Christmas!”

You too, she mouthed, returning the wave.

She opened the cover of the clarinet part for the Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols, and began to erase the spidery pencil marks. Everyone else was at the garden bar, one last gathering before they scattered for a month. I’ll just finish these, she had said. Won’t be long.

The clarinettist was new to the orchestra, still conscientiously noting every one of the conductor’s directions in her tiny hieroglyphics. Every beat of a complex rhythm numbered, moments of featured melody underscored, a General Pause circled multiple times with pencilled coils.

Charlotte leaned back in her seat. At home her mother would rise in a few hours, a twelve-hour day in the kitchen ahead. She would be singing carols as she cooked - Deck the Halls, I Saw Three Ships, Ding Dong Merrily on High - producing mince pies, delicate hors d’oeuvres, a pre-stuffed turkey and prepared vegetables ready for the oven, Christmas pudding and bread sauce. There would be eighteen for Christmas Day, arriving in waves after hours snarled on the M25 in unforgiving weather. The children would be irritable, babies hard to settle again. Only a long weekend away from work for some or a short hiatus in the school year. Her brothers would have projects parked until after the festivities, and tensions would mount if work phone calls intruded.

Charlotte closed the score and added it to the pile. She swept the erasing curls into the rubbish bin. The builder had long gone, and the office was so quiet she could hear the hum of the lights. In the late afternoon sun, the others would be on to their second glass, toasting another successful concert season, breathing into the slower rhythm of the summer ahead - camping on sunburnt lakesides, beach cottages with no clocks, a cycling tour with grandchildren.

Charlotte shelved the scores, and gave her empty desk one last glance. Next year they would begin again, a clean page, a fresh start.

For now, the General Pause. Halls were holly-decked. Three ships had sailed in and found safe harbour. Shepherds enjoyed a beer in the silent star-lit high country. The baby slept.


Rosemary McBryde

December

Here we are again, month 12 of year 2.  Congratulations to everyone for sticking with it, whether you're an early submitter or a grit-your-teeth, last minute scribbler.  For our semi-seasonal starter, see what you can do with "I saw three ships".  Happy Christmas / holidays / summer / winter, whatever is appropriate for wherever you are.  Thanks for a great year and happy writing.

Bloodlines

Bleary eyed, I step into the entrance.  There are no other givers here that I can see.

“What is your full name and date of birth?”, asks the administrator behind the desk before giving me the sheet of probing questions that I must answer. Before long another nurse leads me into a small room and begins the interrogation, possibly the thirty-first time of one hundred and fifty times she will want to know the answers to these questions this week I calculate.

“What is your name and date of birth?”, enquires Tanya who already has one hand lining up the pricker.  The scrolling news banner on the television mentions more sexual harassment claims in Hollywood.  I make a mental note not to ask her about small pricks.

The form I have filled in just confirms the mundanity of my life; have I taken any drugs, been overseas recently or participated in hazardous activities such as rock climbing or sky diving?

I sacrifice my right fifth finger and without hesitation it is seized and unceremoniously violated by the small sharp incisor that leaps from its concealed house.  The extracted juice is placed within a small electronic sensor that determines my suitably for progressing to the next stage like a successful Bachelorette contestant. 

Having made it to the next round, I am shown to a stall like a much more sophisticated urinal and prepared for harvesting.    

      

“Can you confirm your name and date of birth please?”, asks Sally and I’m tempted to see what happens if I change my history at this point. 

I avoid looking at the long metallic lance.  A woman in her twenties is on my left looking slightly vacant as if they’ve left her for two rounds.

“You might feel a slight pr….”, err, yes, I do, but mainly I’m half expecting to say who I am again as I’m sure they have already forgotten.  It’s not the thought of the needle in my arm but the sensation of a tube of warm blood draped against my forearm that bothers me. 

Representatives from all walks of life occupy the adjacent seats, all putting on brave faces as they contemplate the good works it might achieve.  In times of urban terrorism, there is always the footage of those whose first instinct is to line up outside the donation centres.  A different call to arms perhaps.  

There are two groups who harass me, one who want to extract my fluids and the other who try their hardest to help me put it back in.  I’m giving in to the extractors this time round; next time though, it might be the turn of a deep blood red cabernet sauvignon running the other way that wins out. 

Andrew Hawkey 

President Trajkovski

‘Controlled flight into terrain’ the air crash investigators term it.

Inside the polished and elegant coffin how much was there – and how much of it was actually him? Some meat from the slopes of the ragged, winter hills of Bosnia Herzegovina. But, on his gravestone the words: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God’.

At the head of the grave they erected a bust though it failed to capture the radiance of his face; the boyish grin; the charm; the holy light; the broad shoulders of his giant frame that had made him look, in his dark suit, rather more imposing that his own dark-glassed bodyguards.

Quiz:

Name two famous Macedonians.

The obvious first answer – Alexander the Great.

Alternative history:

What if the childhood tutor of Alexander the Great, the famous Macedonian, had not been Aristotle (as it was) but had been – John Wesley. How different would the world be now? Instead of a maker of endless war – what if the world had had to contend with a peacemaker?

John Wesley:

And surely all our declamations on the strength of human reason, and the eminence of our virtues, are no more than the cant and jargon of pride and ignorance, so long as there is such a thing as war in the world. Men in general can never be allowed to be reasonable creatures, till they know not war any more. So long as this monster stalks uncontrolled, where is reason, virtue, humanity? They are utterly excluded; they have no place; they are a name, and nothing more.

(And yes, the obvious second famous Macedonian is Mother Teresa.)

But – Boris Trajkovski, second president of the Republic of Macedonia from 1999 to 2004, was tutored by John Wesley.

The Methodist Youth Group led him to training as a lay minister and being a lay minister to being exiled by the communist government to the distant hills where he tended a tattered congregation of poor gypsies in the Evangelical Methodist Church of Macedonia.

War in Kosovo: a dirty street fight between the Kosovo Liberation Army, the Albanian army, the illegal air forces of NATO, the army of Serbia and Montenegro, 13,000 dead or missing, rape, arson, terror, two million ethnically cleansed – a ‘humanitarian war’.

And next? Macedonia.

It is not called a war, ‘the 2001 Macedonian insurgency’ – platoons of tanks and artillery, torture, war crimes, burning mosques, people’s skin cut off with knives – for less than 200 people were killed and only 170,000 people were displaced.

How much would it have taken to make it the next sorry Balkan civil war? How much did it take to avoid that? One man. One president.

As the countless drops of the boundless ocean
Or the myriad leaves of a huge banyan tree
Peacefully remain side by side,
Even so, all human beings will someday live side by side
In a perfect oneness-world.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God’.

Dhiraja

The Introverted Activist

They were comfortable in the spotlight, energized by noise and crowds. Success required confrontation and the front page headline.

Annie knew that these were not her people.

Side by side, arm in arm, the approaching mob moved in a slow surge towards the square, shouting slogans at the television cameras which fed images of conflict to a hungry audience.  Angry faces contorted and clenched fists punched at the sky in time with the chant.

REAL CLIMATE ACTION NOW!  HANDS OFF MY PLANET!  DON’T DEFILE, NO DENIAL!

As the march got closer, Annie felt the pulse of a drum beat, wood on skin.  Adrenaline ramped up her sense of panic, fuelled by enraged cries from the marchers. A thousand banners on sheets and card, printed and painted, swayed and jostled for attention. Annie shrank away, barely able to breathe in the midst of the watching crowd. Behind her, two youths laughed and jeered, like spectators at the arena baying for blood in what they hoped would be the inevitable gladiatorial clash between the marchers and the waiting police. Nausea, sour bile, rose deep in her gut, and with every ounce of courage, Annie refocused on why she was here.

She had spent weeks preparing for the march, quiet nights unpicking old jerseys and rolling balls of recycled wool, knitting until she knew the pattern by heart. She’d hand-crafted labels and attached them with rainbows of ribbon.  Each object was unique, a thing of beauty. 

Annie reached inside her satchel and chose one tiny knitted fish, gold with black fins. It crackled slightly as she squeezed it. Strands of recycled plastic bag stuffing poured from its gaping helpless mouth. At the end of gold ribbon, the attached label read save a fish - have a plastic free Christmas.  Annie took a deep breath and, standing unnoticed beside a distracted shopper, dropped the fish inside her K Mart carrier bag. She exhaled – easier than she thought. Another fish, green and silver, love your planet - have a plastic free Christmas, tucked into an open handbag draped over a shoulder. 

Annie moved through the crowd, keeping pace with the marchers.  Blue, purple, scarlet – we only have one ocean, think of the fish, fish need you – until her bag was empty and she could slip away.

Rosemary McBryde

The Corsini Collection - compare and contrast

The face of the virgin was perfect: calm, sorrowful, serene, smooth – her heavy eyelids with the sensual curve of a Tibetan arabesque, an ogive arch of adoration. The rest of the painting … one needed more time and, perhaps, chutzpah to start criticising Botticelli – perhaps.

It was interesting how many people walked around the gallery with their arms folded. Were all people so disconcerted in an art gallery? Anthony unfolded his own arms and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie.

The room was like a Leonard Cohen concert or a Jane Goodall lecture or the South Island – disturbingly full of white people. But then the old farts hanging on the walls were the proverbial old, dead, white men too: crusty popes, sleazy one-percenters and the long-suffering women they groped, one saint with a hole in his head …

Anthony walked swiftly round the walls – ‘Old crap. Boring old crap.’

He circled back and sat down on the low, broad seat before Madonna and Child with Six Angels by Sandro Botticelli and Workshop.

True, the composition was cool: around the calm, still point of that one face the composition rotated beautifully with just that bit of weird, stylised foliage in the bottom right to stuff it up. But one had to say – the rest of the folks portrayed had weird, misshapen faces. What was that about? And none more so than little baby Jesus Himself, intruding His ugly little mug into the centre of the painting. And why was He wearing Lady Gaga’s dress?

The painting did have a freshness and brightness, an apparent newness, which all the other paintings in the exhibition lacked. It was hard to believe that it was 530 years old – it seemed to have just come from the studio (and suddenly been lumbered with a giant gold frame as ugly and deadly as those on all the other paintings).

Enough.

Anthony exited past another of the ubiquitous bored guards. How to get out of this place? Through the International Contemporary Gallery?

The work of John Nixon – conceptual, minimalist abstraction: an orange square, a blue rectangle.

‘Ridiculous modern crap.’

At last the hallowed and reverent gloom of the gallery was broken by sunlight – the stairwell, windows and, beyond, a giant, green tree.

Barnaby McBryde

Side by Side

The school playground. June, 2005

“Pinky promise?”

“Pinky promise.” We both smiled. “Why do you have to go?”

“Daddy wants us to move. But don’t worry, mommy says we’ll have a bigger house and more toys so when you come, we’ll play together!” She clapped her hands gleefully.

“Yay! I can’t wait!” And I hugged her.

We were only five, and neither of us understood the concept of distance and the price of flights. We didn’t think that we would not meet until today, almost 10 years later…

Starbucks. January, 2015

“One tall hot chocolate for Phillip!” I looked up from my work and smiled at the barista. She was grinning at me, still holding the beverage out towards me. As I got up, her smile didn’t falter but only got larger.

“Thank you.”

“You know, I had a kindergarten boyfriend named Phillip. I think I still have a picture of him, here,” She took out her phone, unlocked it and searched through her gallery. I read her name tag, Miranda J. That name sounded familiar. Could it be?

“This one, that’s Phillip. He’s holding my hand.”

She let me hold her phone and zoom in. It was her.

“Miranda Jess,” I gave her phone back. “It’s me, Phillip.”

Her smile faded, her eyes searching my face for any sign of humour. But I wasn’t joking, it was me!

“I thought you moved to the Philippines in 2005!”

“I did! I came back last year, but I didn’t think I would meet you again!” She came around to give me a hug, one that I gladly accepted and returned. “I didn’t think…”

“Yes well, you did promise you’d never take off our engagement ring,” I pointed to her left hand. “I suppose you broke your promise.”

“If you think that 5-year-old Miranda’s fingers haven’t grown…” she laughed.

“What time do you end your shift?”

She flashed a smile. “My shift ends in 2 hours.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“Is this a date?” Smirking, she returned to her counter and read the drink description.

“Isn’t it?”

“Just you and me?” I nodded. “I don’t kiss on the first date, you know.”

“Thankfully, this won’t be our first date, will it?”

The ground shook slightly. I must be nervous I thought, but why would I be nervous? It shook again, and this time she felt it too, losing her balance slightly before looking up at me. The tables started to rattle, plates slid and crashed to the floor.  I looked outside just as a violent tremor threw me down. Someone screamed, the ceiling cracked above me and the lights violently swung from left to right. We were biscuits in a tin can rattled by an angry god.

“Phillip!” I heard Miranda holler before thudding. I turned my head, but I was on the floor and a counter was separating us. I took whatever strength I could muster to crawl towards her and hold her hand. I slipped on something, hot liquid and my knee grazed against broken glass before I finally got to her.

“Shhh,” I cooed, bringing her under a table and covering our heads.

“I don’t want to die!” She screamed as the room was being turned upside down, with coffee scattered on the floor and bodies thrown here and there. I was pretty sure all the plates and cutlery, mugs and glasses were scattered on the floor, mixed with various liquids and crumbs of food left uneaten.

“You won’t die,” I looked at her, my vision hazy. “Not as long as I’m here. Not as long as we’re side by side.”

Katya Tjahaja

November

Every month I think that if there are only one or two stories, it might be time to stop. And then, as so often happens, I get four or five within a few days right at the end of the month  Thanks for your dedication to the notion of writing creatively once a month (at least).  For November, the artistic director has provided this as a starter:  Side by side. 

Happy writing and if you are new to the project, all contributions 300 - 500 words in length are welcome, emailed to rosemary.mcbryde@gmail.com by the end of the month.

Here and Now, There and Then

Evelyn had taken the subway to the Empire State building and ridden an elevator all the way to the observation desk, a famous tourist destination for the millions of visitors to New York each year.  It had been a tough year, one thing happened after another, sometimes several at once.    She can’t even remember what the first real thing was that started the whole cascade; maybe it was Bradley walking out, the realisation she was pregnant and having to face a termination on her own.  Seeing him with someone else just added to the despair.  When her car wouldn’t start and her dog died in the same week, it was a bridge too far.  The winds of change had blown upon her and now there was no grief, no tears left to give.  Evelyn felt renewed, she felt like she had taken back the power she had lost. 

Earth Wind and Fire belted out ‘After the Love Has Gone’ in the lift in some cruel send-off ballad as it sped towards the viewing platform.  She stepped out of the confined box into a swirling breeze that whipped up chocolate wrappers and plastic in all directions. The small group already present on the deck were engaged in photo taking and peering through binoculars. Nobody noticed the dark-haired twenty-something woman exit the elevator and make towards the opposite side of the deck, that side of the building now coated with shades of grey from the failing late afternoon sun.  Evelyn took a moment to look at the ground far below, unintelligible black dots appearing to follow some predetermined route moving like a colony of ants. 

Without the fear or hesitation she expected to feel, she gripped the fence and hoisted herself up with just enough strength in her nimble fingers to reach the top and clamber over the barrier, her fingers savaged by the sharp metal fragments.  She placed herself on the ledge, eyes closed.  And jumped.  The sound of a scream remained on the one hundred and second floor and for a moment she was on the back of Bradley’s Honda as it sped down the freeway, hair lashing her face and the wind screaming in her ears. 

Evelyn awoke .  Through one blurry eye she could see security personnel, paramedics and firefighters and an elderly couple who looked distraught. The pain in her right hip stung like a bitch and she dared not move.   Snippets of radio chatter faded in and out like shortwave radio and it made about as much sense.

“a stretcher…86^th floor... suspected hip frac..”, the firefighter said in to his handpiece.  

 “Someone’s lookin’ after ya”, said the paramedic tending to her, “a cross-wind is the only explanation I have for what happened”, she continued, almost as shocked as Evelyn. 

From the bottom of the tower she looked up before she was placed in the ambulance.  The top looked no bigger than a fingernail.  There was no wind.

Andrew Hawkey

*based on an actual event in 1979

Sorting day

After the funeral, they agreed on a sorting day, when what remained of Dorothea’s life would be packed, distributed, repurposed, dumped.

Ruth was late. Sorry, traffic, she said by way of explanation to her grieving step-sisters. Carol nodded, lips thinning, her eyes flicking towards the clock above the sink.  Balanced on kitchen steps, Judy paused momentarily before resuming her red-eyed exhumation of unused tea sets and preserving jars.

Ruth did as she was bid, aware that even after all these years of trying to be family, the fractures were heightened in death.  Her step-sisters drew together, consulted in whispers over items deemed worth keeping.  Occasionally there was an exclamation, or a story from childhood days that Ruth had not shared. Otherwise, they worked in silence, doggedly sorting, allocating, wrapping in tissue or adding to the growing collection of oddments that nobody wanted.

“I’ll take these bags outside,” Ruth offered.

“Thanks, there’s a pile of rubbish in the garage.”

Ruth welcomed the fresh air, the soundtrack of normal life. The bus to town grinding up the hill, a distant lawnmower, children shrieking in the school yard a block away.

She dropped the bags with the heap inside the door, and as she paused to enjoy the cool earthy basement air, she saw it. The marquetry table, folded and on its side tucked between two cardboard boxes. She tugged at it and lay it on the ground. The top was marked with dirty circles, water stains and dried remnants of maidenhair fern.

“What’s this one?” she had asked her father.  

“That’s boxwood.” His eyes were intent on the pattern as he bent over the baseboard.

“Which one do you like the best?”

He had smiled. “Which one do you like, Babe Ruth?”

Her nine year old brow furrowed while she examined the bands of veneer. “I like this one because it’s red like Mummy’s hair.”

“She did have pretty hair.  Almost as pretty as yours.”

It had taken him a year to make the table, to build the sunburst pattern one piece at a time.  Sometimes they talked; mostly she just watched as he skillfully united the fragments of veneer: aspen, chestnut and cherry, grained and smooth. In hindsight, perhaps it was no surprise that when the table was finished, he took her to meet Dorothea and her teenage daughters.

“She’s not your new Mummy, Babe Ruth. She’s a friend for me and for you. And I hope you’ll like the girls.  I’m sure we’ll all get along.

Ruth found a rag and wet it under the outside tap. She wiped the dirt and foliage from the table top. The stains were indelible, from a lifetime of use and wear. Not everything gets the respect it deserves.

Ruth carried the table down to her car and turned back to the house.  Carol and Judy were standing at the kitchen window. Carol raised a mug and beckoned her in.  Ruth took a deep breath, and went to join them.

Rosemary McBryde

Here and Now

Drip. Drop. Drip drip drip.

God, he was going to have to turn on his windshield wipers, though his battery was already dangerously low, sitting there in the parking lot, waiting.

For the beginning or the end.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have results….” The voice crackled over the radio as the rain began to wash over the windshield. He remembered she had told him that when her president had finally been elected that fateful day, the skies blackened and there was such a fierce thunderstorm her students had aptly asked, “is this the end of the world?”

He prayed the rain did not presage similar results for his country. They had fought to preserve and protect and make their voices heard – SHE, the one he was waiting for and had long followed (how he had envied his brother that picture with her!) -  SHE was one of them and had fought along with them and he knew in his heart, she was the one who could turn things around and return his country to its original greatness.

Though he loved it now, make no mistake – he would not live anywhere else – (she sometimes tired of reading how great his country was when she lived in the most powerful one, but she had to admit she loved his country too) - but this one, this one that captivated him, she knew what was needed, what to preserve and protect, what to genuinely fight for and what to back away from or stand up against.

The dashboard lights began to blink. Reluctantly he turned on the car engine, hoping no one would notice he had been sitting there for an hour, but it was the only radio he had and he wasn’t leaving until he knew.

Finally – thank you George!  – it was announced. He sent the text though he knew she’d be sleeping, and shouted a great woop from the confines of his Honda Fit, before driving into the here and now, rain be damned. 

Jasmin Webb

The Golden Takin

When Han-shan returned to this world, the first thing that he recalled was that today was water day. That was why he was lying on the ground halfway down the mountain with his water barrel beside him.

On water day, it usually took Han-shan most of the morning, after his dawn devotions, to scramble down from the hermitage to the spring with his small barrel – sometimes lugging it, sometimes chasing it as it careened out of control, sometimes hunting for it in a bamboo grove into which it had cannoned.

The return journey was considerably more strenuous – scrabbling over rough terrain, practically vertical in places, pushing or carrying, grappling the heavy container in incremental steps uphill. The effort left him quaking with exhaustion but he needed water and his little stone hermitage was not near a water source.

Han-shan had been just beginning his laboured ascent. The rising Sun painted the landscape. He paused. All was silent and still, the matutinal calm draped softly over everything. The dew shone like jewels on the bamboo.

A range of animals shared the mountain with him, unafraid of his quiet presence among them. Sometimes herds of golden takin would move with surprising silence around his hermitage. They were large and muscular goat-antelopes with shaggy coats of long fine golden hair and with long smiling faces topped with a crown of horns. It made him smile to see them.

Through the bamboo, Han-shan saw a single takin cross a rocky space above him. Its golden coat shone, its neat hoofs clicked on the rocks. At its side was its tiny child – a calf, tiny and dark brown, as takin children are, like a little wooly sheep by its dam’s side.

The takin paused and turned its patrician nose down to touch the calf with the infinite tenderness of bovine motherhood.

It was at that instant that Han-shan fell.

The Sun, the pelage of the takin, transformed into an overwhelming light, a tunnel of fire, light calling to light, expansion, speed, and space, space, it was not Earth it was a high place and it was beautiful, everythingness, totality, the absolute, nothingness, void, only the observer, doing nothing but everything was done, eternity’s child in the garden of infinity.

And then – silence, the takin moved on, the fallen barrel.

Han-shan righted the barrel and heaved it a little further up the slope.

The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there’s been no rain
The pine sings, but there’s no wind.
Who can leap the world’s ties
And sit with me among the white clouds?

Dhiraja