post really, really, really short stories.

“There are moments – indeed, days, weeks, or even years on end – in some people’s lives where there is a palpable sense that all activity is valueless.”

In the mirror that morning I noticed my beard was turning white. Rain clouds chased me to work and the words from a book I’d read some time ago came back to me and left me sad.
I had lunch with Erin from accounts. She talked about plans for thanksgiving and I drifted into a daydream where I quit my job and set out on a round the world trip but couldn’t sustain the interest for very long and soon found myself sat with Erin and Thanksgiving again.
I got the bill and we raced back through more rain.
After work I went into Borders, bought a coffee and settled into another chapter of Anna Karenina. As the place got busier I began to lose concentration and found myself strolling through Tolstoy’s Russia with a beautiful Japanese girl who’d smiled at me from the queue earlier. She took my hand and we trailed Orlovsky, talking in whispers. Her name was Yuko and she came from Yokohama. We talked lightly about life and love through thinly veiled references to the story we were following.
When Orlovsky left for Kitty’s house in a carriage Yuko squeezed my hand and we said goodbyes.
Returning the book to my bag I made a resolution to leave sad words behind for good.

I had a slow walk home and didn’t mind the rain.

“Sorry but I cant do this anymore -goodbye”

2 years, 6 months, 5 days and one post-it note goodbye –depressing.
I took the note into the kitchen and stuck it to the window, put the kettle on, made a coffee then moved back to the window and took it down to read again.
The streetlight was still on outside. I Watched the rain drift past it then a glimpse of color caught my eye. It was a blossom. The rest of the tree was bare, it was winter. The wind was pushing it and the branch it clung to back and forth. The streetlight must have caused it to bloom. It looked strangely cinematic.
I spent the day at work calling Sara’s friends without luck. There were 2 messages on the answer-phone when I got home, friends and family but no word from Sara. I poured a drink, went to the window and looked out at the blossom.
I checked the post next morning then watched the blossom again. That night the answer-phone again -0messages, then the blossom. It became a ritual.
Where was she?
One night when it wasn’t raining I went out and sat on the wall underneath the light to get a closer look. Someone passing by asked if I was okay. I realized I was crying, wiped my eyes and went inside.
A week later I got on a coach back home for 4 days with family. I spent the time reading in the quiet of the spare room and walking along the coast road up to the old railway station. I was restless and tired all at once. Christmas day was unbearable.
Back in London I went straight to work from Victoria station and didn’t get home until late. I wasn’t expecting any sign of Sara, she would have got in touch by now. She was gone.
I looked for the blossom as I came up the street but that was gone too. It was still winter.

She passes a billboard advertising the latest TV where underneath it someone had sprayed in huge red letters ‘Capitalism is boring’. Her hand traces lightly along the words in solidarity with the writer. I watch her walk up the road and out of sight then turn back to my girlfriend…
“…and then she said that it’s the same for everyone so now I’ve got to ring them all and get them to…”, she’s still on her ‘my day at work’ rant.
“I’m just nipping to the toilet, I won’t be a sec”. As I get up she reaches for her phone. Christ she can’t go one minute without having someone to whinge to.
I walk past the toilet sign and slip out of the entrance to the café unnoticed, jog lightly along the pavement until the traffic thins then cross over and take a left onto the high street. It’s quiet and she’s just up ahead waiting by the lights, as I get closer she recognises me and puts out her hand to take mine. We kiss, then I reach down pick up her bag and we cross the road together.
“…you do know this is a daydream don’t you” she says smiling up at me.
“shhhh…don’t spoil it”.

Looking out of the window I can see a burnt out car, and further up the block 2 dogs are wrestling with a rubbish bag and it’s contents, depressing. Who’d choose to live in an area like this? And where was this anyway? South of the river is a complete mystery to me ahhh cramp! How long have we been at this now? feels like ages, the gathering sweat runs then drips off my face as I look down at the man below me and try to move to a more favourable position. Without having to explain he reaches out to my hips, stops me and directs me down to the bed. Now he’s on top of me and we start over again this time he’s gently rocking back and forth, my hips against his. I lost sensation a while ago but I’m smiling, nodding, trying to mimic real arousal, genuine interest. On the cabinet beside the bed is a digital clock radio. I watch 3.34am become 3.35am. I’ve got to be at work by 8, I wonder if there’s a tube station nearby…

…I smiled in recognition as she looked up from her newspaper.

“I have of late but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises and indeed…indeed…I do believe you’re in my seat” I said to her.

I’d chosen the wrong person to kid about with. She smiled at me, reached into her purse and pulled out a taser gun. As I lay there twitching before passing out I noticed the look on her face. It was not a look of disgust or menace or even fear it was one of playfulness.

I woke up a short while later convinced I was Attila The Hun. Don’t laugh, it was possibly the worst day of my life. I was arrested for trying to sack a petrol station on the Kilburn High Road and brought to this institution for observation. That was over 6 months ago but I’m fine now and ready to go back home.”

“Okay, well first off on behalf of myself and my colleagues I’d like to thank you for joining us today. If I may I’d like to open the review with a question”

“Fire away.”

"you say you thought you were Attila the Hun but you look more like...well...Groucho Marx."

“I AM GROUCHO MARX, YOU QUACK!”

“Well thank you for your time Mr Marx I do hope we have you feeling better soon.”

I took my coffee to a window seat and sat down. There were a few papers scattered across the counter so I pulled one toward me. I was idly flicking through when a picture caught my attention. Below it read: The Hunters In The Snow by Peiter Bruegel. I knew every inch of the image but this was the first time I’d learnt its name.

When I was 12 my family moved across town and I had to switch schools. The switch proved less than easy. Fights and stand-offs with the teachers and kids plagued me for the rest of the year. A trip to the headmaster’s office always followed. I’d be made to stand in the hallway and wait to be seen. This picture hung on the wall opposite, facing me. I’d find myself drifting off into it. It had the quality of a dream and I could almost feel the snow soaking my shoes and the bottom of my trouser legs as I trailed behind the hunters down the hill. My mood would lift as I walked along breathing the cold air. After helping the hunters feed the dogs I’d follow the path to the lake. The people would skate and play games on the ice and I’d lean half-crouched against a tree and watch them. That’s where I’d usually be when Mr Maxwell would open the door to his office and say
“What do you want?”
What did I want? I just wanted to be left alone to enjoy the skaters and the fresh air, that’s all.
This time there was no one to interrupt me as I crouched there. I watched the people until it got late then stared at the last of the sun over the hills and wandered off through the fields.

“Your Honour, I was laughing at a sign that advertised a local newspaper. The sign had a headline from the paper that said ‘PENSIONERS FLOOD HELL’. The apostrophe was missing from the word pensioners and it struck me as funny, the thought of an army of pensioners bustling into hell. While I was laughing a couple walked past. The woman slipped on the pavement and crashed to the floor. The man quickly rushed to her aid. As he leant forward to help her up he noticed me laughing and assumed that I was finding his partner’s misfortune funny. He stood bolt upright, walked up to me and struck me, knocking me to the ground. This I found less funny.”

A man and his young son are eating wafers on the street outside. The man tosses a piece of wafer to a pigeon nearby –the pigeon jumps away a few feet then launches itself at the wafer, beak first, devouring it. The child giggles at the pigeon and pulls on his father’s hand urging him to throw more wafer. Instead he breaks up the last of the wafer and hands it carefully to his son to throw to the pigeon. The pigeon is waiting hesitant but hungry. The child hurls the wafer bits to the pavement. Suddenly there are pigeons everywhere. The people walking along the pavement make the pigeons jump and freak out, flapping their wings as they leap for cover in all directions. The child is no longer giggling, instead he’s flinching and screaming at the freaked out pigeons. The father is laughing at his sons panic and the madness he’s created. He’s laughing and nodding at the passers by as his son tries like mad to escape this bird frenzy. Me? well geographically I’m inside a coffee shop facing all this but mentally I’ve gone to screensaver.
The computer still reads ‘post really, really, really short stories’ and my coffee’s cold. Maybe later…