Story - Puppy Love

 

I'd had that job for six years.  I was good at it.  I was very good at it.  Everyone said so.  The boss, my colleagues, the customers.  They couldn't do without me, could they?

So it seemed.  Then the pandemic hit, the lockdown froze us out of business, the company shut down for who knows how long?  There were redundancies, but not for me.  I was put on the furlough scheme and, to begin with, the boss man topped my salary up to full pay.  But when it became clear, after the first three months, that even without a full lockdown any more we still wouldn't be able to get back to work, that luxury came to an end.  

No real worry, I still got more than enough to pay the mortgage, pay the household bills, feed myself and... well, there wasn't much to spend the rest on anyway.  Going out?  Don't make me laugh.

But the months dragged on, the end of the year loomed, and another big wrecking ball headed our way.  Brexshit.  The boss kept us informed of what we needed in  the deal, if there was ever going to be one,  to keep us viable.  But when it came it was clear that the dog's breakfast of an end product was a killer blow.  The extra red tape would soon have wrapped us in a slow death by strangulation.  This was the end.

Redundant.  No matter how much the word was sugar coated, no matter that I was released ever so reluctantly and with such huge regret, I was still out of work for the first time in my life. During the biggest recession, with rocketing unemployment, in a country that was going backwards, under a government that blended heartlessness, greed and incompetence into a mediocre cocktail of despondency.  I'd never claimed benefits before, but I knew the scare stories about universal credit and how badly it had been implemented.  With few savings behind me my mortgage was going to become an immediate problem.  I saw myself turned into one of those people who have to make decisions about whether to feed himself or keep warm.  In a world without hugs.

Morose about my uncertain future, aware of how easily I could let myself roll about in a mud pit of self pity, I ventured out into the daylight.  Trying to avoid the idiots walking along with their heads looking screenwards.  Or the couples who were too oblivious of others to walk single file for the five seconds it would have taken.  I turned into the local park, where at least the pathways were wide and there was space to get away from people.  

I didn't see her at first, hidden behind the approaching pair of legs.  I sought eye contact with the woman approaching, seeking to determine which side we'd each be safest on, but she turned away, looking back.  And then I saw her, a scurrying leg-whirl of white.  I moved to my left, the lady to hers, and her companion stopped in the middle, and looked at me.  Little brown ears, soft eyes, frantically excited tail, and so, so tiny.  

"How old?" I asked.

"Nine weeks, too wee for a lead yet.  But she's curious about everything and everyone."

I crouched down to get a closer look, and little Ms Nosey came right on up to my outstretched hand.  Trusting, fascinated, expecting to be loved.  She was gorgeous, cute, infectious in her 'the-world-is-wonderful-cos-I'm-in-it' confidence.  I wanted to pick her up and take her away in my pocket, and never let her go.

"She's lovely."  

"I know."  The dog walker grinned her delight at this addition to her life.  

"Maybe I'll see you both again." I said, rising, thinking it was the puppy I really meant.  But when she said "I hope so.  I'll be round again this time tomorrow.  Best be going now, too cold to stand around."  And she walked off up the path.  The pup, uncertain who offered most, stopped to look up at me, looked up the path, and bounced off after the one who would feed her.  Her owner looked back to check.  On me and the dog.

I completed my walk with a smile on my face, and a lighter step than before.  Was that all it took to make my world seem a brighter place?  Yes.  The cutest bundle of joy turning up, an attractive woman who didn't see the darkness I'd been wrapped in, and a future that, however uncertain, would always throw up a life that needed to be lived.  There's always a way.

Story - All Tied Up

  

Still breathless from the excitements of the previous ninety minutes, she closed the door behind the departed Malcolm and thought through Operation Clean-up.  Mentally flicked through which rooms he'd been in, what he'd touched and handled (mostly her...), which traces of his tumultuous presence might need to be removed.  He'd come into the hall, straight through to the kitchen where he had wine, swiftly up to the spare room where he had her, and briefly into the bathroom for his own tidy up.  She decided to work back from where he'd last been.

In the bathroom there was nothing she could see.  He'd put the toilet lid down (good boy!), but she quickly checked for splashes on the seat itself, and that he'd flushed.  No mess around the sink or on the mirror, nothing looked to have been moved.  One more check in the mirror.  Was she herself passable?  She nipped through to the en suite, brushed her hair, tidied her makeup, enough but not too much, and decided her clothes were just as they should be.

She moved on to the room where they'd had sex.  And stood dreamily in the doorway for several minutes, reliving the passion and gymnastics that had taken place.  No, she must get on.  The sheets were stained (of course...), but once covered up and the bed made there was nothing to see.  She hoovered the pillows for hairs as a precaution, but there really didn't seem to be anything that would be easy to spot.  Henry never came in here anyway.  May and Doug were coming to stay in a couple of weeks and she'd use that as an excuse to refresh the bedding before their arrival.   All was well in the bedroom.

Back down to the kitchen and the most obvious giveaways that she'd had 'company'.  Two wine glasses, and a half finished bottle of reisling.  And a decision to make.  Did she wash both glasses, dispose of the bottle (or hide it? - no, she didn't want her husband thinking his wife was an alcoholic) and hope Henry didn't notice a bottle had gone missing?  Risky.  Or wash just one, and offer Henry a glass as soon as he got in?  She'd rarely got to the point of drinking in the afternoon in the past, so why would she have done so today?  This was a question she'd pondered before, and still wasn't sure which option to go with.  It would be hard to convince Henry that she'd had a legitimate visitor she'd plied with alcohol, so there had to be a reason for her to open the bottle herself.  She'd already dropped any idea which might be undone through someone else failing to back up her story, so it had to be about her.  Or Henry.  Or because she was cooking something special that merited wine? - except that she had omelettes planned for dinner.  In the end the best story was the one that was impossible to prove wrong.  She'd simply felt like it.  And why not?

One glass washed and dried and put away, another, for Henry, brought out and ready to use beside her own dirty glass.  She worried it might give him 'ideas', but that was such an infrequent event nowadays, or why else would she have turned to Malcolm?   Another look round the kitchen, but there was nothing to worry about.  Mission accomplished.

Henry came in a usual and called out her name.  She came into the hall as usual and came up to give him a hug.  But before she did they both saw it at the same time.  Bright blue, snaked across the top of the console table.  She stopped, he spoke.

"Hello, where's this from?"  He picked up the tie and looked quizzically at her.  She hoped she looked composed, she hoped she looked innocent, she hoped and hoped and her brain raced to provide an explanation.

"I found it beside the gate when I got back in.  Do you think I should have left it hung up there in case the owner passed by again?  I thought it was a strange thing to lose."  And stopped herself grinning at the memory of pulling it off her lover the moment he came through the door.

"Must have fallen out a pocket or something.  I doubt he'd know where to look.  Nice tie, I might just keep that for myself."  He gave her a smile of acquisition. 

"OK.  Come and have a glass of wine.  I've already started." she said slyly.  And thought 'I've gotten clean away with it'.

Story - Big Broiler

Culture clash.  You can hear it on a bus, in the supermarket, in the street.  Sometimes it will have real world aftereffects, set people heading off on the wrong pathways. But it can also be very funny, mostly, for anyone listening in.  Or they may come away totally confused, having only heard a snippet of the conversation, the words strung along the soundwaves shorn of all the context in which their meaning lies.

""It's the supermarkets, see?  They go for big breasts.  Like fellers. - Did you see that woman on Big Brother?" An English accent.

"Who is big brother?" A Polish accent.

And so it begins.  

"Don't you know Big Brother?  What do they have on telly where you come from?  It's where they lock 'em all up together in a house and you can watch 'em."

"Chickens?"

You know where this is going...

English accent man doesn't twig."Yeah, yeah, just like chickens.  I like that.  And there's this voice telling 'em like what they've got to do.  And they're not supposed to have sex, but one of 'em did - that one with the big, like, knockers I was telling you about."

"Big like knocker?"

Yeah, massive."

And then they're gone.  You wonder how long it will be for one of them to realise that if they're both talking about birds they're not from the same species?  Or did Mr Polish accent leave thinking there was a TV programme where you could watch chickens being ordered about and forbidden to have sex?  Then where would the eggs come from?  Big Brother never thought of that.

Story - Dragon and the George

 

I still miss the good old days, when I was truly useful.  When they needed me.  But it seems I'm useful once more, perhaps not as much as was once the case, but it's good to feel those centuries of isolation coming to an end.

Once upon a time they couldn't have managed without me.  I'd watched so many creatures change over time, hoping one or another would develop the brainpower that would appreciate the possibilities of what I had to offer.  It was never clear it would come from the monkeys, until they shed much of their hair, learned to walk on two legs, and developed the ability to grip and wield.  They were my chosen ones.

Fire was something they feared, one more uncontrollable element in a terrifying world, a wall of heat and destruction that swept across woodland and grassland and left a black smoking wilderness, and the black smoking bodies of those who could not escape.  I thought about how I could introduce them to the magic, without the fear, and awaited my opportunities.

A wandering group of these early humans, hungry, cold, night falling.  In a dip in the ground I swept some wood together, breathed upon it gently, and created a warming fire.  In the clearing I scattered more wood, and left a small antelope nearby.  Gentle hints.  The band approached, warily, scouting out threats, assessing the situation, and found the warmth and light made them feel better, kept away predators.  They let the fire die down.

It would a take a few goes on my part before someonefinally thought to try putting more wood on the pile, to keep the flames going longer.  That made them more adventurous and some tried building their own piles of wood, but they never lit.  Some tried warming the meat of the antelope (or whatever I'd found convenient nearby), and recognised the improvement in taste.  Unable to recreate the fire elsewhere, they settled in the spot they'd found, kept it going and this became home.  Some understood they could take burning wood in their hands and use them to take light elsewhere, and then to set another fire going.  But if it rained...

I still hadn't shown myself, but observed from high in the sky, far enough that they would mistake me for a great bird.  Revealing myself for what I am would require much thought if they were not to be terrified.  Eventually I chose a grouping that had settled by the sea, when their fires had all been put out by the weather.  I landed as softly as my beating wings allowed.  There was fear in their eyes, but I kept some distance, dropped the wood I had carried with me into a neat pile, and, checking their wary eyes were still on me, gently breathed my magic upon it.  I stepped well back.  They stepped forward, cautious, fearful of a trap.  One stuck his stick into the flames, drew it out ablaze, and rushed back to start relighting their own dark pyres.

This had happened several times, and I had gained their reluctant trust, but they remained cautious.   Who would not be, seeing my size and majesty and powers?  A dragon is not a sight humans ever become fully accustomed to.  But the time was right for the next stage in their combustion education.  When the fires were out once more (although they had steadily developed ways of  preventing this from happening too often) I returned.  Instead of setting a fire I dropped rock on rock to create sparks.  They looked bewildered.  I did it again.  And again.  One of the sparks dropped into some sticks and grass which was briefly alight.  And the spark lit up in one head.  A man rushed to get some rocks and banged them together next to a pile of wood.  No luck.  Another added grass.  And they created their own fire.  I flew up, hovered above, and could see that they knew now.  I was their friend, not their master.  

More groups received the same lessons.  The news spread, of how to create and master fire, of the uses it could be put to, and that the dragon, if you ever saw it, was a friend of man.  I did not want worship, just the knowledge that I had helped.  

All was well between us, my legend strong, my reputation untarnished.  Until the incident.  One man who changed it all, and changed it for the worse.  His story spread, the dragon became an evil one in the minds of humans, and my usefulness ended.  I hid myself away in these mountains, kept my distance.  But let me tell you what really happened.

I discovered a young woman in trouble.  Lost, far from home, at the mercy of the wild beasts in the hillside forest, hungry and tired and very, very frightened.  When she saw me she knew who I was and that I would be her friend, although she lacked the power of speech.  She let me pick her up, and, holding her warmly in my softened jaws, fly her back towards the nearest humans.  I spotted one on a horse, and thought he might be the one to help, and carry her back to safety.  A strange creature though, in metal clothing that made him look like a poorly constructed shiny scarecrow, with a bright red cross on the board he had strapped to one arm.  

I put her down before him, and stepped away.  The distressed woman looked at me gratefully, and at him expectantly.  He looked on grimly, angrily, with reason deserting his face.  Which he hid as his metal covering snapped shut, pressed his horse to charge forward, and came at me with his puny stick.  I could have, perhaps should have, roasted him then.  But I bore no ill will towards the horse, not did I want to frighten she I had so recently rescued.  So I ascended, and hovered above the scene, immune to his idiocy.  He shouted insults, called me coward and claimed what he called victory.  I stopped myself from laughing.  Chuckling too often results in unexpected busts of flamey breath, and I didn't want the situation to get worse.

He turned back to the woman, now on her feet.  Instead of alighting to check on her condition, he didn't even stop, just bent down to grab her clumsily and heave her painfully across his saddle.  Administering a couple of smacks to her buttocks, he spurred his charger on and went off into the woods.  I thought to follow, to check on her safety, but, shamefully I admit, my vanity had been rattled, my pride roused, and I flew off in the other direction.  The arrogant, ungrateful boor was best left alone, I thought.  Wrongly.

My next appearances before humans were greeted with fear and loathing and aggression.  I even had to singe a couple for my own safety.  What had changed?  It was my friend the unicorn who told me enough to piece together the story.  The tin man had returned to his people with a fantastical tale about his rescue of the poor maiden from the evil dragon, her bruises and the clear evidence of despoilment being shown as evidence against me.  He was a persuasive orator, a man who could spin lies and deceit into a credible farago, and the word of my supposed wrongdoing spread rapidly.  This despicable creature built up such myths about himself that he became the hero of a people, their knight in shining armour.  What sort of folk would choose a bullying and uncaring falsifier as their icon?

But that was then.  The bully is still seen as a hero by many of the descendents of those imperious fools, and they have brought much havoc to the world of humans.  But their neighbours see through them, and accord myself, and my one horned friend, our due credit.  Now, in these hills and valleys, I still light upon people who are lost and tired and hungry and fearful, and I light them a fire and guide them to shelter.  They are grateful, but will not tell the story when they return to their families, for fear of ridicule.  I prefer it that way.  I am a myth, a legend, and a friend of man.  But not of the tin men.

Story - Missed Connections

 

My digits?  What kind of message is that?  I didn't know if he meant me or not, but I wasn't about to reply to something so...curt, so lacking in any hint of romance.

I did know he meant me.  I remembered him, sort of.  There were two of them, together forlornly when I brought my shopping cart back to the car.  They were parked in the bay behind me, the Nissan with the hood up, the guys with their mouths down.  I set about shifting my purchases into my Merc and struggled to get the pressure washer box up and over the wire (so how was I going to be able to use it? - but that's another story...).   The guy in red parka came over and offered to help, got it where I wanted it, and I thanked him.

"Are you in a hurry to get away?" he suddenly asked.  When a random man asks you that in a parking lot you the alarms start blaring, so I played it cautious.

"I do have someone waiting for me so I really need to get going."

"Oh, OK, it was just in case you had time to help me out.  I'd left the lights on too long and battery's flat.  If I could find someone to give me a jump start |I'd just be so grateful."

He seemed genuine enough.  He had helped me out.  And I'd lied, there was nobody waiting and no rush to be anywhere.  I looked at red parka man, a spaniel waiting to be petted.  Then at his mate, blue puffa jacket guy, looking... at me, intently.  He looked away quick enough when our eyes met.  Harmless, or at least harmless enough, said my antennae.

RPM connected with my hesitation.  "It wouldn't take long, I've got the leads right here."  The smile half hopeful, half encouraging.  I looked around and there was nobody else he could ask for now, and one Samaritan deserves another, don't they?

So I closed the trunk lid, shifted my car around to be nose to nose, released the hood and he did the rest.  In less than four minutes the Nissan was purring away, my hood was back down and I was on my way home to my imaginary someone.  RPM had given profuse thanks.  BPJG never said a word.  He did look though.  A lot.  Had positioned himself so that he could always sneak a glance.  I thought I saw him grin as I pulled away.

It was Thursday when I was back into Craigslist.  I've no idea what made me have a sneaky look at the Missed Connections ads.  Sometimes I'd gone in there just for the laughs, the desperation that oozed from every line.  

'Tractor Supply Friday (Stephensville)'  I'd been there on Friday so clearly my brain would want to click.  And there it was.  Words springing from the sparse sentences.  Shy.  REALLY want you number.  Fate.  Friend a jump start.  I really want them - your digits.   

Surely not me?  Surely me?  Otherwise the coincidence level...  This was my grinning silent admirer, Mr BPJG.  Had I thought him cute?  I really couldn't remember much beyond the sly glances and that final grin.  No, he couldn't have my digits.  Really, he couldn't.

I forgot all about him.  I almost forgot all about him.  OK, I sometimes wondered if I'd made a mistake.  It wasn't like I had admirers queued up at the door, and dating in your forties was proving more of a challenge than I could handle.  But if I'd made a mistake it was just another one in a long, long line.  So?

Four months or so passed.  I was back in Tractor Supply again. It was a hot day, a Friday.  Looking in Lawns & Gardens for fertiliser and a new hose cart.  Looking, looking, and then looking up.  At a shopping cart stopped dead centre of the aisle.  At a stupid grin above it.  At those eyes which had watched me so intently.

He came towards me, opened his mouth, and I waited for sound to emerge.  And waited.  The look sinking from joyful to crestfallen.

"Still shy?" I asked.  He nodded, still dumb.  "Still REALLY want my... digits?"

"You read it?"  My turn to nod.  The puppy looked happy again.  "I can speak, really, it's just..."

He'd made me laugh and that was enough.  

"I'm nearly done in here."  I looked at his empty cart.  We looked.

"Err... I'm done too."  I couldn't help my quizzical expression.  "I don't come in to buy.  I've been coming most Fridays since, you know...  Sometimes weekends."

"For me?"  He looked into the emptiness of his basket.  "Just to say thanks for getting your buddy's car going maybe?  Or do haunt this place for the atmosphere?"

"No, no, it's just that you wouldn't go from my head and I wanted to see you and I knew the ad was a long shot but maybe coming here I'd see you again and even if I didn't it helped me keep your face in my head and I always thought that maybe there was a chance and sometimes I didn't and..."  He stopped himself, somehow, eyes lit up and shining, waiting.

"Sounds like I just gave another jump start.  Always good to know I can still do it.  Think it's time to head for the register?"  I smiled.  I smiled a smile that let him smile back, that turned Mr BPJG into Mr Mine.

We don't go to Tractor Supply much.  But when we do we get two carts.  And one of them stays empty

Footnote :  The story derived from a Craiglist ad, in the Dallas listings, which went as follows -

"Tractor Supply Friday (Stephensville)'    I wish i wasnt so shy . cause i REALLY want your number!! Maybe fate will let you see this !! You gave my friend a jump start ... So can i have them please?! Your digits?!"

Story - Decision time

Eighteen hundred and fifty days.  Just over five years.  Not that 'days'  or 'years' held any meaning now.  It was the numbers that mattered, not the units.  Eighteen fifty activated the first decision window.  Her decision.

There had been four of them to begin with.  Alexei had been first to go.  'Day' nine hundred.  A routine check and maintenance walk.  Every ninety 'days' they took it in turn, but this one refused to be routine.  The stickiness of the airlock door should have alerted them, but omens don't belong in space.  And anyway, it wasn't the door that did the damage.  The odds on what happened happening must have been billions to one against.  Space debris.  In deep space.  Hitting the exact spot where their colleague was checking the secondary comms array.  Had been checking.   He was long gone before any of them could even react to the images on their screens.  Long gone.  As was their ability to talk to each other if the main system ever went down.  

The accident which took Lungowe was even more bizarre.  But when everything in their little world was routine it became ever harder to stick to procedures.  She should have been wearing a full heat suit in the core room, but it was only going to be five 'minutes', wasn't it?  But.  Always but.  But it wasn't five minutes, and as she battled to renew one of the lower hydroponic circuits the time stretched out.  They called to her to leave, thrice, but each time it was "nearly there".  But nearly wasn't as close as it should have been.  By the time they got to her it was already too late.  One of them should have been nearer at hand of course, but...

That had been 'day' fifteen hundred and eight two.  Two hundred and sixty eight 'days' ago.  What would once have been about nine months.  Whatever they were.  She and Paul said little now.  It was all about waiting, and performing what had to be performed.  The contingency routines allowed for half crew, no less, so they got by.  She got by, for Paul did what he had to do, no more, and avoided any other responsibilities.  And avoided her.

So the decision was hers now.  They were around a hundred and twenty 'days' flight time from taking up orbit around their destination.  There were two hundred and eighty other human beings on board, in cryogenic stasis.  There were guidelines on how quickly they could be reactivated, and reintegrated, returned, refreshed.  They would have to be revived in batches, the size and frequency to be determined by the views and experiences of the transit crew.  Which, now, really just meant her.

She'd been pondering it for days.  With Paul's personality gone AWOL it would be down to her to perform the orientation procedures.  She didn't think she could cope with more than three at first.  She needed a leader, someone who would relieve her of the burden of command.  A technician to take on a share of the maintenance workload.  And - this was the tricky one.  She'd have liked  the wellbeing specialist, who had always been intended to be in the first batch, to help the four work through the impact of half a decade in intergalactical transit.  She needed her.  But.  Always but.  Paul needed proper psychiatric care.  Maybe she did too.  Maybe?  Huh!  The decision was made.

She punched in the codes.  The beginning of the end had begun.

Story - Boldly Going

I'd been walking around for almost four hours already.  Covered all the rooms of the convention hall, earmarked stalls for later deep exploration, and gone about my mission as boldly as I could, searching for 'the one'.   There had been nods of recognition, brief exchanges of conversation, deceptive appearances too many to relate.  Every time I thought I'd found 'him' there was always some detail he hadn't got just right - the stance, the angle of the head or the cold logicality of the persona lacked ultimate perfection, this element or that element jarred or simply pissed me off.  Dozens upon dozens trying to be 'him', but lacking commitment.  I'd gone to way too much trouble, spent too much of my life in mastering my role, to accept a hint of second best.

But I wasn't about to give up, and my scan continued to take in any and every imposter in this constellation of the good, the bad and the ugly.  Many impressed me with their devotion to the cause, their personal need to realise the truth of the stars, that made us all feel a part of this journey into the unknown.  Their faith and belief  kept me going in my quest.  I'd not yet reached the point of thinking "I cannae take it any more".

And then I saw him.  'Him'.  A man for the minutiae.  A man who'd mastered his character, who inhabited that half alien being.  I could feel him sucking in my appearance, the rightness of my uniform and hair, the sardonic confidence I projected.  Our eyes met, the final step in our mutual appraisals, and we had the same thought.

He was Spock, I was Kirk, and that's all either of us needed to know.