One day, a house in a village was on fire. No one was hurt luckily, but a family lost their precious home. Before the desperate family, neighbors offered them planks of wood one by one, soon the family could build a temporary shelter. The neighbors then decided to offer their used or sold stuffs, and the family was able to start a new life. With the help of their neighbors, the family eventually built a new house next to the shelter. But they didn’t tear down the humble shelter, leaving it open for the whole village to use.
Coincidence?
“Green!” Mark hit the accelerator. His foot pressed the pedal down with too much force. The car bolted forward with a hissing noise. Seconds later, it slowed down abruptly. “Red!” The car came to a halt and Mark nervously moved up and down in his seat. “Green!” The process repeated itself several times. Mark had to get out of town. He needed to see Mhari. The night before, she had left her umbrella in his house. He reached her street and there she was, waiting for him. He handed over the umbrella and just like magic it started raining. "Ken, come over. Help trim our tree.” Nancy insisted, husband Dave nodding approval. Alone for the holidays, he couldn’t resist.
“ Here’s a ladder, Ken—will you get the ornaments on that shelf?” Mounting the ladder Ken felt Nancy steady him. When high enough, he reached into the closet. Below, a hand was caressing his leg, moving slowly, gently upward. He looked down, directly into Nancy’s pleading brown eyes. They trimmed the tree. Ken didn’t visit again. He spent Christmas alone that year, but he still feels for Nancy and David, long since divorced. He hopes they are each happy. “Steve, the kitchen light burned out. Can you get a new one?”
“OK, but I might have to go to a couple of stores. It has that unusual shape.” Diana calculated. More than enough time for a rendezvous with the next-door neighbor. “Dad, if you’re going out, can you drop me at my piano teacher’s house?” Steve calculated. Even better. Amy was always up for a drive-by. He dropped Steve Junior off, who made a point of going to the door until his father sped away. Then he walked next door and knocked. “Hi, Sara. Want to have some fun?” Retrieve, toss. Retrieve… He turned the workweek wheel mindlessly, until he saw her teary face on an envelope.
He tilted the box, scattering dozens of closed envelopes onto the floor, opening all— with hers on top. How could he not give? His cousin succumbed to the very ailment she had. A new envelope arrived in the mail, from her. She thanked him for his generous donation, indicating how compassionate people like him enable her to lead a decent life despite her infliction. Contentment had him toss envelopes into his charity box, only to retrieve them to help those in need. When I arrived at the border, Red Crecent drivers were smoking. Cumbersome inspection processes and wilting perishable loads.
A child’s eyes lost in pools of tears, bloody face and pins sticking in his leg-bones. I helped deliver babies, without medical kits. Do soldiers practise killing children? Whistling bombs and the tat-tat of gunfire were deafening. I became immune. I stopped asking how far away. Boss insisted I take a break. ‘Compassion fatigue,’ he said. Angry at rampant vainglory, I was tired of walking on war debris with weary feet. Where was the triumphant word ‘why?’ I flew home to Martha. Tommy and comrades crept out of the trench. Frozen breath hung in the air that crackled with anticipation and hope.
The Germans had promised a Christmas Day truce. Could they be trusted? Soldiers in Pickelhauben crunched across the frosty ground, hands high. Then Christmas greetings in German and English filled the air in No Man’s Land, where once bullets and shells had screamed. Fritz approached Tommy, holding out a letter with tear-filled eyes. “Please. In England. You will post this? My wife is English…” “I will,” promised Tommy, shaking hands with the man who, tomorrow, would again be the enemy. "Geoff. Where's my damned coffee? You are useless!"
Geoff swore softly in the kitchen wishing he could be free from his wife and her constant demands. Then his gaze was drawn to the photograph on the wall showing an alluring young woman walking out of the sea with a mellifluous smile. His wife had been an excellent swimmer and then only optimism showed on her face. He carried the coffee into the lounge viewing the same lady, now wheelchair-bound and desperate. Geoff felt immense shame for his unkind thoughts. Writing literature nowadays, mused Calum … it’s almost a requirement to use the most extreme swear words. Publishers seemed to demand it, believing readers wanted it. Same on TV and cinema. Hardly a phrase minus the C or the F word. Not like in his day, the good old days.
Calum wasn’t going to be manipulated. He continued typing at his computer. After an hour he completed the latest chapter of his … inoffensive … novel. Smiling, he pressed print. Nothing. Message on screen: Printer out of ink. “Blast!” Calum screamed. “Blooming new-fangled inventions. I should have stuck to pen and paper.” I never really believed the houses I filmed for my lucrative YouTube channel were haunted. Creepy, spooky, weird or eerie, these supposedly apparition-ridden residences held no trepidation for me. Not until I visited the burnt-out remains of Carfax Manor.
To escape limbo, the imprisoned spirit in the sprawling mansion manipulated my mind, transforming my perception, making me believe the charred central staircase was safe. The authorities attributed my fatal fall to misadventure. Now I’m stranded here in place of my predecessor, a ghostly ghost hunter, waiting for the chance of an afterlife, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to come along. The tiny LED headlamp clipped to the brim of his ball cap illuminated the numbered dial on the large safe door. His nitrile-gloved hand reached out of the darkness and gingerly manipulated the dial as he listened through a stethoscope.
Dial right. Back to the left. Then, right, two clicks. Left a complete turn, stopping at 13. Turn the handle. Nothing happens. The scheming woman lifted one of the headphones and hissed, “Start again from the left.” Then she slipped away as the sirens wailed closer, hoping to find another gullible peterman she could exploit to open her husband’s safe. He’s screaming again. Face puce, rigid fists flailing. Thirty minutes this time. Who knows why? He ate an hour ago. You prepare piping-hot food microwave-quick. He gobbles it down lickety-split. Spits it out just as quick. Shrieks even louder. You checked the temperature first—you think. He’s impossible to please. You’ve always been so capable. Now nothing you do is right.
It’s not supposed to be like this. You want a re-do. After a long sleep. You’re cataclysmically tired. Tell yourself, Next time will be better. Nod. Wrap your howling baby in a plastic bag. Throw it in the bin. “Did you take out all the money again?” I asked Jeb as he came through the kitchen door. “Forgot to tell ya, had an emergency,” my no-good, drifter, drug-dealing boyfriend of 6 years slid a hand up in my blouse. I stiffened, “This is so depressing.” I really needed to pay off the clinic, wasn’t ever going to get a child into this hell. “Your fancy-ass salary makes you chase happiness all the time. Admit that life is hell and be free,” he laughed. I picked up the biggest knife from the block, “you’re right, I admit,” and plunged in.
“These are my findings,” mewed Fifi, the Persian cat. “To get treats from the she-human, I must rattle the sink’s drain plug, leap down from the counter, and scream to shepherd her to the bookcase, where she keeps my treats-bag on an unreachable shelf.”
Tutu the French bulldog snorted (perhaps unintentionally). “The he-human gives me treats for peeing outside, so naturally, I’ve been pretending I have to pee much more often than I really do.” “They’re slow, but one can work with them,” squawked Kiki, the parrot. “Luckily, if I ask for crackers, they’ll give them to me all day.” "You don't know me," she said. I guess I didn't. I never really had, of course. Children are torn from your body, their thoughts their own. "No, I don't," I said, my back pressed against the bathroom door. On the other side, she stifled a sob, and my heart broke. "Oh, honey..." I said, slipping my fingers under the door, just the tips on the other side. She sniffled. Then I felt the soft pressure of her small warm fingers on mine. We sat there, back to back, fingers to fingers, until I heard the soft click of the lock.
Sleazy motel.
A one-night stand. "O-oh, baby," he murmurs. The guy has a rash. Hard to look at. Might be contagious. "Need a shower," I tell him. "Don't take long," he says. In the bathroom. I jump out the window. We came in his van. Shit! Steal his keys? Eh…. Not worth it. Luck! A sheriff's sedan. I flag it down. Help! Sexy cop takes me home. One-night stand? He strips off his vest. "O-oh, baby," I purr. It was early morning and still very dark. Street dogs were howling with fresh vigour. After a quick face wash, I looked at myself in the mirror. Where was the mirror? Disappeared? I held my toothbrush. I saw it there. Where was I? Slowly, a weird image began to appear. A mud covered human skeleton with some bones missing. Then, a fragile face full of wrinkles. As I strained my eyes to recognise it, I heard it say, “I am you.” Scared out of my wits, I closed my eyes. Just then, the dawn opened its eyes and erased everything.
“I would like to dream. I would like to go where I am not, and be who I am not. I would like to see what I have not seen. I would like to imagine. I would like to wish.”
These are the thoughts of the small brown Teddy bear named “Bunny Bunny” sprawled on Jennifer’s bed. He is programmed to give verbal feedback to hugs and kisses and to blink. But the program gave him much more than that. He is now caught in perpetual stasis, capable of thought, forever awake, just the soft small thing on Jennifer’s bed. Feeling accomplished, I left the pharmacy with a smiley-face Band-Aid on each arm. I was vaccinated against COVID, tetanus, diphtheria, shingles, pertussis, and pneumonia. My mammogram was clear, my colonoscopy “clean as a whistle” and all the tartar was off my teeth. Spring was finally on the way, as a warm coffee-flavored breeze wafted while I waited to cross the street to Starbucks.
The light changed and the walk signal flashed. I stepped jauntily into the roadway, humming my granddaughter’s favorite tune, The Wheels on the Bus. I didn’t even feel it as I was crushed under the yellow monster. My mother was thrown out when she got pregnant. I never knew my father. We lived rough for a long time. Our meals were chancy, warmth was rare, shelter often unreliable. There was danger everywhere. One frightening morning we were rounded up, put on a truck and taken to a strange place where I was prodded and poked with sharp things. They gave me food and water when I woke up. I never saw my family again. They tell me I’ve been adopted but I wish...
“There you are, handsome boy, dozing in the sun. Whatever do cats think about?” He drove to work, head swirling with formulae.
Positively charged, he propelled into his classroom to take on calculated risks. Students maximized their absorption spectrums to take in all kinds of matter he spewed at an accelerated pace. At day’s end, he felt the magnetic pull of home, leaving dark energy behind and finding the fluidity of a drippy faucet for which he had no solution. A recliner begged to have its flexibility tested. He willingly gave in, becoming a star in the galaxies with a new perspective on black holes; putting his life as a physics teacher on hold. The agony was excruciating, a depth of pain he'd never felt before. Anticipating his end, his brain unleashed a torrent of potent chemicals into his system. His mind raced through a whirlwind of life's greatest moments. Suddenly, the pain vanished and he knew he was not alone.
Surrounded by his loved ones, from his wife to his great-grandson, bidding him farewell with affection, he felt overwhelmed with love and fulfillment. With his final breath, he understood there was nothing to fear. With pride, he embraced the darkness. A solitary tear of joy traced a path down his cheek. He died. Mrs Norton was a good boss; unsmiling, but always fair, and very correct.
Tony the mail clerk used to do a hilarious routine about Mr Norton writing memos to initiate sex, and her responding with a spreadsheet of required activities, climaxing with her saying: ‘That was satisfactory, Mr Norton’. One evening I saw her in a restaurant, holding hands and gazing lovingly at the man across the table. I went to say hello. ‘Good evening, Robert,’ she said. ‘This is my husband, Arnold. We’re just leaving — we have a great deal to do on our spreadsheet tonight.’ And she smiled. Nelson was a prep with custom-made seersucker suits, bowties and Gucci loafers. He was a clotheshorse but the sorority girls loved him.
Then that summer his girlfriend cheated with Kappas, he maxed out his Saks card, and was generally spurned. Nelson reinvented himself. He discovered goth/industrial music, wore black and took dance, performing John Cage/Laurie Anderson hybrids with the modern dance troupe. He felt free wandering around in eyeliner and tights. No one but new friends noticed him. Things were perfect … except now his father hated him. Banished, he moved to California, changed his name to Wolf and disappeared. |
"Classic"
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