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The British Army Nil, My Grandma Won, by Fliss Zakaszewska

11/11/2016

Felix, Beatrix’s only son and youngest child, turned seventeen in January 1918.

Having seen Kitchener’s plea, ‘Your country needs you’, he joined as an officer on his birthday. The army asked no questions.

At home he let it slip; he was soon being shipped to the Front. Beatrix’s turn of phrase was apparently not the type generally heard from genteel Edwardian ladies. She ordered her carriage and marched upon the War Office.

No one knew what happened except that Felix was transferred to the Junior Corp in March 1918. Armistice was declared eight months later. My Dad was spared.

What Was It All For? by Gordon Lawrie

11/11/2016

Standing at the War Memorial, none of them now under 90, they remembered fallen friends. Wreaths were laid: nowadays, only Tom was fit enough to bend and take part. At the minute’s silence, his mind went blank, the mind perhaps blanking out the horrors.

As they left, some sort of student anti-war demonstration was going on.

Tom’s wife Mary took his arm, saying, “Doesn’t it make you angry, seeing those youngsters, just taking what you did for granted?”

“No, Mary,” he replied. “That’s what it was all for. So that those young people had the democratic freedom to say so.”

Paint Box Love, by James Blevins

10/11/2016

My thumb on her words.
I took them with me—in love—from Georgia.
In a thirsty-for-her-brown-eyes sort of way, in pocket, I took them out.
Sorry if I got paint on you, they read.
I wish she had.
Paint between my knuckles, and up my forearms, to the unknown, delicate insides of my elbows, and then smeared dark to the bone of my hip.
A hand print on my chest.
Four green fingers, like wings, fanned out on both cheeks of my face, as if holding me close, mixed with the red of my heart, painting a yellow spark.

Darkness At The Break Of Noon, by Gordon Lawrie

9/11/2016

Donald's a' comin' to get ya...

Midday: the streetlights were on. The man and his son stared blankly from the window at dazed, confused passers-by in the street.

‘Why is it so dark, Dad?’ the boy asked. ‘It’s just gone twelve.’

It was a good question, the man thought. He thought of his migrant friends, of his black friends, of every woman he knew; he thought of all those less fortunate than he, and the future of the entire planet.

‘Someone’s managed to turn the clocks back, son.’

‘Will they ever go forwards again?’ the boy asked.

The man had no answer. These were dark days.

The Man In The Back Seat Of The Car, by Guy Fletcher

8/11/2016

Joe never envisaged being the man in the back seat of the car, taken for a Sunday afternoon summer outing by his grand daughter and quite obnoxious boyfriend.

His old football team were mentioned on the radio.

"You used to play for them gramps, didn't you?"

"Yeah, before the First World War," piped in her partner, laughing at his inane wit.

As they went for a long walk he limped with walking stick into a bar, reflecting on 60,000 crowds and drinks with the lads later.

Oh, but now he will drink alone...with just his memories for company.

Interplanetary Competition, by Russell Conover

5/11/2016

The Plutonian sport was brutal. Players had to locate their opponents amongst obstacles and then pelt them with sports balls until they surrendered or their foes bombarded them. No one was safe.

What’s more, the Pluto Bombers had gone over a century without winning it all. In the final game of the year, against the Jupiter Asteroids, they realized they could add Plutonian rocks to the sports balls, adding mass. Though more dangerous for victims, these balls resulted in the first Plutonian championship in a hundred years.

They also catapulted opponents into space after impact. A minor sacrifice for competition.

Thought Speed, by Len Nourse

5/11/2016

Part 1

Thirteen year old Whiz-kid Leon pondered the wisdom of space travel other than colonizing other planets in our solar system. Delving deep into his mind, using similar skills of his twin sister Lizzie used brain-thought transformed Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence formula to thought-speed. Using this, holding his sister’s hand, he imagined them on an ideal planet in orbit around the sun, Proxima the dim companion of the triple-star system, Alpha Centauri. They arrived in anticipation on Golden beach, but were immediately sized by robots where they were taken to the decontamination room and decontaminated; the process not amenable to thought speed.

We Will Survive, by Eric Smith

5/11/2016

Andy woke up. "Oh no," he remembered, "our country might face a constitutional crisis; gridlock; or civil war. At least, many obnoxious left-wing celebrities will emigrate. The rest of us will simply make do.” He ate his cereal and drank his orange juice. “No matter who wins,” Andy thought, “he or she won’t be around for more than four years.” He was certain such unpopular folks, at their advanced ages, would most likely be one-termers or less. In the meantime, the people would come to their senses. Right? He loaded his long gun and checked his water and food supplies.

Hunting For Lilly, by Fliss Zakaszewska

4/11/2016

I made my way quietly as I searched, looking both left and right.
There… no, there… damned, gone! I didn’t want her to starve.
There! I lifted the purple flower - an interesting shape for a bit of plastic - and SLAM…!
I smiled as I pinched my prey between tweezers and walked back with the prize, dropping it into her open maw. It clamped shut immediately as she savoured the moment.
“Really,” said Stevie, “what would it do in the wild?”
“What, Lilly?”
“Yes, and whatever made you call it Lilly? It’s a Venus Fly Trap for goodness sake!”

A Drunk Scotsman Looks At The 2016 US Presidential Elections, by Gordon Lawrie

4/11/2016

Arguably the most significant poem of the 20th century was Hugh MacDiarmid's 1926 work A Drunk Man Looks At The Thistle. Check it out if you're Scottish, otherwise look for a translation! Here's 100 words in a similar vein on Trump v Clinton. I suppose you could even sing it...

You say Trumpet, I say Claxon
You say she’s crooked!, I say he’s poison,
Trumpet, claxon,
Crooked, poison,
Oh let’s call the whole thing off!

You say Repubican, I say Democrat
You say she’s evil, I say he’s malignant,
Republican, Democrat,
Evil, Malignant
Oh let’s call the whole thing off!

Oh but if we call the whole thing off
We must start again
And anyway four years from now
We’ll be singing the same refrain

So you say elephant, I say donkey
You say rodent, I say monkey
Elephant, donkey
Rodent, monkey,
Sadly – we can’t call the whole thing off!

Confession, by Barney MacFarlane

3/11/2016

Fr Dennis McDade had what his mother once termed “an appealing kink in your hair”. Another, less so, hovered approximately two inches below his skull.
He had made a request to the bishop if “His Most Reverend Excellency” would hear his confession.
And the following week, esconced in the confessional, the penitent priest shook a wayward curl from his eye and began tentatively, “I appreciate that priests – indeed, you yourself also – would have had a ‘calling’. “
The bishop hmmed. “Er, yes. Go on.”
“I never had a sensation like that,” admitted Fr McDade. “But I do have … urges.”

Flight, by Guy Fletcher

1/11/2016

It is 4:01 in the morning, the same time he has woken for the last month or so. For a second he forgets where he is, tears flood when he remembers. He is a deserter, Edith does not want to know him and his former friends would be talking about him with contempt.

At first he was courageous, feeling immortal, but when his colleagues' names were rubbed out that all changed. He couldn't face returning to the heavens and battling the Luftwaffe anymore. Not after Charlie was burnt alive.

Now he has a fear of life, not of thanatos.

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