Blog Archives

With Bells On, by Tessa Edgecombe

24/2/2019

Edith was beginning to wish she had not worn her heavy winter coat. She was perspiring profusely, detecting the acrid taint of sweat emanating from her armpits. The tree felt like the crucifix of Christ on her shoulder, and her bag kept on slipping off the other. Her face was slick with sweat and she had to nudge her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose with her wrist. Why oh why had she decided to do this? A plastic one would have been so much easier. It would have been really crap, but it would definitely have been less of a literal pain.
And the road – it seemed so much shorter commuting into work with Jinny. Then it decided to rain. Oncoming vehicles loomed out of her in the gloom. A lorry suddenly whooshed past, deluging her, with the tree swerving with the force of the leviathan’s tailwind.
Edith was nearly in tears from the pain in her shoulders and she felt so hot she thought she could die. On she trudged, counting her steps, promising herself a quick breather after fifty. But she only stopped when thirty minutes later, she let the tree slide down in front of her and leant it against the garden gate. She felt almost sick with the effort she had made but she dragged her prize in through the front door and along the hall to the front room.
It was dark now, but as a car’s headlights swept across the back wall she could see everything that she loved in the world in this one room. She smiled as she quietly set down her bag and eagerly shuffled off the fetid coat.
Minutes later she was wrestling with the tree and then the lights. In the gloom she hung small decorations onto the spiky branches, their twisted silken threads and the resin fragrance a connection to memories of the past. Earlier times in another small living room, a fire blazing out from an ugly tiled fireplace, the ceiling covered in a hazard of polystyrene tiles, every few years the sofa changing from blue to green to coffee crème leatherette, all faux Ercol and aspiring working class attitude.
Hearing a small sound, she bent down to switch on the tree lights.
On the sofa lay her teenage daughter, a baby half cradled in her arms, the cat curled at her feet.
The young girl blinked and opened her eyes, awkwardly pulling herself up into a sitting position. She looked up at the other mother, bathed in the fairy light as the infant let out a soft wail, making Lily turn to her and gently kiss her face.
Edith bent down to the battered box and added another bauble to the tree. Lily grabbed the moth-eaten crocheted blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around the baby.
“Fire tonight, Mum?”
“I think we can have a fire tonight, Sweetie”.
“Christmas?”
“Yeah, we’re definitely having Christmas, Lily. With bells on.”

Men of God, by Sankar Chatterjee

21/2/2019

Mr. Pierre Bernard, a Frenchman was exploring the neighborhood of Belém in Lisbon (Portugal). While searching for a locally famous pastry shop, he noticed the architecturally magnificent Jerónimos Monastery. Taking a break, Pierre decided to explore the monastery, thus entering the associated church. Once inside, he noticed a well-carved tomb with a stone-figure lying on his back with hands folded in a prayer-fashion. The nearby marker identified the tomb as that of famous Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. A historian by profession, Pierre knew that da Gama was the first westerner who had sailed around African continent to land in southwest India near the end of fifteenth century. This day, Pierre learned that the initial burial had taken place in Kochi in Kerala (India), only to be re-interned here in later years.

Recently Pierre was attending an international conference in Trivandrum, Kerala. One day, he took a bus to Kochi, found the historic St. Francis Church, entered, and located a barricaded spot, covered with wooden planks. The nearby marker noted the area as the original burial-site of explorer Vasco da Gama, thus off-limit to the visitors. He gathered that the church had still been active. Pierre had noticed several churches co-existed with temples throughout the state. He learned that in past, the strict caste-system of country’s main religion forced many members from lower castes to find sanctuary to a foreign religion brought along by the early western colonial powers.

He came out of the church. The main road was impassable; a protest-march was taking place. To his surprise, he noticed that all the participants were nuns from various local churches. He asked the young lady wearing a silver cross and standing next to him: “What’s going on?” The youth replied: “A well-known bishop was in town for a holy communion. But the night before, he violated several nuns. But nobody would believe the sisters. So, in solidarity, they took to the street along with other sisterhoods.” Pierre remembered the scandals breaking out throughout the western world about years of abuses on helpless young children by these “Men of God”. Only now the similar untold abuses on the nuns also started to come to light.

At that very moment, the Highest Authority, thousands miles away opened a gathering of the hierarchy by lowering his head in shame and proclaiming: “We hear the cry of little ones asking for justice.”

Big Game, by Doug Bartlett

21/2/2019

The local natives had told Jim that this was the best location to see “big game”. He peered anxiously through the binoculars, scanning the lush, green field below him. He saw a few zebras before he spotted a lion, another, and yes, another. He had come upon a pride of lions, nearly a dozen in all. The next thing that appeared in his view was an equal amount of bears lumbering to and fro. However, they always stayed at least a few yards away as if an invisible wall separated the two groups. All of the lions gathered near the center of the field creating a cluster. The lions dispersed and quickly ran directly to the line of bears. In a matter of seconds, the impact of their bodies crashing into each other made a sound not unlike thunder. A solitary lion was able to make his way through the bears unscathed. He continues running at top speed until he reached the end of the field, at which point the announcer’s voice exited the public address system into the crisp autumn air – “Touchdown…Detroit!”.

The Unanswered Questions, by Bruce Levine

17/2/2019

Was it a harbinger of things to come or only another entry in the long line of expedience?

There was no way of knowing. At least not with any certainty.

It might even be an accidental coincidence.

Felicia looked at her computer screen and wondered. She’d finally yielded to the pressure. She hadn’t wanted to and had always said that she saw no reason to do it. And now that she had she still didn’t understand why it was so popular, so ubiquitous.

She’d been so comfortable in her isolation. So insulated from what she considered the indolent narcissism of society. So free from the maddening dogma of the ideologues on both sides of the aisle.

The stupidity, she thought, as she scrolled through the miasma of buffoonery, the unrelenting display of stupidity perpetrated by people who thought that they were presenting a series of interesting phenomena to the world.

“Interesting to whom?” she asked aloud.

Certainly not to her!

This was supposed to be an expedient. A tool, a device.

Would it have the anticipated results? Would it have any results?

No one could answer those questions. Give it time, she was told. Time alone could bring answers.

Could? Or would?

There were no answers to those questions either.

Just ignore whatever you’re not interested in, she was told.

Easy to say if one had the personality to ignore whatever bothered them. She envied people who could, at least in a way. But then she wondered about that ability in others and how it might affect them in other ways, ways of their own devising or ways of perception in a broader spectrum.

Was she becoming philosophical or simply reacting to stimuli?

And now she’d come full circle. The whole thing was a reaction to stimuli.

Her disdain, her abhorrence, her constant struggle to maintain her equilibrium in the face of a society she saw crumbling before her eyes.

Was that all a reaction to stimuli?

And now that she’d finally yielded, given in to the pressure wasn’t she only reacting to stimuli?

She tried to rationalize it, but had no answer to that question either.

She’d opened a Facebook account and now witnessed her own reflection.

Bijoya and Swapan, by Sankar Chatterjee

15/2/2019

Mr. Swapan Kundu was born to a family engaged in agricultural farming in the village of Sahapur, 75km outside of Calcutta (India). Family’s economy depended on two seasonal crops. But, the global climate-change over past decade was causing havoc for the small farmers like Swapan’s parents. Growing up, Swapan the eldest child would help his father in the field, even attending the village school. He was smart, curious, and dreamed of attending a college in Calcutta. In one hot summer, a deadly drug-resistant bacteria spread through many parts of India, unfortunately taking away the life of Swapan’s mother. Swapan would graduate from high school with distinction and earn a scholarship to attend a prestigious college in Calcutta, majoring in economics.

In college, Swapan fell in love with Ms. Bijoya Mukherjee. She came from a wealthy and educated family settled in Calcutta over past several generations. In addition, in India’s ever-flowing caste-system, the Mukherjee-family belonged to the highest caste of Brahmins. However, the love between Bijoya and Swapan blossomed throughout their college years. On graduation, Swapan would land a job in financing in a major bank. He proposed to Bijoya “Marry me.” She said “Yes.”

Growing up, Bijoya, a millennial was a free-thinker and independent. But she also knew her parents’ generation still remained stuck in old conservatism of a “Babu-class” from colonial-era, especially when it came to mingling of castes in matrimonial arrangements. She expected some resistance breaking the news to the family. But when she did, all hell broke loose. The elder extended family members couldn’t believe “How could she bring such a shame to their respectable family”? Her father Mr. Shambhunath Mukherjee kept murmuring “How did I raise such a daughter?”

Two days later, in the evening, Mr. Mukherjee was driving back home from his business in the middle of a torrential monsoon rain, still preoccupied with the thought of his daughter’s regrettable decision. He missed a red traffic light and collided forcefully with a truck, moving across. His car flipped throwing him out. Soon the family members received a call from the ER of a local hospital, informing them the seriousness of the accident. The family rushed to the hospital and waited patiently outside the ER, the surgery already began.

Soon, a few surgeons came out of the ER and informed the family that Mr. Mukherjee had experienced severe blood loss, thus needed to be infused immediately. To doctors’ surprise, he belonged to the rarest class of “AB-negative”-type and the hospital didn’t have any in reserve due to its scarcity. All the gathering family-members lined-up to donate, but none of their type would match. The last person in queue was Swapan who rushed to the hospital, getting a call from Bijoya.

Next, the entire family observed the doctors were drawing the blood from Swapan’s left arm, while Bijoya was holding his right arm gently.

Madame Divine, by Jim Bartlett

15/2/2019

Taking a deep breath, Madam Divine fluffs her wig, checks her caked-on makeup, and then takes her seat in front of the crystal ball. For twenty years the ball had been nothing more than a prop at the table in her “Room of the Psychic Realm,” but two days ago that all changed. While her client sat through her well-practiced routine, an image – a somewhat foggy one – appeared in the ball. In it she saw a plane fall from the sky, an explosion of flames as it crashed into a parking garage. She gasped at the horrid sight, surprising the man across from her. It was stunning enough to see the destruction, but the fact that something, anything had appeared within the ball sent cold chills down her spine.
“What is it?” the man had asked.
“Are...are you planning to fly somewhere?”
“Why yes...a business trip to Chicago tomorrow morning, as a matter of fact.”
“Don’t go. You must cancel. It does not bode well.”
The man stood, pushing himself away from the table. “Enough of this nonsense. I should have known better. I can’t just cancel a meeting with my director because some psychic...or maybe, psycho, warned me off.”
He turned and left, the door slamming behind him.
The next morning she stood in shock as the breaking news flashed on her television. A Chicago bound plane lost power on takeoff, crashing into the nearby parking lot, killing all aboard.
Later that day, when a young women had come to see her, worried about her husband’s fidelity, she sat again at the ball, this time in dreaded anticipation. The ball quickly came to life showing a fuzzy scene of a busy intersection at the bottom of a hill. Several cars were stuck out in the middle when a gas truck – its brakes not working – came barreling down the grade.
She turned away.
“What did you see? There’s another woman, right?”
“Do you drive a black BMW?” Madam Divine asked.
“Yes, why?”
“Stay away from Elm and 30th Streets tomorrow.”
“Wait...is that where they’ll meet? It is, isn’t it?”
“No, no, that’s not it...you can’t go there...”
But it was too late, the woman had shot out the door.
With this morning’s news of the fiery accident, killing ten as the truck’s load of gas exploded, still fresh on her mind, she rubs the ball, this time all alone. It wastes no time with its response, the scene obviously one from her television. The announcer is reporting tomorrow’s headline story: a tragic killing at 1577 Juniper Street.
Her heart stops. That’s her address.
It’s then the front entry bell rings. Panicked, she reaches under the table and grabs her small pistol. As she does, there are footsteps in her lobby. Someone is coming.
Taking no chances, she throws open the door and fires the gun at the intruder, emptying the chambers.
The mailman drops in a heap to the floor, several envelopes falling from his now limp hand.

A Chocoholic's Credo, by Bruce Levine

14/2/2019

Valentine’s Day to a chocoholic isn’t just a holiday celebrating love and romance, but rather a symbol of the extreme joy of the wondrous state of euphoria one can obtain through the ingestion of oodles and oodles of chocolate.

Valentine’s Day is a day when diving in and luxuriating in mounds of dark chocolate is not only expected, it’s mandatory and with no guilt attached.

Valentine’s Day is a day when the whole world feels like it’s covered in chocolate like a banana split covered in hot fudge and whipped cream with a cherry atop the very apex of the Mt. Everest of white fluff. A day when swimming in liquid milk chocolate would be looked upon as a glorious experience to be partaken of with all of the joy of tasting that strawberry, fresh from dipping in chocolate fondue, dripping chocolate as it passes through the air on its way from the fondue pot to the mouth.

Valentine’s Day is the singular day in the course of the year when all life stops for the inhaling of the essence of life, leaning back in comfy clothes, soft, warm and cuddly, and tantalizing the taste-buds with the smooth, creamy flavor of chocolate as it caresses the tongue in ecstasy.

Happy Valentine’s Day to my love and to the chocoholics everywhere.

Teletubbies, Forever, by Sankar Chatterjee

10/2/2019

Among all the little girls and boys, Ms. Marsha Sussman was the eldest kid in the neighborhood. She had an illuminating personality enabling her to lead other kids in organizing fun activities. Marsha had an elder teenage brother Mike who was more serious. He would tease his sister still playing with “the babies”. One summer morning, Marsha noticed a moving van pulled in front of a recently vacated house, two doors away from her own home. A young couple with two little children in tow disembarked, opened the backdoors of the van, and started unloading furniture. Always friendly in nature, Marsha rushed towards the new family and welcomed them in the neighborhood. She then introduced herself to the children, five years old Keri and two years old Neil. Later, Marsha would introduce the new kids to other neighborhood children.

Six months later, the newcomer young couple planned to celebrate their wedding anniversary with a candlelight dinner. They inquired Marsha whether she could babysit their children for a couple of hours one evening. Marsha agreed, showed up at the correct day, listened to the specific instructions, and immediately engaged the kids with fun activities. Later, as the couple was enjoying a lovely dining experience, the lady jumped out of her chair. Her motherly instinct would alert her “something worrisome happening in the home”. They left the restaurant, rushed home, and parked the car in driveway. And that’s when both heard a banging noise emanating from their basement room and feared the worst. Entering the house, they found Neil who was undergoing proverbial “terrible twos”, locked both Marsha and Keri inside the basement room, while tormenting them from outside. He explained to his parents that this was due to their refusal allowing him to watch his favorite show “Teletubbies”, a British invasion to American TV at the time.

Twenty five years later, recently Marsha was getting ready for her upcoming wedding. After a stressful day of wedding-planning, she fell asleep on her sofa. In a nightmare, the scene from her being locked inside a basement room during childhood appeared, with the added twist of her now being a prisoner of all the characters from that show. She woke up sweating and screaming “Oh my God, I forgot to invite Neil.” Next morning, Marsha called Keri (they remained good friends over the years) and learned that Neil, now being a high-ranking naval officer was in an assignment somewhere in the Indian Ocean. She sent him an invitation through US Navy’s high-security mail system. On her wedding day, Marsha, gorgeous in her white wedding gown, began walking down the aisle along with her father. She noticed seated Neil, clad in his white naval uniform decorated with badges and medals for bravery.

As she passed him, he tipped his hat, whispering “Teletubbies, forever.”

Is The Grass Greener? by Bruce Levine

8/2/2019

He came from the planet Plexathorious. He didn’t remember the trip because the distance was so great that he was in a coma/trance throughout. Now that he was here he had to complete his assignment, go back into the coma/trace and go home. Easy. He was the first to make the trip and no one at home knew what effect being in a coma/trance would have. No one but him, since he was the first and only. He settled in a garden to watch. Rain fell and planted him where he stood.

Two people came by and plucked him out of the ground – an interesting new green plant, they thought, maybe something new for their salad.

“No”, the girl said. “Too risky. It could be poisonous. Probably just a weed anyway.”

The boy looked at her, nodded, and threw him onto the compost heap.

The rain fell again and he got washed further down into the heap.

Two days passed.

The two people returned with a funny looking thing with metal spokes on the end of a wooden handle. Suddenly he felt his entire body being ripped to pieces by the metal spokes. He didn’t know what was happening, but he certainly didn’t like it and he was certain that this was not part of his assignment. If only he could remember what that assignment was – the coma/trance seemed to have erased it from his memory. And now he was here, a dismembered mess with no way to pull himself together and get home.

Maybe he’d been better off on Plexathorious. Maybe he shouldn’t have volunteered to be the first to make the trip.

Maybe the grass wasn’t greener here because now he “was” the grass.

Bird's Eye View, by Tessa Edgecombe

1/2/2019

Here above this ancient port, my home, I am king of all I survey. Black-backed and black-hearted, my wingspan is broad, my beak, sharp. I give no quarter to the other gulls. Just as the sea captain below will give none to his enemies. I glide above the tiny streets, the timbered houses and shops so close that they could almost embrace, all the way to the mighty Barbican, big-stoned, high-walled, surrounding Drake’s fleet. Barnacled by age, the ships wallow in the harbour, eager to set forth into the open sea. I swoop down around him and the other fellows, engaged in a strange dance with large round pebbles which they roll across the green. Over on Hamoaze Point, the brazier is set alight, signalling sighting of the Spanish Armada. But Drake cannot sail until the tide turns. I dip a wing and turn off towards the quay where the fishing boats are moored to see if there is any bounty left from that morning’s catch. Often there are shellfish that the other gulls cannot enjoy. They are not as clever or strong as I. Landing on the glittering warm granite quayside, I scoop up a forgotten scallop, fly to the height of the nearby fishermans’ cottages and drop it back onto the stone below. After three attempts I manage to crack it open to reveal the tasty morsel hiding inside. As I finish it, I hear shouting from across the water and see Drake and his crew clambering into the jolly boats, and rowing off to the galleons, rocking like sea horses out in the Sound.

After snatching a fish out of the jaws of a herring gull’s victory, I glide over the rippling pennants atop the ships’ masts and circle as the men heave the canvas up into the air, the ships flapping their wings in due deference to me. The teams of sailors work the capstans, drawing up the great anchors, in readiness for the tide and seawitch wind to catch them up and throw them forward into the open Channel.

Further out on the horizon is a brewing mass of ships. The great galleons of the Spanish come to meet the tiny ships of the English fleet. But the great galleons of the south are slow and cumbersome. The Albion craft are quick to manoeuvre, and clever, blasting their guns broadsides onto the great hulks before them. The smoke starts to obscure my view but I can still see the Spanish, battered and bruised, still holding the line. Until the fire ships come into play. The flames are too much for me. King of the ocean skies am I, but I will not take them on. And neither can the Armada. They beat a retreat further up the Channel, the English fleet nipping at their heels. I wheel around back to the shore, Smeaton’s Tower my beacon, back to lord it over the feathered fraternity settling to roost.