Dead and Buried by Sam Hutchins, The Graveyard Smash

 

The fascination of the two skeletons was that they had been found lying on their backs in a shallow grave. The man and woman had seemingly died together and had been buried linking arms. Any evidence of organic material had long since disintegrated in the acidic soil. I was intrigued by the find: the stark grave, orientated towards the east, might be a Christian burial, but it was independent of any graveyard or church building. It might also be a pagan inhumation.

The tomb had been found early that morning by the driver of the mechanical digger. The skeletons were unscathed: the metal teeth of the digger had cleared the bodies by centimetres and the loose earth filling the oval grave had fallen free revealing the features of one of the skulls. The discovery was remarkable: it was the first substantial find outside of the fragments of pottery and the numerous potholes and would be useful in dating the occupation of this early medieval village. I asked two members of my team to clean the skeletons and, though the task was laboriously long, requiring fine tools: trowels, brushes and dental picks, the skeletal couple were completely presentable for their photographs and sketch session by mid-afternoon.

By late afternoon the winter dusk began falling, casting disfiguring shadows across the site. The roar of the excavator further down the hill hushed and I told my team to cover their work areas with polystyrene boards and plastic sheets against any nightly frost or rain. When all was ready, I threw my helmet and safety shoes into the boot of my car, exchanging these for my headband and some tatty, blue plimsolls. I drove home.

The drive back to Birmingham was eternal, but at least the heavy traffic was flowing the other way. I thought of Sasha who was probably home by now. She was my earthly support when morale was low and frustration with work almost unbearable, my economic support when I was between jobs, my partner for sports and sex. Here, the romantic picture of the buried lovers on the hill came to mind. I wasn’t sure that I was ready for Sasha to be my earthly partner in the spiritual sense of eternal togetherness, but the burial of the two lovers – if lovers they were – did show a certain commitment. Was I ready for that with Sasha?

I parked the car outside a high brick wall and was distracted for a moment by my black silhouette against the cracks and joints of the overbalanced wall; it would topple over soon, pushed up by the roots of the pollards. I grabbed my bags and breathed in the refreshing smell of the first heavy raindrops before making a run across the road. Going through the hinged gate I saw Sasha watching me from the kitchen window. I put my head down and fairly scuttled to the front door. On pushing myself into the hallway, along with the fierce draught from the oncoming storm, Elsy, one overfed collie, launched herself at my legs.

‘Down, girl, down Elsy,’ I ordered, knowing that she would not obey; she never did. It took Sasha to do that.

‘Stop Elsy,’ she ordered before smiling at me and giving me a warm kiss on the mouth.

She drew back instantly. ‘Ouch! That hurt me.’

‘What!’ I saw a pinprick of blood on her upper lip. ‘Sorry love.’ I licked my thumb to rub it off. ‘I’d better have a shave and then I want to print off the photos from the site.’ I watched Sasha roll the tip of her tongue along her lip before offering to print the photos for me. ‘And then tomorrow,’ I continued, throwing my satchel on the sofa, ‘I’ll ask Mike to dismantle the two skeletons, the ones I phoned you about, and crate them off to the museum lab. The curator’s team should be able to give me the results of their analysis in a few weeks.’

‘Fantastic find! What’ll happen to the couple afterwards?’ Sasha asked, inserting the camera wire into the computer so she could download the pictures before printing.

‘They’ll probably be stored somewhere in the museum cellar unless there’s room to display them.’

‘What a shame they can’t be re-buried together.’ She sighed as she bent over the desk. ‘It seems wrong to disturb the dead.’

‘They’d have been destroyed by the new by-pass anyway; it is a rescue excavation after all.’

‘Look Simon,’ she said, picking up the first picture as it rolled out of the printer. ‘Don’t you think these raindrops on this skull look like tears? They even look sad at the prospect of being separated.’

I had to laugh. ‘Always so melodramatic! It wasn’t even raining this afternoon. But that’s enough of work: I’m tired, dirty. I probably stink. I need a shower.’ I swung myself around the doorpost into the bathroom.

The following day the stormy weather continued. The weeks of fine weather were over and the dry, ‘clean’ excavation suddenly turned into a quagmire of slippery mud and ponds of water. It looked like a battlefield. Work had to be abandoned for the next few days. I was furious, frustrated: it meant more delays. As it was, my colleagues and I had so little time to examine the site before it was destroyed. It meant more work pressure. I would have to leave the two skeletons to rest.

However, the weather was surprisingly clear at the weekend. I made the most of this by deciding to work whilst the weather held. Sasha came along. Dressed in a green parka, with wellington boots and her brown hair tied back, she looked quite the part. I had put on my workman’s kit of dun-coloured trousers, helmet and steel-capped boots. Together we uncovered some of the work areas and I showed Sasha the grave.

‘You found them just like this?’ she asked.

‘Yep. Undisturbed for about fifteen hundred years, give or take a century.’

‘Don’t you sometimes feel like a graverobber?’ She had frowned when she said this, but I knew she was also curious to know more.

‘Archaeologists are not graverobbers: we don’t steal from anyone since everything belongs to our cultural heritage and is given to museums.’

‘You sound like a tourist guidebook.’ She shook her head as though in despair at my lack of sensitivity. ‘So, what can I do to help restore our cultural past?’

‘You can start by cutting that section of the ditch.’ I pointed to a point of ground nearby.

‘You can sketch the cut and its stratigraphic layers whilst I dismantle the two skeletons.’ I handed her a crate with some drawing pads, pencils and plastic sample bags.

A number of visitors from the local village came to look at the site. An elderly farmer stopped and asked some questions. About to leave, he said, ‘This grave reminds me of an old story my grandfather told me when I was a lad.’

I wasn’t that interested in any myth-building that had been made over the generations but politely asked him what the story was.

‘He told me that long, long ago this slope was occupied by a small village. There lived a young stonemason, happy, handsome, and poor…’ He stopped.

‘And the woman?’ I prodded.

‘She was the daughter of the local priest – priests could marry then you understand. She was also handsome, comfortable, but unhappy; she was unhappy because she was suffering from an unreciprocated love with the young man. He was building a church for the village but was not interested in her. So, in desperation, she went to visit a wicca, an old witch that is, who made her a charm band. It is said that the young woman even sold her soul to the devil in exchange for the man’s love. Still, the man wanted nothing to do with her. Feeling harassed and tormented by the woman, the man left the village to fight as a mercenary in one of the Frankish or Saxon wars abroad and so make his fortune. He never returned—’

‘Wait a minute,’ I interrupted, ‘you’re saying he never returned. Then how did he end up back here with a second skeleton on his arm?’

‘Let me finish my tale,’ the old man said, tapping his forehead. ‘The woman would not take rejection. Disguised as a man, she followed him, and signed up with him so they could fight side by side. It was disguised as a man that her beloved fell in love with her and that is when she realized that the witch’s spell had, in fact, worked: the man only loved men.’

‘So, what happened after that?’

‘That is why it’s a sad story: as a man she could not reciprocate his love; both desired the other but could not be satisfied. In one battle the man was mortally wounded. The woman managed to pay for their passage home, but her heart was too weak. On that fateful journey, she lay down next to her lover, and wrapped the wicca’s charm band around their arms before she died too. Their bodies were brought back to this village and, as their arms were bound together, they were buried alongside one another in the same grave.’

‘But not in the village cemetery,’ I added.

‘Well no. They weren’t married and the girl’s father would have nothing to do with his run-away soldier-daughter; he wouldn’t let her be buried in consecrated ground.’ The farmer shivered as he ended his story. ‘Just a myth, yes, but good for the tourists.’

The farmer had become cold standing there so he offered to help me carry the two crates of bones to the car along with a metal bracelet which had been found with the bones.

‘So, the witch’s spell did work,’ the old man said, ‘but the witch also warned that whoever broke the charm lock would have a price to pay. There has to be a message in there somewhere, something like beware the anger of a scorned woman.’

‘Yes, it’s one letter short of ‘danger’,’ Sasha threw in as she arrived at the car with her crate and sketches.

The old man laughed before trudging off across the fields.

 

After that, the weather remained fine but I was dogged by work. I began to feel exhausted and slept badly. Work put a strain on my relationship with Sasha and we began to quarrel. It was nothing at first, meaningless bickering, which I sometimes managed to diffuse. One evening, for example, I didn’t leave my desk to join Sasha at the kitchen table - I had to finish a report first. Angry - but here she was a bit extreme - she gave my dinner to the dog. She’d put my plate on the floor with a knife and fork on either side and then drawn an arrow in chalk with a message saying, ‘Simon’s dinner, eaten by the dog.’ She went to bed. When I eventually came into the kitchen and saw it, I had to think of a good riposte.

When Sasha got up the next morning and went into the kitchen she first shrieked in horror and then almost gagged. I rolled out of bed: I had to see her face, and I wanted to appreciate my artwork. On the tiled floor, I had drawn a small coffin. On the lid I had written: ‘Elsy - R.I.P’. Beside the coffin I had added an arrow pointing to a message: ‘Dog, killed by Sasha’s cooking.’ It’s a good thing she had a sense of humour because that is what made her laugh and broke the ice between us.

But it couldn’t last. As the weeks went by, it seemed to both of us that there was never a moment when we didn’t argue. I was to blame for a lot of it, I know: I thought of nothing but work; Sasha just retreated into herself.

At work I hired a remote pilot to fly a drone over the excavation and take air photographs. Flying low over the site I was struck by the bareness of the escarpment. The few remaining trees surrounding the excavation looked dead and destroyed. Some of them had been partly pulled down or split apart by the mechanical digger so that they looked like the decayed ramparts of some deserted hill fort. Within the line of trees, structural outlines were clearly defined in the brown earth, but what was most clearly visible on the stripped ground beneath was the empty grave.

The drone pilot, a young enthusiast from the British Archaeological trust, was enjoying flying all around the site. Over the grave he let slip, ‘Looks like a black eye.’ I frowned at him and took another look. He was right: the oval hole did look like a black eye, and it was staring unblinkingly at me. Disconcerted, I scratched my rough chin.

‘No, don’t be daft; it looks more like the outline of a small boat. A good find: they were buried in a boat.’

I clapped the young man on the back and then turned away to look at the extent of the encroaching new road: it would split the ancient village in two. The speedy construction of this dividing line was another painful reminder of how close I was to my own deadline. I shook my head; I felt another migraine coming.

‘We can stop that now,’ I said to the drone pilot. ‘We’ve got enough pictures.’

 

At the regional museum the osteologist had just completed her bone analysis on the two skeletons: the couple were in their early twenties, from the eighth century and, going by their DNA, they were of Germanic descent. With 3D imagining she had also reconstructed the two faces, giving them skin, brown hair, eyebrows, blue eyes. She had used me as her model for the man so there were certain similarities between us, even down to my untidy hair and dimple.

‘Did you have to use me as the model?’

‘Only a little bit,’ she said, grinning. ‘It’s mostly down to the bone formation of the skull.’

‘What else did you find?’ I asked, slurping warm coffee from a paper cup.

 ‘The man was killed by a weapon,’ she resumed, ‘a sword or dagger, that cut into his ribcage, but I can’t determine the cause of death for the young woman - a broken heart perhaps.’

I crushed my paper cup into the bin. ‘Yeh, right!’

The museum’s curator wasn’t sure what to do with the silver armband or bracelet: there was so little space in the museum, but the Anglo-Saxon burial would make an interesting addition to the permanent early medieval collection. The curator was also hoping to obtain further material from the British Museum in London to complete the display. Perhaps I would be free to help with this, he’d asked, especially since the excavation was now over, which reminded me again of my new status of unemployed.

Sasha had decided to leave me. Our final argument had begun just after the excavation had been flattened for the new road. We had financial difficulties and I didn’t have another contract after the site report was finished. Sasha accused me of being morose and ill-tempered, criticizing everything she said or did. We were already sleeping apart – I was on the sofa. I could not understand how this had happened to us. We had a furious row over breakfast because the milk was sour – or perhaps it was just because we were sharing a meal together.

‘I’m leaving,’ Sasha shouted, throwing her bowl into the sink, where it broke. ‘I can’t take any more of your moods, your bloody-mindedness, your selfishness. I’ve had it.’

‘That’s fine by me because I don’t need you. You keep the flat and I’ll find a new place and a new job - as a grave digger perhaps - I’m good at that; might as well change my whole life at the same time.’

‘Yes, you might even get a discount for digging your own grave!’ She had stormed out of the flat.

Skulking in London, I spent a few days doing some research in the British Library trying not to think of Sasha whilst constantly checking my telephone for WhatsApp messages from her, but she didn’t send me any sign of life. Oh yes, there was one: ‘I’ve changed the locks and your bags are in the dustbin.’

I ignored her too and decided to do some work at the British Museum. I visited the Anglo-Saxon collection on the upper floor and had a coffee with an old colleague who worked there. I even managed to arrange the loan of some of the jewellery for the museum collection in Birmingham. But I wasn’t enjoying my lone stay in London - I missed Sasha; being apart from her somehow felt like the end of my life.

Leaving the British museum at dusk, thinking of Sasha as I crossed the busy road, I was distracted momentarily by the disfigured outline of another shadow behind me against the iron grilling: it looked like a witch. I stopped. I looked at it. And didn’t see or hear the black cab racing towards me - I felt it of course, the sharp stab in my chest, the tear in my heart, the wicca’s curse. I fell.

 

In Birmingham, the museum curator began laying out the bones in their display cabinet. The two skeletons had been placed within a small, reconstructed boat with a touch screen for visitors to scroll through the phases of the excavation and the three-dimensional faces and dress of the couple. Just one final touch, the armband was added, and the couple were linked as they had originally been in their grave: arm-in-arm. The curator smiled, recognising the face of Simon on the screen. And if I’d been there, I might have smiled too.

About the Author:

Sam Hutchins grew up in London to a single working class mother and an unknown father, something which motivates her interest in self-identity and the past. She now lives in France where she teaches English literature and creative writing at Orléans University. She writes books, articles and short stories.

Assembly NOT Required by Héctor Hernández, Passion Fruit Cocktail

Gina strained under the heavy load. “Hold up. You're coming to the first step. Okay. Next step. Okay. Last step. Wait! Slow down! Stop! Stop! My hands are slipping!”

 

Thunk!

 

The box hit the hardwood floor of the entryway.

 

“Damn it, Gina! Why did you drop it?”

 

“I told you to wait, but you kept going, so don't blame me! If I say ‘wait,’ then, dammit, wait!”

 

“Okay, okay. You’re right. It was my fault not yours.” Dris regretted his outburst. “Let me know when you're ready to start again, honey. I'm sorry. Take your time. This box is heavier than I thought.”

 

Gina hated that she had dropped the box. What the hell good had come from all those personal weight training sessions with Kenny at the gym?

 

She had been happy with her aerobics classes. She liked the constant movement, the music, the social atmosphere, gossiping with the other girls. But she had let herself be talked into a six-week training session that the gym was offering at half price. Kenny had said he could put some meat on her spindly arms, not bulk them up like Arnold “ah’ll be baak” Schwarzenegger but like Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow.

 

Gina hadn't heard anything after “spindly.” She thought her arms were fine until Kenny said they were spindly, so she signed up. She would tough out the last two sessions and then go back to her aerobics classes, even though her arms still looked spindly.

 

“Okay. I'm ready.”

 

Gina and Driscoll made it all the way to the dining room—this time without dropping the box. They set it flat and off to the side, leaving plenty of space to assemble the brand-new, modern design, Italian dinning table. They went back to the truck and brought in the matching sideboard, which was much lighter. Then they went back for the six chairs—lighter still.

 

“Thanks, honey. You're a trooper.” Dris threw his arms around Gina and kissed her with just enough playful passion to soothe the sting of his earlier harsh words. He felt her body yield. He took that as a sign for “apology accepted.”

 

“I'm gonna start putting these pieces together. I'll let you know when I need your help again, okay?”

 

“You're going to start now? Why not do it tomorrow, on your day off?”

 

“Can't. They called me in to work tomorrow. And I don't want to waste my weekend on this. Besides, I'll need your help. Better if we do it tonight.”

 

“Ok, Dris. I'll get dinner started.”

 

An hour later, the assembled table stood in all its magnificence in the center of the dining room. Its deep, rich mahogany surface lent elegance to the space. The three-layered base—set with a sculpted semicircle, reeded on its edges—supported the table top and was the unique feature that had captured Dris and Gina's hearts. They had never seen anything like it. It was a unique piece, a work of art, really. And the top had a thick, beautifully—but not too ornately—carved skirt that made the table both modern and classic at the same time.

 

“Oh, Dris. It's even more beautiful here than in the showroom. I always thought furniture that was do-it-yourself-assembly would look cheap, but this is just marvelous. Isn't it?”

 

“I know, right? Now for the sideboard. I'll do the chairs last. They're easy. I can do them by myself, but I'll need your help with the sideboard.”

 

Another hour later the sideboard was complete. It looked just as stunning as the table—it had the same sculpted base—and it fit perfectly in the space between the pantry and the dining room entrance.

 

Dris had measured the width of that space and calculated they would need a sideboard that would leave eight to ten inches of clearance on each side. That would give everything a proper balance. Dris liked balance, and their new sideboard allowed for nine inches of clearance. Smack in the middle of eight and ten. Both Gina and Dris took that as a sign that the sideboard was meant for them.

 

Gina headed upstairs. “I'm going to bed, but don't you stay up all night. You can leave some of this for tomorrow.”

 

“No. I won't stay up too late. I'm right behind you.”

 

Gina knew that was a lie. Dris would stay up all night if he had to in order to finish. That's just who he was. They parted company with a kiss, and Dris went to tackle the chairs.

 

In the morning, the first thing out of Dris's mouth was, “I'm taking the table back.”

 

Gina wasn't sure she had heard right. “What? You want to do what with the table?”

 

“Take it back. I'm taking it back.”

 

Gina now saw the hard look of determination on his face. She knew that look. Something had gone terribly wrong. “But why? The table was fine last night. What happened?”

 

“After you get dressed, come down stairs and I'll show you.”

 

Dris was standing by the table when Gina entered the dinning room. He had his arms crossed which meant he was really steamed. The only other time in their two years of marriage he had crossed his arms like that was when she had scraped the side of the car and didn't know it until Dris noticed and confronted her about it. But this time, whatever was wrong with the table, couldn't be her fault. Could it? Oh my God. Maybe when I dropped the box I damaged the table.

 

With a knot twisting itself in her gut, Gina approached the table cautiously. She saw the six chairs neatly arranged around it. She tried to find some flaw in the table, but her eyes were either too dull or the flaw was so insignificant that only Dris's obsessive penchant for perfection could spot it. Gina wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to return the table because the skirt corners didn't match up at exactly forty-five degrees. She could tell Dris was waiting for her to spot the obvious flaw in the table.

 

“Dris, honey, I don't see anything. Why don't you tell me what's wrong with it?”

 

With mock gallantry, Dris pulled back one of the chairs. “Sure. But have a seat. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

 

Gina suddenly felt uncomfortable now that Dris wanted her to be comfortable. She sat in the chair.

 

“Make yourself really comfortable. Scoot in closer. Please.” He motioned with his hands.

 

Gina with a wary eye on Dris, tried to scoot her chair in. She immediately saw the problem. Her feet ran into the base. She could go no further, yet there was a good eight inches between her stomach and the edge of the table. She was heartbroken. The table looked so gorgeous, but it was functionally impractical.

 

Dris unloaded. “What fucking moron designs a table for looks but not function? Who were they catering too with this table? Contestants for The Biggest Loser? This table goes back, along with the chairs and sideboard.”

 

“Whoa, whoa.” Gina held up a hand. “I can see why the table and chairs have to go back. As gorgeous as this table is—and I mean gorgeous, I just love it—I agree it's not practical. It would be too awkward to eat. So, yes. Table, chairs. Back to the store—“

 

“All right then—“

 

“Wait. I'm not finished. Table and chairs. Back. But why the sideboard?”

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“Of course I'm serious. It's a beautiful piece. A unique piece. It fits perfectly in the spot it's in. What's wrong with it?”

 

“The table, chair, and sideboard are a set. They match in design. We can't keep the sideboard and bring in a table and chairs that have a different design. That wouldn't look right. It would be a mismatch.”

 

“So? Who says they have to match? Can't each piece stand on its own? I'm not saying we'll buy just any old table and chairs. Obviously they'll have to complement the sideboard, but they don't have to be the exact same design.”

 

Dris was shaking his head even before Gina had finished pleading her case, “No. It won't work.”

Gina hated when Dris dug into his obsessive, compulsive tendencies. She hated that her souvenir bublegrams—those little solid blocks of glass with 3D images inside that she would pick up on their vacations—were uniformly arranged on the living room shelves because Dris wanted orderly presentation. They were her knick-knacks, after all. She hated that after she put the mayonnaise or mustard back in the refrigerator, Dris would come in behind her and spin the containers so their labels faced front. She hated that when she kicked off her shoes in the living room after a tiring day at work, Dris would set them upright and place them neatly in the closet.

 

And Gina especially hated that she had to shower every single time before they made love. Sometimes she just felt like having spontaneous, raw sex. She wanted the smells their bodies produced to envelope her in a raunchy, animalistic frenzy of thrashing limbs, claws digging into his back, his hips thrusting aggressively, the explosion of a coupled orgasm sending her to screaming heights.

 

She started to protest. “But—“

 

“Gina, honey, please. It won't work. Trust me. Look, you and I will go and pick out another set. One that you'll love just as passionately as this one, but one that can actually be used. Okay? What'd you say, honey?”

 

She loved Dris. In spite of his compulsive tendencies, she loved him deeply. Was she really going to put up a fight over something as mundane as a sideboard table? It seemed silly now that she thought about it. “You're right, Dris. We'll find something that will be just as good, maybe even better.”

 

“Thank you, honey. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He was peppering her with kisses on every “thank you,” and she loved it. She loved him. “All right. Looks like my weekend will be full disassembling this design failure and repackaging everything. Thank God I saved the packing material.”

 

By Sunday afternoon, Dris had repackaged the table, chairs, and sideboard. He had been meticulous—as always. Gina had tried to help but stopped when she realized Dris was redoing her work. He had defended his obsession to detail—after Gina had rolled her eyes—by explaining that each item had to be repackaged in a very specific way, like a jigsaw puzzle, so that it all fit in its original carton. Packing everything in a haphazard fashion was simply counter productive.

 

When Dris came home from work Monday, he literally had to blink his eyes because he did not believe what he was seeing. There in the middle of the dinning room stood the table—fully assembled—and the six chairs. He walked closer to confirm that what he was seeing was, in fact, real. He saw the sideboard out of the corner of his eye and turned to face it. It, too, was fully assembled and standing proudly, mockingly it seemed, in the space where it knew it belonged.

 

Dris shook uncontrollably with anger. Gina! She had gone behind his back and hired someone to reassemble the furniture. She must have had second thoughts. But how could she have done this without talking to him first? What did this say about their marriage that she didn't have confidence he would listen and try to work out a compromise?

 

He was boiling and punched her number into his phone. He would call her at work and ask—no, demand—that she explain herself. The phone rang on the other end. It rolled over to voice mail. He hung up without leaving a message. She would see his number and call back.

 

Dris walked to the table and reached out with a tentative hand, uncertain if he should touch the rich mahogany surface. Maybe this wasn't real. If his hand passed through thin air, what would he do? He'd have to schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist at the very least. He reached out a little farther. He was millimeters away from the table's surface when his phone buzzed. He jerked his hand back, but then realized he was being silly. Of course the table was real. He slapped his hand hard on the top, a little too hard. His hand stung. The table was definitely real—and surprisingly solid.

 

He looked at his phone. It was Gina. “Hello, honey.” He would be calm. There had to be some other explanation for this. He couldn't think of one, but the shock of hitting the table had knocked some sense into him. Gina would never have gone behind his back. There had to be some other explanation. He would give her the benefit of the doubt.

 

“I saw you called. What's up?”

 

Dris heard an easy, carefree breeze in her voice. Of course it hadn't been Gina who'd done this. What the hell had he been thinking? He flushed with shame. But who—or what?—had done it? “Yeah, honey. I called. You'll never guess what I'm looking at right now?”

 

Without missing a beat, Gina said, “The naked pictures of my hot bod I texted you?”

 

Dris smiled. “You texted me naked pictures? When?”

 

“Give me two minutes. I'll snap a few and send them right over.”

 

Dris had to laugh. “I'd rather you show me in person, hot mama.”

 

“Oh, you can count on it.”

 

“All right. It's a date. But listen. Seriously. You'll never guess what I'm looking at right now.”

 

“Ok. What?”

 

“Brace yourself. And don't call those men in the white coats. You know, the ones with the large net.”

 

“No promises. Tell me first.”

 

“I'm looking at a fully assembled table, chairs, and sideboard in our dinning room.”

 

Silence.

 

“Honey? Gina? Did I lose you? Can you hear me?”

 

“Say again?”

 

“No shit, honey. The table, chairs, and sideboard are all assembled and positioned in the dinning room. I swear to God. I can send you a picture if you don't believe me.”

 

“That's not possible.”

 

“That's what I said. But we're both wrong. It is possible. I just don't know how it was made possible. Do you have any idea how—”

 

“Oh, my God! Oh, no!”

 

“What, honey? What is it?”

 

“I'll call you back. Give me five minutes, okay. Just five minutes.”

 

Before Dris could say another word, he was listening to dead air.

 

Less than five minutes later, his phone buzzed. “Hello, honey? My God, you had me scared. What was that all about?”

 

“Ok. Don't be mad. Promise you won't be mad.”

 

“I'm past mad, honey. No, I mean, I was mad when I first walked through the front door, but I'm not mad anymore. Now I'm just confused and extremely curious. So what do you know about this?”

 

“Remember a few weeks ago when I broke the glass tray that sits inside the microwave?”

 

How could Dris forget. The replacement had cost $120—not including shipping—for less than a dollar's worth of raw material. “Yeah. I remember.”

 

“Well, I didn't break it. The cleaning lady did, but I didn't want to tell you because you would have told me to fire her. She had already ruined the bathroom faucets by scrubbing them with an abrasive cleaner, and she had broken the rolling mechanism on one of the custom blinds, and you said if she screwed up one more time you wanted her gone. Remember?”

 

Dris flushed at the memory. He later regretted having said that to Gina. “Yeah, I remember, but I didn't mean it. I was just pissed.”

 

“Wether you meant it or not, you said it. And I didn't want to take the chance that you would want her gone, so I lied and told you I had broken the tray.”

 

“So what's that got to do with the table?”

 

“Well, she's felt bad about all the damage ever since, so when she came in this morning to clean the house, she saw the boxes and thought she could make it up to us. She called her husband, and the two of them assembled everything as a way of paying us back.”

 

“Oh.” Dris felt like a heel. “So what did you tell her? Did you say I was mad?”

 

“No. I lied and told her you laughed. That you thought you had walked into the Twilight Zone. I don't think she got the reference, though. She's from an indigenous community in Guatemala. Her village probably didn’t have electricity, much less televisions.”

 

“Thanks, honey.”

 

“For what?”

 

“For making me out to be a good person.”

 

“Dris, you are a good person.”

 

“Yeah, I know, but . . . .”

 

“Listen, Dris. I'm afraid I'll be working really late tonight. I'll be home by nine, but tomorrow I'll help you get everything back into the boxes, Ok?”

 

“Sure. That'll be fine, honey. I'll let you get back to work. Love you.”

 

“Love you, too.”

 

When Gina came home and walked into the dining room, she saw the table was gone. She could hear Dris upstairs. From the sounds, he was watching tv. All of the boxes were neatly stacked and ready to be returned, but off to the side was an empty one. Why is this one empty? What went into that?

 

She turned her head and saw the sideboard behind her. It was still there. Dris hadn't repackaged it. A white sheet of paper with writing had been placed on top. She walked over and read the note: “This is an early Christmas present, so don't expect one in December.” I smiley face punctuated the sentence.

 

Her heart swelled. She knew how hard it must have been for Dris to give in. She would go upstairs and thank him, and she had no intention of showering first.

About the Author:

Héctor Hernández received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He worked nearly twenty-seven years for the County of Los Angeles, primarily administering construction contracts. He is now retired. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine and After Dinner Conversation.

Sunday Serial: 240 x 70 by Gill James, 54. Hallucination, jungle juice,

 

Introduction

This collection is a collection of seventy stories, each 280 words. They were inspired by the first picture seen on my Twitter feed on a given day. 

 

Mike had never been to this part of the woods. He'd never gone this far in. He hadn't realised they spread so far. But he had to keep going for somewhere in the distance he could hear music. It was getting louder now.

The woods were getting wilder. Pathways were now covered up. His legs, bare from the knee down, were covered in scratches. The trees grew close to each other here. It looked as if they hadn't been managed for centuries.

He found himself in a clearing. There was the piano and its player, surrounded by a sizable audience. They were all stocky figures. The player finished one piece and they clapped. Mike joined in. A man near to him turned to face him - except it wasn't a man - it was a - bear?

Mike's mouth went dry and his heart started to thump. What was this? Bears in evening dress and one of them playing piano? Mike started backing away.

"We don't usually see your kind in these parts," said the bear. "But you are most sincerely welcome. What do you think of Alberto's playing?"

He must be dreaming, mustn't he? Bear couldn't dress or speak so elegantly, let alone play the piano. Had he eaten something that had upset him? Had he been on the jungle juice again? He couldn't remember taking anything but maybe he had. 

"Come come," said the bear. "You look like a chap who would appreciate fine music."

The pianist started up again and Mike turned and began to run. He didn't stop until he was back at the familiar main road in and in sight of the number 136 bus.     

About the author

Gill James is published by The Red Telephone, Butterfly and Chapeltown.  

She edits CafeLit and writes for the online community news magazine: Talking About My Generation.

She teaches Creative Writing and has an MA in Writing for Children and PhD in Creative and Critical Writing.    

http://www.gilljameswriter.com  

https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B001KMQRKE

https://www.facebook.com/gilljameswriter 

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