Chilled Gorgonzola by William P Adams, a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon

 Her online dating profile photo conjured up images of Aphrodite with long, entwined, flowing tresses framing an alluring visage.

Captivated, Pierce took a chance and sent her a short message – witty and charming, but not overly so.

For the next few days, they engaged in friendly, playful banter, eventually agreeing to meet the following Friday evening.

Freshly showered and stylishly dressed, Pierce arrived on time at Dionysus Bar for the cheese spread and wine-tasting.

She spied Pierce from across the room, slithered his way, looked him in the eyes, and hissed, “Hi handsome, my name is Medusa.”

He froze in place, standing stone-cold still.

 

 About the author

William P Adams lives near Seattle and writes short fiction, poetry, and memoirs. His work has appeared in 101 Words, CafeLit, Macrame Lit, Rockvale Review, Sea Wolf Journal, X-R-A-Y Magazine, and elsewhere.

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The Haunted House by Tony Warner, a Cabernet Sauvignon

Staying at Penny’s house always makes me feel uncomfortable. There is an interminable and unsettling consciousness of alien intrusions. Unseen slippers slide across floorboards; a breath of  wind from a crossing body wafts eerily against my cheek. From upstairs comes the sound of a door closing silently. Perhaps it’s not the house itself; it could be me. I’ve been hyper-sensitive since I died, all my senses wound up to fever pitch, mind and body responsive to the merest iota of change in the physical and emotional environment.

            As ever, it was all Ramsay’s fault. We were visiting his mother for her birthday and he was in a rush. He was always in a rush. ‘Get up an hour earlier,’ I’d say to him, ‘then we can leave in plenty of time’.

            ‘No point,’ he would reply. ‘Leave too early and we’d only be caught in the traffic. Catch the right moment and we can zoom straight through.’

            Which is right in theory, but doesn’t allow for holdups: for accidents or animals on the road, not to mention urgent calls on one’s bowels or bladder. Many’s the time I’ve ended up squatting behind a hedge at the side of the road because Ramsay refused to pull in to the nearest petrol station. Well, this time we set off exactly to the minute, Charlotte safely tucked away in her carry cot on the back seat, held in with three firm straps, hooked in to the stantion points like the over-height loads on the top of an HGV.

            All went well until we hit the motorway, or what was left of it after the previous night’s six car pile-up. Three lanes became two, then one, then a single immobile mass of frustration and exhaust fumes. Ramsay sat and mixed his own fumes of exasperation in with the petrol and diesel. Once we were free, we were a good forty minutes behind schedule; a situation not to be endured.

            I did the sensible thing, rang Ramsay’s mother and told her we’d be a bit late. ‘Never mind, dear, I’ll be delighted to see you any time of the day or night. Give Charlotte a big kiss for me.’ Not that I could; Charlotte was sleeping enveloped in safety strapping on the back seat.

            Undeterred by the mangled wrecks being removed from the hard shoulder behind us, Ramsay did what he always did in these situations. He put his foot down hard on the accelerator. At a steady seventy we would have caught up at least half of the time we had lost. Ramsay had us bucketing along at something over ninety, weaving from lane to lane like a supersonic shopping trolley.

            I never knew exactly what happened, whether he lost control or smashed into the back of a slower vehicle unwilling to give him way. By the time I came round three weeks later, the exact details had been lost in the speculations about whether I would die or not. As it was, I did die. Not for long, a couple of minutes, they tell me, two minutes out of my life, or out of my death, depending on whichever way you look at it.

            I was a terrible patient, always have been, and dying made me worse. For hours on end I screamed for Charlotte, until the police ran an emergency service, all blue lights flashing, bringing her to me curled up in the arms of Ramsay’s mother. We didn’t talk about Ramsay on that occasion, and very rarely since, the ensuing emotional devastation always reducing me to a howling wreck.

            Which is why I don’t mention my fears about the ghost in Penny’s house to anyone, not even Penny. I have thought about it. Surely she should know her home is haunted? On the other hand, if it doesn’t bother her to live with a spook, who am I to worry her?

            Charlotte says I am ‘emotionally ultra-sensitive’, an expression she has picked up from her school, which is a big one for low-grade psychoanalysis. I’m more inclined to think of myself as a trainee medium, picking up on invisible auras. Whichever way, it annoys the hell out of Charlotte. She’ll come home from school all blithe and beautiful and plonk herself down in front of the television, as usual.

            ‘How was school?’ I ask.

            ‘Fine. Same as. Nothing special.’

            ‘Are you sure?’

            ‘Of course I’m sure.’

            ‘Something has upset you. Was it the boys being rude, or have you fallen out with Tracey again?’

            ‘Aw, mum.’

            So on we go until it turns out that Miss Waldegrave has told her she is the stupidest girl in the class, if not in the whole school. We finish curled up in one another’s arms and eating far too much chocolate ice cream. Think how annoying it must be not to have any emotional secrets from your mother. If it had been like that with mine, I would have left home five years earlier than I did.

            Charlotte has grown used to my x-ray interrogations, which is why today she comes straight out with her problem. ‘Hannah has asked me for a sleepover at hers at the weekend.’

            Hannah is Penny’s elder daughter, the sort every mum wishes her son would bring home  on his arm one day. ‘Darling, that’s wonderful. You know I like to see you making lots of friends, and Hannah is such a charming, well behaved girl. Of course you can go.’

            ‘But I don’t want to, mum.’

            ‘Why ever not? I thought you liked Hannah?’

            ‘Hannah is loveliest girl in the whole world and my bestest, bestest friend.’

            ‘Then why don’t you want to go there? Is it Julia?’

            ‘No, Julia’s fine. A noisy pest, but no worse than Andrea. Little sisters are always a pain. You said you and Aunt Celia never got on with one another when you were growing up, and now you can’t see enough of one another. It’s not Julia who’s the problem, and her mum let’s Hannah stay up as late as she likes when she has a sleepover. I just don’t like the house. It’s creepy. I come over all goose bumps when I’m there, as if someone’s watching me all the time. You know, like in those horror movies, where apparitions ooze out through the walls or a zombie grabs you while you’re not looking. What if I fell to sleep and a vampire swept in and bit me? I’d become one of the living dead.’

            One thing our kitchen is never short of is a plentiful supply of chocolate ice cream. We finish off a whole tub while I try to explain to Charlotte that zombies are a Hollywood invention and only exist in Caribbean folk law. And vampires sprang out of Bram Stoker’s imagination. And there are no such things as ghosts. Tomorrow I must talk to Penny. And buy another tub of chocolate ice cream.

            The one place I didn’t want to have the conversation with Penny is at her house, which, of course, is where we end up, but only after a couple of glasses of red at the local wine bar. Whether it was the preceding day’s chat with Charlotte or the wine, I’m not sure, but Penny’s place seemed even weirder than usual. The air is misty with threat, strange noises break in at irregular intervals, every object looks as if it were in the wrong place.

            Even Penny herself seems dislocated, not certain where to put her glass or if the cushions on the sofa are where they should be. A door closes silently upstairs, a presence whisks across the floor boards in the hallway, the cat scurries downstairs as if in fright at some fierce, ghostly dog. I shift uncomfortably in my seat, gulp carelessly at the fierce Rousillon red wine, spluttering half of it on my blouse.

            Much fussing and drying later, we settle back into the comfort of the living room, neither of us sure how to resume our conversation. ‘You seem nervous,’ Penny begins.

            ‘Well, I’ve something difficult to talk to you about.’ We both jiffle uncomfortably in our padded seats. I put my re-filled glass carefully in the centre of the coffee table. ‘You know Hannah has invited Charlotte for a sleep-over at the weekend?’

            ‘Of course. Partly my idea. I know the two of them are virtually inseparable, and Charlotte is such a nice girl.’ Do I catch the hint of a squirm in Penny’s manner? Whatever; she is avoiding eye contact, her mind elsewhere, fidgeting with one of the tassels on her cushion.

            I am not renowned for my tact. Even then, I can hardly say: ‘my daughter doesn’t want to come and stay in your house because she thinks it is creepy.’ Now, can I?

            ‘Did you know the kids at schools have been trying to scare one another, making up ghost stories? They have come up with the idea that this house is haunted.’ I sit back, waiting for the explosion.

            ‘Whatever gave them that idea?’ Penny throws back her head, sits ramrod straight, eyes glittering, cushion tassels clutched firmly in each hand as if she is trying to strangle them. ‘There was never any such suggestion when we bought it, and it’s no more than a hundred years old, so it can’t have much of an history. Is that why none of them ever want to come round? I always thought it was because I don’t have the right accent.’ She stifles a sob, deliquesces back into the sofa.

            ‘Darling, it’s not that. Everyone adores you. And Hannah. Your accent is no worse  than anyone else’s round about. But you must know, there are always strange things happening here. Listen! Hear that bump? What do you think it is? We are the only people in the house, it isn’t raining and the plumbing is behaving perfectly correctly. Then there’s the shuffling and strange gusts of wind. A while ago there was a clicking, like death watch beetle and a shuffling sound. There! Another bump! Charlotte is scared to death and I’m uneasy here most of the time as well. Whenever I visit you I’m expecting to walk into the Ghost of Christmas Past or some poor soul who was murdered in your bath tub.’

            Do you know what it’s like to be told somebody you heartily dislike has died suddenly? Laugh? Cry? Offer condolences? Make a stupid joke? Penny has that look about her, splutters through clenched teeth, clutches her hands firmly in her lap, which reminds me she used to be a school teacher at one time. Her shoulders relax. At the sound of another bump she titters.

            ‘It’s Vincent,’ she says at last.

            ‘Vincent? Your ex? I thought you were long rid of him. When was the divorce? Two years ago?’

            ‘Two years and three months. The divorce was the most amicable part of our whole marriage. I got to keep the house and custody of the children; he keeps his hefty civil service pension. Then it turns out he hasn’t got a penny in the bank. Spent it all on those loose women he was fornicating with. Serves him right, silly old fool. But I couldn’t just turn him out onto the street, now could I?

            ‘I said he could stay here living in the spare room for a short while until he sorted himself out, as long as he came nowhere near me or the girls. Which, to be fair, he hasn’t. Good job, too, or we’d be back screaming at one another like we did when we were married. For the last twenty-seven months he’s been a good boy, kept well out of sight, only used the loo here when no-one was around, showered at work, ate out or in his room. Except he can’t be completely silent, of course. Like everyone who learned to type on a typewriter he’s got a heavy touch on the keyboard, knocks the mouse off his desk now and again, shuffles up and down in his slippers when work isn’t going well. Nothing gross, but enough to remind you he’s there.

            ‘But you can always tell when there’s another person around, can’t you? The air seems to move, the central heating magically comes on or goes off, the post collects itself in neat piles, the cats always have food and water.’ Penny completely relaxes, slides her legs under her, leans sideways like a kitten curling up for sleep.

Only to be brutally disturbed.

Two things happen simultaneously. Heavy steps descend the stairs, to the accompaniment of a prolonged ringing of the doorbell and rude voices in the background. ‘Free at last!’ cries an exultant Penny. ‘There’s the removal men come to ship his stuff out. Now, what time will Charlotte be here on Friday?’

About the author

 

Tony Warner lives in Norwich, Norfolk. He has published a novel based on the fictional meeting of Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso, a book of short stories, several poems and short stories. He moonlights as an art critic and is renovating a thirteenth century church as a scriptorium. 

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Racist by Doug Stoiber, Kendall Jackson Cabernet Sauvignon

As autumn waned, sunlight faded earlier by the day, which mildly concerned Ken. Gazing out the kitchen window, he hoped he would see Lydia’s blue Tesla pull into their driveway any minute.

 

On her usual ‘work’ days (she and her fellow docents were volunteers, not employees) at the State Women’s Museum in the city, she would have arrived home by now. Making the forty-minute drive back to their semi-rural subdivision before it got dark was important. At their ages, the retired couple avoided driving at night whenever possible.

 

Tempted to call or text her to find out where she was and when she might be home, Ken hesitated, as he knew her phone ringing or a notification pinging irritated Lydia while she was driving - she would just ignore it. And she was surely on the road by this time.

 

This late in the day, Ken had already whiled away the hours with his usual chores and errands, answered emails, scanned his usual blogs, listened to a podcast for an hour, so he was left in the unusual position of having nothing to do but sit and think until his wife arrived home. What could be holding her up?

 

He had never known the museum to stay open past six p.m. And Lydia didn’t usually stop to do errands on the way home when darkness was imminent. Car trouble, maybe? He was fairly certain her car had nearly a full charge when she left; if she had car trouble, she would have called by now. It was almost completely dark.

 

Maybe he should jump in the Prius and head toward Lake City. Little chance that they would miss each other en route. Except it was now fully dark and he didn’t trust himself to pick out her blue Tesla on the divided highway between Green Maples and the city.

 

Oh, hell, get the phone and call, he thought. She would just have to understand that these were extraordinary circumstances.

 

He had just touched her contact icon when headlight beams flooded the kitchen window and the garage door hummed into operation. Relieved, he waited for his wife to come through the door from the garage and fill him in on her late arrival.

 

‘Glad you’re home, Sweets’, he started, ‘I was beginning to worry ─’

 

Based on the stricken look on Lydia’s face, worrying was not out of the equation yet.

 

‘Oh, my God!’, she almost shrieked as she rushed through the door, right past his proffered peck-on-the-cheek. Dropping her keys and purse on the kitchen counter, she headed for the living room and fairly collapsed onto the sofa, her face in her hands. ‘Oh, my God, Ken! Oh, my God!’ The last exhortation became a sob, and she was in tears.

 

‘Honey, what in the world …’, Ken tried to think of some utterance that might calm and reassure her - from what kind of trauma he did not know. ‘Can you tell me what happened? Where were you all this time? Are you alright?’

 

‘No! I am not … ALRIGHT! I AM NOT ALRIGHT! I WAS NEARLY SHOT TO DEATH! Oh, my God!’, her angry tears continued. She shoved her husband’s embracing arms away in wild fury and wailed.

 

‘What the hell … shot to death? I’m calling the police!’ He took another worried glance at her red eyes and frazzled hair and reached for his phone.

 

‘Put that down’, she demanded as she fought for emotional control. ‘I have just spent an hour talking with the police. Oh, my God!’

 

Ken hoped there was a way to calm the situation and find out what happened and where he fit in amid all this hysteria. ‘Let me get you a cup of herbal tea. Have you eaten? Can I slice some baguettes for toast? We have some cold salmon in the fridge.’

 

Gasping, and finally calm enough to talk, she made an effort to address her husband in somewhat measured tones. ‘I need a glass of wine, that’s all I want. Please. Now. The cab.’ Ken dutifully stepped over to the wine credenza, upturned two stemmed glasses, and divided the remainder of a bottle of Kendall Jackson into them. Handing one to his distraught wife, he took a seat next to her on the leather sofa.

 

‘Ken, I have never been so scared, so angry, so … oh, my God! They shot a couple right in front of our museum - a bullet flew through our door and missed my head by inches! A drive-by … they must have fired … it sounded like fifteen shots! A white girl, she was pregnant … she’s dead; the baby daddy was still alive in the ambulance, but who knows? Plus two innocent bystanders got hit.’

 

‘Oh, my God, hon, why didn’t you call me?’

 

‘And have you do WHAT? I was afraid for my life, for Christ’s sake, and the police made me explain over and over again what I heard and saw. My heart was beating so loud and so fast, I thought I was going to have a heart attack! Oh, my God.’ Lydia pulled a long draught from the wine glass and shuddered.

 

‘Did they catch the shooters?’, Ken asked, hoping to find out more while trying to head off another emotional upheaval.

 

‘No, not by the time they finally let me leave. I heard witnesses who were on the sidewalk tell the cops there was a car full of them. A big black … Tahoe-something-or-other with tinted glass. They said the car pulled up alongside the couple, windows open, and just started shooting, spraying bullets everywhere! Thugs. Dreadlocks and hoodies, two gunmen, the witnesses said. No one even had time to take a video, at least not that could help the cops at all. Oh, God, that poor girl! And her baby!’

 

‘Holy Jesus’, Ken had murmured several times during the telling, while sipping his own wine. He drew his phone from his pocket and began scrolling.

 

‘What on earth are you doing, Ken?’, she demanded.

 

‘Want to see if the Lake City Sentinel website has any updates. Yep, here’, He touched a link and spread his fingers on the screen to enlarge the text, ‘Four men in custody on suspicion.’

 

‘Let me guess …’, Lydia’s shoulders sagged, ‘they’re all from the ‘hood. God, I feel like such a, like such a … racist!’

 

Her husband continued to read and scroll. ‘Yep. Bowser Street, Kroehle Ave, I guess that’s the Five Points area alright. The suspects and the male victim of the couple are all from there. Stolen car, too.’

 

‘Five Points - you know what they call Five Points in the city? ‘Shots Fired’ is what they call it’, Lydia exhaled deeply.

 

‘What do you mean, you feel like a racist?’

 

Exasperation showed all over her face. ‘I mean, it’s just, it’s … THIS every time, isn’t it? I mean, this kind of crime, this … it’s this lawlessness! So predictable. So sadly preDICTable! Same cast of characters, and here we sit like victims, with our white skin ….’

 

‘Yeah. But our white privilege too, remember’, he sought to clarify.

 

‘Our privilege? OUR privilege? What the hell kind of privilege? That bullet that missed my face by inches, was THAT my privilege? Because I have a home in Green Maples, because we’ve worked and saved and invested and gone to church and volunteered and tried to make a difference in the world, I am somehow privileged and need to be reminded of that when a bullet nearly hits me? Please’, she snorted, ‘we’re fools if we believe that. YOU’RE a fool if you believe that.’

 

‘Lyd, they are people, just like us, except the world has taken so much from them. There is so much rage ….’

 

‘Rage? No, I see the faces, I saw the two - fifteen-year-olds! – do you remember the two who had the stand-off with the cops at The Confectionary across from our museum last month? They smirked! There was no rage! What I saw in their eyes wasn’t … it was entitlement! They were going to take what they wanted from the poor frightened kids working there. Rage, my eye! AS IF they were rising up in righteous anger against oppression!’ Lydia had by now nearly drained her glass.

 

‘Lydia, they are oppressed and we know that! We have not lived in their world. How do you expect ….’ Ken was searching desperately for a means of turning the issue away from the tripwire of race.

 

‘I’m beginning to think ‘their world’ is more a result of their bad choices, not our privilege.’ Anger was smoldering in her eyes. ‘Please get me another wine.’ Calmer now, but there was a determined set to her jaw.

 

Ken rose again to select another cabernet sauvignon and uncork it. ‘Until we’ve walked in their shoes, we can’t judge. Until we’ve had store managers follow us around because we’re ─’

 

Lydia nearly spat, ‘Wait a minute. Do you really think store managers follow your friend from church, what’s-his-name, DeMario …?’

 

‘DeMarcus. DeMarcus and Chanise Briscoe.’

 

‘Do you think they follow people who dress and act like the Briscoes around in stores? In Lake City? Please. That kind of excuse-making is getting tiresome.’ Lydia took another swallow. ‘Store managers follow around people who look and act like the people who shoplifted and stole from them yesterday and the day before, and the day before, and are ruining their businesses. Poor innocent victims! Talk about privilege! How about the privilege of breaking all the laws and still wearing the mantle of ‘victim’!’

 

Ken wanted desperately to douse the fiery rhetoric. His wife was reacting to trauma - a bullet just missed her head! - and this kind of fury was not helpful, even if somewhat understandable. ‘Why don’t you take a hot bath and a melatonin and get some sleep, hon? A good night’s rest will help put this in perspective.’

 

‘Jesus, Ken, are you serious? Are you trying to mollify me? Are you afraid I am going to say something that upsets your happy worldview? I ALMOST GOT MURDERED BY THUGS WEARING DREADS AND HOODIES!’ Lydia was now shaking, using two hands to lift the stemmed wine glass to her lips. ‘What does ‘in perspective’ mean, anyway? Do you think I’ll wake up tomorrow and forget the street scenes that happen more and more often on Merchant Street, right in front of our front door? Uchanna Ebi, who sometimes works with me, is afraid to go out the front door for her lunch break - she says they call her awful names, it’s always ‘Hey, n____’ this and ‘n____’ that … and she’s from Nigeria! She hates them! She is terrified of what Lake City is becoming!’

 

‘Lyd, the world is not perfect. We need to remember to judge people as individuals, not lump them into groups’, Ken chided her, and then tried on a strained smile, hoping to mitigate his lecturing tone.

 

‘And yet’, Lydia fired back, swiping away his smile, ‘and yet ‘groups’ are all we hear about; groups that we must accommodate and celebrate, groups about whom we must never misspeak, groups who can slander us, harass us, ruin our businesses and get people fired. Groups swing all the political power now. God, it’s so obvious.’

 

‘You’re starting to sound like … ‘, Ken had to be careful here; this was not a comparison he wanted to make lightly, lest his wife go ballistic (there had been a history). Instead of finishing the sentence, he rose to pace over to the wine credenza again, even though his glass was nearly full.

 

‘Like what, Ken? Say it … like what? A racist? Yeah, no kidding; that’s exactly what I feel like, too. A bullet flying past your skull can almost make you reason like a racist.’ If anything, Lydia was now building steam, not decompressing. ‘Mike always said ‘a liberal is just a conservative that hasn’t been mugged yet’, and I’m beginning to see the sonofabitch’s point.’

 

Ken, trying desperately to defuse the conversational dynamite, could not help himself. ‘You told me that’s why you divorced him - his knee-jerk conservatism.’ Now what was he getting himself into? Marriage kerosene splashed on a flaming race relations argument? He had to find an offramp from this contentious dialogue in a hurry.

 

‘We have to think like rational adults here, not reactionary yahoos’, he added, and immediately regretted it.

 

‘Oh, okay. My ex is a ‘reactionary yahoo’ now! Listen, I had my reasons for divorcing Mike, and they are none of your damn business’, Lydia growled. ‘Mike was many things, including a lying philanderer, but I will tell you what he wasn’t:  A victim! Mike is not going to stand by while thugs take what’s his because THEY feel entitled! Mike doesn’t bear a shred of guilt about ANYthing, least of all his skin color or ‘privilege’’.

 

Ken regretted bringing up her former husband in the first place, but by God, there were principles at stake here - principles he knew in his heart that Lydia shared with him, despite her frantic ravings of the moment. ‘He kept a gun, too, didn’t he?’

 

Lydia shot Ken a look that could have bored a hole through him. ‘Guns. Plural. Yes, he did, and it scared the living daylights out of me. He kept one right there in that hall stand by the front door’, she gestured. ‘One under the seat of his car. One in the bedroom. All loaded. Mike was prepared to defend himself and his property with deadly force. It used to make my skin crawl. But Mike never gunned down a biracial couple on a city street, I’ll give him that.’

 

Feeling utterly defeated, Ken proposed a cease-fire. ‘We can talk about this in the morning if you want to. Look, I am so sorry this happened to you and I’m glad you’re home safely. I am ready to hit the hay - what do you say I straighten up around here and we turn in for tonight?’

 

Lydia sat staring into her wine glass and said nothing. In a post-adrenaline letdown, her eyes sagged, she leaned back, and she surrendered to torpor. Five minutes went by while Ken loaded some dishes and his wine glass in the dishwasher, wrapped up a baguette, returned some Whole Foods kikka sushi to the refrigerator and snapped out the kitchen lights.

 

‘C’mon, Lydia, let’s go to bed.’ He was pleading by this time.

 

She was almost in a trance now. ‘You go ahead. There is no way I am going to sleep - not yet.’

 

‘Hon, I can only imagine how this … horrible incident must make you feel. Believe me, it’s awful; it’s mind-blowing! … but it’s OVER, and tomorrow, things will start to make more sense’, he tried to encourage her to give up, give in, retire.

 

Lydia continued to stare at nothing and spoke as if under sedation. ‘You say that. You don’t see … you don’t want to see the hell that is rising over the land. You want to believe in a world that’s not real, a world that makes us feel good and just and righteous and right about everything we believe. You haven’t been mugged yet. Yet!’

 

By now, Ken could feel a giant wave of despair crashing over his soul. How could his wife - his wife and partner! - be so overwhelmed that she could think … that she could consider, even … discharging all her compassion for her fellow man at the passing of a single bullet? Can human compassion be so brittle, so ephemeral?

 

‘Listen, hon, I am going to bed. Please, give your mind and your emotions a rest. Giving in to hatred is never going to solve anything’, his tone was gentle and soothing as he leaned in to kiss her cheek tenderly, ‘C’mon’, he whispered.

 

She sat and said nothing.

 

Ken went down the hall to his bathroom, and she heard him brush and floss, and close his door. The sliver of light from beneath his bedroom door went out.

 

Why should she do the same, she thought, only to lie flat on her back in her bed and replay the entire shocking episode over and over in the dark?

 

One more glass of wine would help to bring on sleep, and if sleep came to her while nestled on the leather sofa, well, so be it. But first, she rose on wobbly legs, walked from the front door to the kitchen/garage door to the back porch door, checking and re-checking the locks. She tried all the windows and turned off the living room lights before she settled once again on the sofa.

 

Then she rose once more, and turned on the soft light in the foyer, before returning to her sanctuary. Within minutes, she got up again and turned on every light in the living room.

About the author 

Doug Stoiber writes poetry and short fiction and is a member of the Mossy Creek Writers in East Tennessee. His short story, "The Friends of Daniel Cabot", appears in The Rabbit Hole Volume VII anthology, and his original short story, "Woowo" debuted at The Literary Heist on June 21, 2024. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

The History of The Cook by Doug Jacquier, a robust Australian cabernet sauvignon from the Coonawarra, the Barossa, the Clare, the Adelaide Hills or McLaren Vale, preferably consumed in front of a roaring log fire

 

The only ones left alive in the trenches were the Cook and the Colonel. It was clear, from his shallow breathing and the occasional mumbled order that would never be carried out, that the Colonel did not have long. The Cook almost envied the Colonel. He would soon be free of the smells of spent explosives, the burst latrines and the burgeoning decomposition of the fallen in the fetid mud.

Earlier, The Cook had managed to trap a rat and, after skinning and gutting it, he scraped together some twigs for a fire to cook up a thin soup. All he had to thicken the meagre broth was the crumbs from a tough old bread crust he’d found in a dead soldier’s pocket. He tried to spoon feed the Colonel, to no avail, and an hour later, after a final gasp, the old warrior succumbed. The Cook wondered briefly how many times he’d seen this before and how long he was fated to stay on this treadmill.

His thoughts were interrupted by the clanking tank tracks of advancing troops. Rifling the Colonel’s pockets, he found a trench-soiled handkerchief still white enough to serve its purpose, attached it to a stick and waved it frantically above the parapet. An unmistakably foreign voice shouted “Come out slowly, with your hands up.”

The Cook tentatively raised his head to face an enemy soldier, standing poised with a Kalashnikov at the ready.

“Are there any more survivors?” he demanded.

The Cook felt safer when he saw the Lieutenant stripes on the soldier’s uniform. Officers tended to be more civilised in his experience.

“No, they are all dead, sir.”

The Lieutenant motioned to his troops to come forward and search the trenches. They soon confirmed the Cook’s report.

The Lieutenant slung his gun over his shoulder.

“Who are you and why do you have no uniform?”

The Cook said calmly “I am the Cook, sir. I was their prisoner.”

“So where are you from?”

The Cook sighed “From so many places I no longer remember them all, sir.”

The Lieutenant nodded. “Are you really a cook?”

“Yes, sir. But there is no food left to cook.”

“We’ll take care of that” the Lieutenant said. “You’re our prisoner now. Unless you’d rather die.”

“No, no, no, sir, I will happily cook for you. It’s what I always do.”

“What do you mean, it’s what you ‘always do’?”

The Cook explained “It always comes to this, sir. Eventually everyone is defeated and the victors are always hungry for a decent meal, so they don’t kill the Cook.”

The Lieutenant smiled.

“Unless they are a bad cook.”

“True, sir. But, as you can see, I am still alive and I am at your service.”

That night, after he Cook had prepared and cleaned up after his first meal for his new master, the Lieutenant sat down with him.

“When did this all start for you?”

“I was personal chef to Vercingetorix the Gaul, sir, until he was defeated by Julius Caesar at Alesia. And so on and so on, throughout history.”

The Lieutenant guffawed.

“You may be able to cook but you’re also obviously insane. That would make you immortal.”

“I bow to your greater wisdom on that matter, sir. All I know is that there will always be wars and there will always be winners and losers. And that I will always be there at the end.”

The Lieutenant seemed to lose himself in his thoughts.

The Cook, fearing he’d unnerved his new boss, said quickly “Would you like some dessert, Colonel? Oh, my apologies. Lieutenant. Although I don’t imagine it will take you long.”

And so it came to pass, as The Cook accompanied his captor through the ranks, all the way to General. The Cook felt closer to this one than any before and they would often talk well into the night about art, literature and music.

Until The Cook found himself one day confronted by the body of the General, dismembered by incoming fire, along with everyone else as far as the eye could see. At least as far as The Cook’s eyes could see through tears that could not be stemmed.

“Enough!” he shouted. No more would he be pinned to this obscene samsara, this never-ending wheel of loss and destruction.

As he heard the enemy approach, he cradled the General’s gun in his lap to make himself look like a combatant and waited for deliverance. It appeared it was to come in the form of a boy soldier. The boy, shaking, raised his gun and was about to fire when a Lieutenant slapped the weapon aside. “Not him, you idiot! That’s The Cook.”

About the author  

 Doug Jacquier is an Australian who writes stories and poems. He’s lived and worked in many urban, rural and remote places, and he has travelled extensively overseas. His work has appeared in several anthologies. His aim is to surprise, challenge and amuse.