I’m crying with white bread under the arm

 by Franci Hepburn

anything warm 

 

They say I live in a castle on the hill, but they don’t know. Torrential rain outside, but no water in the house. I close the mains at the bottom of the property- till I can find someone who can detect the leak and fix it for free. I carry three buckets of rainwater upstairs to fill the cistern. I count the stairs. Ten of them. Three times ten and back. Sixty stairs. Two arms around the bucket. One point of contact, one foot at a time. Next time I’ll use the guest toilet closer to the back door where I must duck because the roof leaks like a shower, which I can’t have.

 

Water dripping down the ceiling trips the kitchen lights, so I cook by torchlight. I wear a coat and boots at the dinner table, a blanket around my feet, which I can’t feel. At least the ambient light is romantic; only one of the twelve globes work. I eat my Aldi pie in silence, alone. But hey, I have Royal Doulton toilets, a million-dollar view of the city, six bedrooms, a terrace, a balcony, a solarium, a studio, a James Bond bathroom with gold tiles, a circular bath as big as a pool and a house I cannot sell.

 

About the author 

Franci Hepburn is an artist and writer who has written manuscripts and regularly enters short stories into competitions. She enjoys observing people and creating characters in all forms. Franci teaches Art at a secondary school in Perth Hills, where she lives. Franci writes in English, her second language.

 

Trial by Furniture, a Cautionary Tale

 by Franci Hepburn

 

 I bought an Arthur G leather couch for the Mid-century in Claremont we moved into. I added the Danish glass and wood coffee table, vintage, and the Marcel Breuer Ceska chairs, original. We drank tea in the morning from Marc Newson (for Noritake) and Pinot Noir from Riedel at sunset.

 

I kept warning: don’t sit on the chair with your wet bathers, and I was right, wasn’t I? The rattan on the seat split, only suitable for the verge collection now. I also said: don’t sit on the same spot every day. Your jeans will stain the coach, please work in the study or in a bedroom, for goodness sakes; the house has six bedrooms and: put your drink on the glass, not on the wood, it makes white rings.

 

Now the seat is not only hollow on one side, lopsided like a badly risen bread. It also has a blue stain in the shape of a charging mountain goat, meeting me every morning when I open the curtains. But alone in the house, day after day, the hollowed-out bread, the charging goat, the circles like white-rimmed glasses on the coffee table staring at me accusingly. Highlighting my solitude.

 

About the author   

Franci Hepburn is an artist and writer who has written manuscripts and regularly enters short stories into competitions. She enjoys observing people and creating characters in all forms. Franci teaches Art at a secondary school in Perth Hills, where she lives. Franci writes in English, her second language.