Cat Grows Up

 by Jane Carter

hot chocolate

“No! “shouted Cat. “Stop right there, I don’t want to talk about it”.

Her mother May sat opposite her at the kitchen table.

“Come on darling girl, we have to talk about this. For my sake. Please.” She reached across for Cat’s hands.

Cat, a married woman with two small children, snatched her hands away and averted her gaze. She refused to look at her mother. No child, no matter how old, should be having this conversation with their parent.

May sighed. She knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but she had to get it sorted. It was about time that she and Cat had a grown-up conversation.

Cat had always been, and still was, the baby of the family, even at thirty-five. When May had discovered she was pregnant again it had been a real shock. With two teenage sons already, she and Pete had thought their family was complete.

They had always been protective of her.

May took a deep breath and started again. “Cat, I need to discuss what I’d like to happen after I die.”

“But why Mum?” Cat asked. This really didn’t make sense. Why talk about something that wasn’t likely to happen for years? Unless there was something her mum wasn’t telling her. Searching her mother’s face for clues Cat cried, “You’re not sick, are you?” Panic made her voice shrill.

“No, I’m fine, but I’m not getting any younger. I just want to get things sorted. With your brothers working abroad, you’ll be the one organising everything.”

May stood up and walked into the hall. She was back a moment later with her handbag. After a quick rummage inside it, she produced a shiny A5 brochure, folded in half. She flattened it out and held it up for Cat to see.

“I requested this a couple of weeks ago. It’s really good for guiding you through the whole process. I’ve been on-line and I think I’ve found the burial package I like.”

Cat rolled her eyes. Her mother was treating her like an equal and it felt a bit scary. This seemed like the time to grow up and she wasn’t sure she was ready to.

“Mum, for God’s sake!! My friends’ mums are going on-line to buy clothes and you’re on there buying bloody coffins.”

May swallowed a smile and sitting down, placed the brochure on the table between them. “I haven’t bought anything yet, I’ve just been looking, you can only arrange things in person. That’s why I’m going to see them next Thursday morning. Please Cat, come with me”.

Cat leaned across and picked up the brochure. With a sour face she flicked through it before placing it face down in front of her. “This is so morbid,” she said. “I’m not sure I want to get involved. It’s too weird”.

Her mother nodded. “I agree, it is a bit morbid but it’s important to me that we get it sorted. When Daddy died you were only little, so you won’t remember, but having to plan a funeral, when my life felt like it was unravelling, made a bad situation worse. Please Cat, I’m doing this to make things easier for you. I need you to be my friend now, not just my child”.

Cat glanced at her mother. Welcome to adulthood she thought grimly. She pushed the brochure aside.

“OK, I’ll come,” she said, “if you need me to be there, of course I will, but don’t expect me to be happy about it, and let’s not just go to the funeral directors and home. l’ll take some annual leave and we can go for a nice pub lunch afterwards. I’ll need a stiff drink after that, and I’m sure you will too,” she said smiling. “My treat”.

“Bloody hell Cat, if I knew there’d be a free meal in it, I’d have done this years ago,” said May chuckling. “OK, and let’s go shopping after lunch, I’ll buy you a new dress as a thank you.”

“For God’s sake Mum, don’t buy me a dress, I’m not five!!” cried Cat and with that the two women laughed.

“Fair enough,” said May. “Let me make you a nice cup of tea before you go to pick up the kids and I don’t know about you, but I fancy something to eat. I’ve got ‘jammy dodgers’, custard creams or chocolate florentines. Which one do you fancy?”

In light of her newfound maturity, Cat made the obvious selection. “Florentines please Mum, and instead of tea can I have hot chocolate with squirty cream, marshmallows and sprinkles please?”

“Of course you can,” said May.

May stood up and put the kettle on. As her mother busied herself making the drinks and routing in the cupboard for the florentines, Cat picked up the brochure. Folding it back in two she furtively placed it inside her mum’s bag. If I spend one more moment looking at that damn thing, she thought, I’ll choke on my ruddy biscuit.

About the author 

Jane retired from a 30 year career in the civil service in 2019 and joined Newport Writers Group in January the following year.
During lockdown she was inspired to write her first poem since o'level English Literature (in 1978!!) and has recently graduated to writing short pieces of fiction.

 

The Parable of the Virus and the Vaccine

by Jane  Carter

latte

Man felt incredibly pleased with himself, sitting as he did, on the very top of the food chain. 

 

He was Lord and Master of all he surveyed, ruler of Earth and all her bounty. 

 

There were many different species of animal that shared his space, but they were simply there, in Man’s opinion for his pleasure. Man hunted them, ate them, or kept them in captivity to satisfy his needs. They were a commodity – nothing more. 

 

Blindly, Man went about defiling Mother Nature and plundering her natural resources. He didn’t care about any potential impact of his actions on the world’s fauna and flora. Species preservation was not on his radar. He simply took and took, living off his host, the Earth without thought, putting his own desires first.

 

Over time, Man and his place on the planet grew stronger and he became more ruthless. 

 

His needs were the only thing that mattered. Whatever he wanted he seized. To satisfy his cravings for meat, he cut down the rain forests to create more grazing land for more cows. He didn’t care about the impact of greenhouse gases or global warming. He didn’t even believe in such things. 

 

To have the convenience of ready meals and drinks, he created packaging from a synthetic material known as plastic. He didn’t care or even consider how long the plastic would take to degrade and the impact this would have on the environment. His needs were paramount, nothing else mattered. 

 

Soon, the Earth began to die but Man did nothing to try and save her. Instead, he became more and more dominant and destructive, raping and pillaging the land. Animals and plants alike were destroyed without even a second thought. 

 

 Some saw the error of their ways and tried to change, but many men of power, who could have stopped the destruction, but who were concerned about how any change might impact their wealth, did nothing. 

 

But then, in the winter of 2019 everything changed. In China a new creature was born. A creature that was so small, it was comprised of only a single cell, but she was powerful in her destruction. She had lived for centuries amongst the animals of Earth, but she was ambitious in her need to destroy. The dying planet with its climate extremes and devastated, natural habitats allowed her to create a new version of herself. She jumped the species barrier and her prey was Man. 

 

She swept across the Earth spreading pestilence and death wherever she went. Starting in cities she quickly spread out to the villages. No man was safe. There was no place on the globe where she couldn’t track him down and infect him. She was a parasite, living in his body and only moving onto her next victim once she’d caused maximum destruction. 

 

She was frightening in her unpredictably. Man did not know who she would select and the severity of disease she would bestow. No man, no country was immune. 

 

 Within a year, deaths of men were in the millions and the world was turned upside down in a battle reminiscent of David and Goliath. 

 

For the first time in history Man was scared, fearing for the future of his race. Could he be facing extinction like so many species before? 

 

He fought for his survival, using his skills to defeat the virus. His great gifts of intelligence and communication, together with his ability to collaborate with his fellow man, came to the fore. 

 

Whist all mankind was locked inside, fearing to venture out in case they encountered a disease for which they had no immunity, the scientists worked day and night to create a defence, a vaccine. 

 

She railed against Man’s attempts to defeat her. She morphed again and again, mutating to increase her infectiousness and potency, but Man continued in his development and roll out of a vaccine. It was a race against time. At times it was unclear who would win. 

 

To make an effective vaccine Man needed a virus that could be made safe and act as a Trojan horse, bringing in a small piece of her so that his immune system could recognise and attack her. The virus used was harvested from one of Man’s closest relatives, an animal he’d previously thought little about, except as a source of entertainment: the chimpanzee. For the first time Man was humbled and realisation began to dawn that he couldn’t survive in isolation, he needed the other animals to support and sustain him. His perspective was beginning to shift. 

 

Soon the virus was dead. She had been defeated and mankind was safe once more. 

 

The relief was tangible. There were celebrations throughout the world. Man was no longer enslaved, in fear of the virus. Things began to return to normal and Man breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed life once more. But would the status quo now be re-established? 

 

Man had defeated his greatest enemy, a microscopic creature, and been saved by another. He could not return to his old ways. 

 

Man vowed he would change his perception of his place within the hierarchy of life on Earth. He could no longer exist alone, but instead he needed to create, and sustain, a symbiotic relationship with the other animals and plants. He came to realise that their survival was Man’s survival. He had finally understood that he needed to change how he lived, in order to save both the Earth and himself. 

 

Never again would he act so selfishly. 

 

 He swore he would use the skills he’d employed to create the vaccine to generate ecological and renewable energy, cut down on waste and live more harmoniously with nature. He pledged himself to healing the planet, working tirelessly until the ozone layer was healed, the polar ice caps were saved, and all life lived sustainably together, as it had done before the dominance of Man. 

 

Will Man keep his promise? We can only wait and see, but for all our sakes, we pray he does. Only time will tell. 

 

About the author 

Jane retired from a 30 year career in the civil service in 2019 and joined Newport Writers Group in January the following year.
During lockdown she was inspired to write her first poem since o'level English Literature (in 1978) and has recently graduated to writing short pieces of fiction.

 

 

Tony

 

by Jane Carter

latte

 

Today was Tony’s birthday. He was 50 years old.

Today was also the anniversary of his first day in the Water Company. When he’d got the job, his plan had been to stay for just 12 months until he knew what he wanted to do with his life. That was 30 years ago!! Where had the time gone thought Tony miserably as he peered into the bathroom mirror. He didn’t like what he saw. In his heyday he’d been proud of his long dark mane, swarthy skin and prominent cheekbones but now all he saw was a tired, puffy-faced and bald old man. At least being nearly six feet tall, he managed to just about carry his middle age spread.

‘I really don’t want to go to work today,’ he moaned to his reflection. He considered putting a peg on his nose and phoning the office, claiming to have flu but he knew he’d never have the nerve to do something so childish; he’d just have to grit his teeth and get on with it. Stopping in the kitchen to grab a piece of buttered toast, he kissed his wife ,‘high-fived’ the twins goodbye and headed out of the house.

It wasn’t the fact that he didn’t want to spend his birthday at the office. Tony’s reluctance to go to work was because today would bring another meeting with his boss; the grandly entitled ‘Head of Transformation’, who yesterday had accused Tony of being afraid of change. Tony still smarted at the accusation. He wasn’t afraid of change, quite the opposite in fact.

He has no idea of the changes I’ve seen thought Tony angrily as he squeezed into his mini cooper, ready to start his commute to work.

As he drove down the M5, wipers going at double speed in an attempt to stave off the heavy downpour, he thought back to when he’d joined the company back in 1990.

Then, a PC was a Police Constable, windows were something you looked out of and an apple, was simply a type of fruit.

In those days business was conducted using pen and paper and documents were written by hand before being sent to the typing pool via an army of messengers. It wasn’t snail mail in those days, just mail.

Even the I.T. geeks like Tony wrote their computer programs by hand, only typing then into the mainframe when they had access, which, if they were lucky was a couple of times a week.

Things started changing two years after Tony joined. He remembered the day his then boss told him excitedly that he had a cabinet full of mouses. Tony was taken aback, firstly by his boss’s lack of grammar and secondly by the horrific thought that the office had an infestation of vermin!

But Tony adapted quickly and was soon leading the desk-top project. Putting a PC on everyone’s desk and getting staff competent in using the new technology was a huge undertaking. In the early years his team had to deal with daily requests for help. One lady complained that her mug wouldn’t fit into the cup holder. It turned out she was trying to rest her morning coffee in the place where you were meant to put the floppy disk. Another time, a man phoned Tony’s team to complain that his mouse wasn’t working. When Tony went up to help him, he found the chap dragging the mouse against his computer screen.

Of all the requests for help that Tony and his team received, the favourite one by far came from a senior manager. He’d phoned up one morning in a rage. He had tried unsuccessfully for thirty minutes to reboot his computer and he demanded that as he was an important person someone needed to come to his office immediately. When Tony got there, he quickly learnt what the problem was. Apparently, the manager had worked through a set of online instructions and had been prompted to hit any key to continue. However, he’d been unable to find an ‘any’ button and was now convinced that he had a faulty keyboard. He was quick to tell Tony that this was a totally unacceptable situation and that senior managers like him could not afford to waste their time on such second-rate technology.

Tony remembered watching the man’s embarrassment as he’d explained that the term meant literally any key on the keyboard and not a specific ‘any’ key. Tony had dined out on the story for weeks.

And it wasn’t just the IT that had changed. Over the decades, walls had been knocked down to create open plan office space and the desks had gotten smaller to allow more staff to work there. They’d recently introduced working from home and there was even talk of hot-desking. The whole culture of the organization had changed greatly since Tony first started.

None of this reminiscing had done anything to improve Tony’s mood and by the time he’d parked his car he was feeling almost depressed. ‘Another day – anther dollar’ he sighed as he approached his desk. Then, as he sat down, he heard singing. Turning around to identify the source he saw all his colleagues coming towards him shouting out a tuneless rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ and bearing a large birthday cake. As he blew out the candles, he thought about the one constant throughout his working life; his friends.

That was something that hadn’t changed over the years; his ability to make and keep friends. His mother used to say that he knew how to put on the charm, but he liked to think of himself as simply a personable guy who liked people and who was liked in return.

Over the last 30 years his work friends had been there to celebrate his successes; many of those now taking slices of cake were there when he married Jenny nearly 20 years ago and at the twins’ christening five years later. More importantly, perhaps these friends had been there to support him when things got tough, like when he’d repeatedly missed out on promotion opportunities until he finally been awarded a senior, management role a couple of years ago.

For the first time that day Tony smiled. Perhaps things weren’t so bad after all. He’d dig in deep to his charm reserves when he met with his boss later and hopefully do better than yesterday in getting his point across. He also considered writing a blog for the staff intranet about what things used to be like at work. This morning’s stroll down memory lane had brought home how different the world used to be. It would be good for newer members, like his boss, to see how far the company, and its staff, had come during his time there and how change had been made successfully by the old timers like him. The idea cheered him up.

Happy birthday to me Tony thought. Finally, he felt excited about tonight’s birthday gathering at Drago Lounge. He loved it there and always had the same food: burger and chips. But tonight he thought he’d order some tapas, just for a change.

 About the author 

Jane retired from a 30 year career in the civil service in 2019 and joined Newport Writers Group in January the following year.
During lockdown she was inspired to write her first poem since O-level English Literature (in 1978!!) and has recently graduated to writing short pieces of fiction.