LOST by Marion Ward, a nice cup of cocoa

It was in April 2021 that Nathan lost his last remaining tooth.  It fell out, with no warning, on his 89^th birthday.  As this would be his last chance he decided to place the tooth under his pillow to see if there was any truth in the story that fairies would take it away overnight and leave him money.  Apparently it used to be a silver sixpence but what with inflation, not to mention decimalization, it could now be £2 or even more.

He went to bed early, as normal, and then woke with the rising sun.  He looked under his pillow.  His tooth was still there but so too was a note which read

We are sorry but we are extremely busy at the moment and are experiencing fairy shortages due to COVID.  Please be assured that your teeth are important to us and we would ask you to try again later.

Nathan scratched his head.  He had not considered that fairies could catch COVID.  Still there was nothing else for it so he left his tooth under the pillow for a second night.  The next morning he woke to find his tooth was gone but no money had been left.  He wrote a rather curt note of complaint and left it under his pillow.  He knew his was only a very old front tooth but it should be worth something.

On the third morning he woke to find his note gone, no money but another note left which read

We are sorry but we are extremely busy at the moment and are experiencing fairy shortages due to COVID.  Please be assured that your teeth are important to us and we would ask you to try again later.

He was getting quite cross now so left an even more sharply worded note of complaint.

On the fourth morning he woke to find no money but a note which read

We are sorry for the poor service issue caused by fairy shortages due to COVID.  We are pleased to advise we are now in a position to pay you £2.50 for your tooth but, due to COVID we are not undertaking cash transactions at this time.  If you could kindly provide your card details we will credit your account accordingly.

Now Nathan was delighted with the offer of £2.50 and only regretted all the other teeth which he had so carelessly disposed of.  The trouble was he did not own a credit card or a debit card not even a bank card.  He could not be doing with all those new fangled things when the space under his mattress had served so well all these years.  So he left a note under his pillow asking if he could be paid some other way i.e. by a can or two of cream of mushroom soup which was his particular favourite.  He woke on the fifth morning to find a note which read

We are so sorry but we are out of stock of cans of cream of mushroom soup as there is a shortage of mushrooms due to covid and the fact that our mushroom picking pixies are on furlough.  Please advise an alternative and indicate whether you are prepared to accept a substitute if the product is unavailable.

Nathan duly left a note saying he would like mulligatawny soup and that, yes, he would accept a substitute.  He just wanted to bring the whole thing to a conclusion.  He woke on the sixth morning to find a note which read

We are sorry but we are extremely busy at the moment and are experiencing fairy shortages due to COVID.  Please be assured that your teeth are important to us and we would ask you to try again later.

Rapidly losing the will to carry on Nathan had a restless night before he woke to find a note which read

We are sorry but we are out of stock of mulligatawny soup but at your request we have left you a substitution.  If you are not satisfied please simply return it to us and we will issue a refund to the card used to make this purchase.

Nathan lifted the pillow a little higher to find......a tube of Sensodyne Pronamel Gentle Whitening toothpaste.

 

About the auhtor 

Marion  ward is a retired business woman now trying to expand and enjoy her creative self through fictional writing 

 

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The New Variant by Marion Ward, cappuccino and brandy

 Unusually, the sound of the blackbird’s song floating through the open kitchen door grated on Penny.  What was he so bloody cheerful about, she thought.  Perhaps he was looking forward to Spring, a new beginning. She sat at the kitchen table flicking through the weekend papers.  An article about a new strain of covid caught her eye. It was not known how dangerous it might be, but it was apparently causing a sense of euphoria in its sufferers.  That’s rich, she thought.

She could hear Graham in the garage repairing something as usual. Make do and mend was his constant mantra.  Penny was sick to death of making do and mending. The phone trilled, a merciful interruption to the blackbird’s incessant joyfulness.

“Hi, it’s Norma,” an annoyingly bright voice announced and Penny groaned.  Norma was on her third new kitchen since Penny’s only one, and was full of her holiday plans.  “And by the way,” said Norma, in between her bragging, “the golf club is apparently absolutely rife with this new Covid variant.  People are dropping like flies.”

Penny sat bolt upright. So there is such a thing as a light bulb moment, she thought.

She waved Graham off to golf the next morning, telling him not to hurry home as she was visiting a friend for afternoon tea.  Graham, like a boy let out of school early, looked forward to a few glasses with his mates in the club house reliving what might have been, should have been, on hole number 7, and 11, and 15.

Penny did her research and when, two days later, Graham showed unusual signs of optimism and good will to all men, she laid her traps.  The travel brochure was opened at page 141, 2 weeks in the Maldives.  The “Upgrade Your Kitchen.....and why not get a new Range Master in this year’s colours” flier was left on the kitchen table.  And the advert for the all new Mercedes E Class AMG was carefully placed at the side of the computer keyboard along with Graham’s credit cards.  Then she waited, but not for very long.

“We won’t need cancellation insurance on a holiday will we, sweetheart?” Graham called from the study.

“Oh no, I doubt it,” said Penny, trying to hide the excitement in her voice.

“Why these cheap kitchen cupboards?  I think we can do better than that,” said Graham, a little later on.

”If you say so, darling,” said Penny.

“And I really think we should go for the bigger Mercedes, the one with the automatic folding roof,” he continued.

Penny was so pleased to have got this far but she planned to hide his credit cards soon just in case things got out of hand.  But it was too late.  Penny had now caught the virus from Graham and was in the process of trying to buy a Swiss chalet from Prince Andrew.

Timely treatment could have cured them, but they did not believe they were ill and in need of help.  Sadly, they both died.  Their legacy was a pile of debts and a nightmare of legal wrangles for those they left behind.

About the author 

Marion is a retired business woman now trying to expand and enjoy her creative self through fictional writing.