Jean Goes Cuckoo

 

by Pete Pitman

 

Cuckoo  Spit wine

 

Jean screamed and wrenched the cuckoo clock off the wall, leaving a ragged hole in the chimney breast and a pile of brick dust on the mantlepiece. She cursed and threw the clock down on to the tiled hearth. The clock emitted a discordant whimper as it broke apart. Not content, Jean crashed her heel on to it, causing a spring to boi- oing across the room and the wooden bird to hiccup before splitting in two. She threw herself on to the sofa and began to cry.

 

The offending clock had been there for four months. Her husband brought it home from his uncle’s wake.

   “What’ve you got there, Brian?” asked Jean.

   “It’s a cuckoo clock. Been at Uncle Tom’s for ages. They said I could have it.”

   “I bet they did. No bugger else would want it. They went out of fashion in the 1970s.”

   “No. Uncle Tom loved it. I was fascinated by it, when I was a kid.”

   “Well, I don’t want it.”

   “Ooh, Jean. I’ve got a special connection to it. The only time it seemed to work was when I stayed there. It was a great mystery to my uncle.”

   “So, it doesn’t work now. That’s a blessing. Irritating things. But, I still don’t want it.”

   Brian pulled a little box out of his pocket. “I’ve got this for you.”

   Jean took it and opened the box. “Oh, that’s lovely. It's a brooch. 9ct gold. A vintage kookaburra. They’re expensive, they are. Thank you.”

   “Yeah, he spent a lot of years in Australia. Loved it.”

   The following day, while Jean was still cooing over the brooch, he drilled a hole above the fireplace and screwed the clock in place. The bird didn’t pop out, but the clock kept good time.

 

A month after the arrival of the cuckoo clock, Brian was feeling amorous. They’d been out and had an enjoyable evening, consuming plenty of alcohol. Brian had done his duty by Jean and tending to himself, roared to a satisfying climax. He rolled off with a grunt.

   As Jean reached for a tissue, she thought she heard the cuckoo clock downstairs. Listening intently, she heard it again. In all, she counted eight falsetto ‘cuckoos’. Which was doubly strange because the bedside clock said 1.

   She turned to ask Brian if he’d heard them too, but he was already asleep, snoring contentedly.

 

A month later, they were snuggled up on the sofa, watching a Netflix series. When they reached one of the more boring episodes, Brian lost interest and began massaging Jean’s neck. Soon, his hands started to wander towards her fulsome breasts. One thing led to another, and they were soon making love.

   When Brian came, as well as feeling relief because her shoulder was crushed against the sofa back, and she had cramp in her hip, Jean noticed the cuckoo was sounding again.

   Once she’d cleaned herself up and massaged the pain away, she said, “Did you hear that, the cuckoo.”

   “I did,” answered Brian, wiping sweat from his brow. “Must’ve been the vibrations that set it off.

 

A month after that, Jean was preparing egg, bacon and tomatoes for breakfast, while Brian was in the shower. The tiled kitchen floor was making Jean’s feet cold, so she nipped upstairs to fetch her slippers. As she passed the bathroom, she heard a rhythmic grunting. She and her  lady friends had often discussed men and their tendency to masturbate in the shower. It was something to laugh about, so she retrieved her slippers and tip-toed back downstairs to the kitchen.

   She was getting the eggs from the fridge when the cuckoo popped out of the clock and made its irritating call. Fortunately, it only piped ‘cuckoo’ three times.

 

Four months after the arrival of the cuckoo clock, Jean was looking at the use-by dates on the meat, in the fridge, when the phone rang.

   “Hello, love,” said Brian, in his most ingratiating voice. “Something’s come up. I’ve got to work late.”

   “Well, when will ya be back? Shall I put your dinner in the microwave?”

   “I’m not sure. Be lucky if it’s this side of 10. I think, they’re laying sandwiches on, so I wouldn’t bother doing me any dinner.”

   “Oh, OK. I’ll expect ya, when I see ya.”

   “Yeah, sorry, love.”

   Jean wasn’t bothered, it was something she could use against him later. She might get a new pair of shoes out of him. And, she could watch all the soaps without Brian tut-tutting at her side.

   EastEnders was finishing, and she was about to pour another glass of wine when the cuckoo shot out of the clock and screamed ‘cuckoo’. It was a good job her glass was empty, she nearly jumped out of her seat. It completed its theatrics another eleven times.

   By the sixth time, she’d worked out that the cuckoo only sounded when Brian had an orgasm. By the ninth, she’d remembered that young, pretty secretary laughing at every one of Brian’s awful jokes at the Christmas party. By the twelfth, she was standing in the hearth with her hands either side of the clock. 

About the author

The author is a retired computer programmer who writes short stories across a number of genres. He’s had a number of stories published in various magazines. He’s currently redrafting his children’s adventure novel from the point-of-view of a pensioner looking back. 

It’s All a Big Joke

 

by Pete Pitman

something frothy

 

“When you think about it, it’s all a bit pointless.” James English was sitting on the side of a large metal bridge, long legs dangling, revealing a pair of pale ankles where his overall bottoms were too short. He was pushing his lank, blond hair away from his blue eyes, as he continued, “Take our job. We start at one end of this bloody bridge, paint its entire length, then we do it all over again. Pointless!”

   “I take your point,” agreed his short, stocky, bald headed workmate, Scott, with a twinkle in his brown eyes. His name was Duncan Scott, but everybody called him by his surname.

   James ignored his joke and said, “Makes you think being up here. Gives you a different perspective on life.”

   “How do you mean?” wondered Scott, who was tipping the crumbs from his lunch-box in to the water sliding by far below.

   “Well, look at all those people scurrying about like ants,” said James, waving a ham sandwich in the direction of the city streets, clearly visible a mile away. “They’re all rushing here and there, doing things that seem terribly important to them. But, from up here, they just look comical and futile.”

   “I keep telling ya, it’s all just one big joke. We’re just innocent fools in a great cosmic joke.” Scott was warming to the subject.

   “How long do you reckon this bridge is?” said James.

   “Three-hundred and twenty-five metres,” interjected the third member of the team, Iris, who was buried in big baggy overalls and woolly hat. These she wore to hide the curves, she’d been so upset to see, when she developed from a lithe tomboy into a voluptuous woman.

   “Thank you, Miss Mann,” said James, as he swallowed the last of his sandwich. “If we say this bridge, all three-hundred-and-twenty metres, is equivalent to the amount of time the universe has been in existence. Then, we say this large section here represents the time our sun and the earth have been around. And that rivet is how long there has been human life on the Earth. Our miserable seventy years, or so, is probably one five-thousandth of that.”

   “Put like that, it does seem pretty meaningless.”

   “I hate to break up your meaningful discussion, but you’ve got a bridge to paint, and I’ve got some timesheets to fill in.” Phil, the foreman, sat separate from the others, on a collapsible chair, well away from the hypnotic waters below. The responsibility of his role kept him grounded. He didn’t get involved with the others’ fanciful ideas and conversations.

   They left the higher plains of metaphysical discussion and returned to their mundane duties.

 

The following lunchtime, they were all sat as before, but twenty feet further along, eating their sandwiches. Scott turned to James and said, “You don’t believe in fate then, I suppose?”

   “Course not. That’s just as ludicrous as believing in a God. It’s only a case of people thinking they are more important than they actually are. Once you look at the immenseness of the universe and realize how insignificant we are, then it’s obvious everything is due to happenstance. You’re lucky to have been born, you get a short time to make a complete mess of things, and then you’re gone and very soon forgotten. No there is no such thing as fate.”

   “Isn’t the point though, that these things are meant to be immense and incomprehensible? Meaning we can’t possibly comprehend them.”

   “Maybe in the past, but we’ve come a long way since we believed the Earth was the centre of the Universe.”

   “Hmm, that’s true. What about the business of parallel universes, that they’re always on about? You make a decision, and you create an alternative path, or whatever.”

   Before James could answer, Iris interrupted with one of her factual bits, “In sci-fi it’s called the multiverse, but I think it only applies to important decisions.”

   “Well, that’s patent nonsense. You don’t know a decision is important until you look back on it, with hindsight. There are what, fifty-six million people in England alone, all making decisions every day. There’d be billions of multiverses. It’s another case of people trying to make us out to be more important than we are. It’s just pure chance, whether you make a good decision, or not.”

   “Yes, I’m with you there. You could be sat on your sofa and think, I fancy a bar of chocolate,” said Scott, speaking from the heart. “So, off you go to the shop and when you get back, the chimney’s collapsed through the roof and on to the sofa, you were seated on two minutes before. Or, on the way to the shop, some drugged up daft lad drives his car in to you. But, most likely, you return, eat the chocolate and pile on some more calories. Pure chance. You’re right there is no grand design.”

   “Exactly right, my chubby friend,” said James climbing on to one of the bridge’s crossbeams. “I’ll tell you what; as it’s all just a gamble. If I’ve got ham sandwiches again for pack-up tomorrow, I’ll lob myself off this bridge. Another insignificant death.”

   Scott stood up, but didn’t climb up, and said, “I’ll join you, if I get cheese again tomorrow.” He knew full well the last of the cheese had gone on the sandwiches he’d just devoured.

   “If I’ve got Marmite tomorrow again, I’ll do it too,” said Iris, who tended to do as the others did.

  What the others were doing was pulling faces. “You like Marmite, yuk!” they chorused.

  Phil, the foreman, folded away his chair and said, “You’re all nuts. Come on let’s get some work done.

 

The next day, the sky was a growling grey, the bridge was a freshly painted grey and the estuary it spanned was a thick turgid grey. The scene was still and expectant, as if waiting for something portentous to occur.

   Right on cue, James snapped off the lid of his lunch-box, raised his eyes to the dulled heavens and shouted, “Bloody hell, ham again. That does it, if there were Fates, then I would say they have spoken.” He clambered on to the bridge, yelled, “Geronimo!” and leapt into the still air. A few seconds later, there wasn’t so much a “Splash!” as a “Glup!”

   Scott hesitantly prised open his sandwich box. He lifted the lid, slammed it back down,  lifted it again, hung his head and moaned, “Oh bugger! Cheese, its cheese.” Shuffling forward to the edge of the bridge, he let the weight of his lolloping head precipitate him into the waiting depths.

   Iris, cautiously, undid her Bob the Builder lunch-box, the smell of Marmite rolled across the bridge causing Phil, the foreman, to almost retch and fall off his seat. Following in the large and small footsteps of her workmates, she climbed atop the bridge, lost her balance and plummeted.

   Phil, the foreman, said, “Blimey. It’ll take me months to train up a new team.”

 

At the funeral tea, the wives and parents were huddled around the sausage rolls. Mrs English said, “I don’t understand it. He loved ham. All he had to do was ask me to do him something else.”

   Mrs Scott said, “I don’t understand it. I fetched that cheese special from the farm shop. He loved cheese.”

   Iris’s mother, Mrs Mann, said, “I don’t understand it. Iris did her own sandwiches.”

About the author 

The author is a retired computer programmer who writes short stories across a number of genres. He’s had a number of stories published in various magazines. He’s currently redrafting his children’s adventure novel from the point-of-view of a pensioner looking back.

Tom and the Magpies

 by Pete Pitman

 tea and humble pie

Tom sat in the shade, on his patio, engrossed in a magazine.

   “What are you reading, love?” said his wife, placing a mug of tea before him.

   “It’s the Toolstation catalogue, Joan. I’m after some lopping shears with an extendable handle.”

   “What on earth do you want those for?”

   Tom put the catalogue down next to his tea and surveyed the garden. He stuck out his chest. “I’ve instilled some discipline into most of the garden. There’s just the bottom bit where those conifers spill cones and needles everywhere. And that bloody enormous hawthorn behind them, it sheds leaves, prickly twigs and other detritus all the time.”

   Joan pulled a face as Tom remembered the hard work he’d put in last summer. Joan’s spreading arthritis meant she could no longer give the garden the attention it had required. He’d hacked down all the trees and rampant shrubs, filled in her pond and demolished her raised beds that seemed to contain equal amounts of wispy plants, misshapen vegetables and encroaching weeds. Once it was levelled he’d built a large patio of Yorkshire stone. Then, he’d covered most of the rest in sharp sand and laid a lawn of artificial grass. Joan had been upset, but he was sure she appreciated the benefit now.

   The only blot on the new landscape was the mass of debris caused by the conifers and hawthorn belonging to the house behind their bottom fence.

   “You can’t prune those coni--”

   “Why not? I can chop the branches that overhang our fence. That’s legal.”

   “Yes, I know that, Tom. But, there are several greenfinches roosting in there, on our side.”

   “Are there? I didn’t know that.”

   “No, you wouldn’t. You’re too busy enforcing discipline. Or, interfering, as I call it.”

   “The only birds I’ve seen in those trees is a pair of noisy magpies.” He screwed up his nose. “Nasty things magpies. They steal from other birds. They’re so notorious they even named an opera after them.”

   To emphasise his point, a magpie started squawking and rattling.

   Their neighbour came out and stuck his head over the fence. “Hello, Joan. Tom. Lovely day.”

   “It is, Suresh.” said, Joan. “How’s, Maia?”

   “She’s very well, thanks.”

   “It would be lovely if those bloody magpies would shut up,” said Tom.

   “Very misunderstood birds, magpies. Nature has some strange ways.”

   “You’re right, Suresh.” said Joan, giving Tom a hard stare. “It doesn’t pay to interfere with nature.”

 

Next day, Joan was at the shops with Maia, so Tom wandered down the garden to see if he could see the greenfinches. He located them and watched as blurs of green flitted in and out of the conifer branches close to Suresh’s shed. He was mesmerised by the spectacle when something hit him on the shoulder and bounced on to the ground. He looked up as a twig and a cone dropped to the earth beside him.

   He spotted the culprit causing the bombardment and waved his fist. “Bloody magpies!”

   As he spoke, something occurred to him – what if the magpies stole the greenfinches’ eggs?

   Tom marched into the house, rattled up the stairs and released the loft ladder. He clambered up into the loft and re-emerged shortly with two boxes. One was narrow and about three feet long, the other was smaller and nearly square. He took them downstairs and cleaned the contents.

   With a satisfied smile, he returned to the garden with an air rifle and a laser gun. He spent a half-hour alternately firing pellets close to the cavorting magpies and then dazzling them with the infra-red laser beam. He hadn’t had this much fun in ages and when the magpies rose into the air and gave a farewell screech before flying over the distant rooftops he punched the air and cheered.

   He’d just returned the guns to the loft when Joan walked in and dropped her handbag on the table.

   She looked at him and said, “You’ve got that funny look. Have you been interfering somewhere?”

  

The following afternoon, Tom was seated on his patio flicking through the Screwfix catalogue when he heard Joan cry, “Oh dear! Poor little thing!”

   “What’s the matter, Joan?”

   “There’s a dead greenfinch on the lawn. Looks like a cat’s got it.”

   As Tom walked down to join her, Suresh poked his head over the fence. “Did I hear you say there’s a dead greenfinch, Joan?”

   “Yes. Poor little thing.”

   “Yeah, there’s one by my shed too. Must be that ginger tom.”

   “Bloody cats,” said Tom.

   “I keep chasing it off,” said Suresh. “Wait a minute. What’s happened to the magpies?”

   All three of them stared up at the hawthorn.

   “Why?” said Joan.

   “Well, they’re my early warning system. Every time that cat comes around the magpies kick off, making a right racket. Then, I know to come out and chase the cat off.”

   “Oh dear!” said, Tom, staring at his shiny shoes.

   “What have you done, Tom?” said Joan, through half closed eyes. “You’ve been interfering, haven’t you.”

About the author

The author is a retired computer programmer who writes short stories across a number of genres. He’s had a number of stories published in various magazines. He’s currently redrafting his children’s adventure novel from the point-of-view of a pensioner looking back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                 

No More Two-fisted Heroes

 

by Pete Pitman

Southern Comfort 

 

Candice pushed Troy aside and shouted, “I’ll take care of these. There’s only three of them.”

   Troy regained his balance, threw up his hands and knowing his chance had gone, let his square jaw slump on to his broad chest.

   Candice ran at the first of the three brawny gang members. Ducking as he lunged with his knife, she got in low and kneed him in the groin. As he crumpled forward, she kicked him under the chin. He groaned and collapsed to the ground unconscious.

   The second big guy gave her a toothless grin and took a swing at her head with a crowbar. She just managed to side-step it before it could connect and stave in her temple. The momentum carried her attacker into a wall. As he bounced off, she thumped him in a kidney and rabbit chopped his throat. She was finishing him off with a kick to the head when she sensed the third gang member behind her.

   Too Late! He was about to plunge a knife into her back.

   Roland punched a button on his electric wheelchair and careered into the gang member’s legs. This caused his knees to buckle and the knife to slip from his grip. Candice flashed Roland a smile of thanks as she put the baddie to sleep with a blow to the head with the discarded crowbar.

   Samuel L Johnson, the evil mastermind, who had been standing well back wearing a pink suit and twirling a silver cane, did a dance of annoyance. Seeing that he was beaten, he fired several bullets into an overhead skylight and as the glass showered Candice, Troy, Roland and the three prostrate baddies he slipped out of a side entrance, calling as he went, “This ain’t over. I’ll be back.”

 

“Look this is ridiculous,” whined Troy. “I’m being given less and less to do in every chapter.”

   “It’s the modern way, darling,” said Candice. “All stories have to have a kick-ass leading lady now. Your time’s gone, darling.”

   “B-but it’s not fair, I’m supposed to be the hero. Even Roland gets more action than me.”

   “Ooh, Troy,” said Roland, his eyes lighting up. “If you want action, you know where I live.”

   “At least, ya don’t get kicked in the balls, all the time,” said one of the gang members.

   “I ain’t complaining none,” said Samuel. “I used to be the drug dealer or mugger. Now, I’m the evil genius. I get to cackle, scream at people and wear cool clothes.”

   “And, I bet you get to see the error of your ways by the last chapter,” said Candice. “And, you use your genius for the benefit of mankind.”

   “That’s cool,” said Samuel.

   “Yuk!” said Troy.

   “From your high-security prison cell, of course,” said Candice.

   “Oh!”

   “That’s ridiculous,” said Troy. “I’m supposed to have a grandstand fight with Samuel in the final chapter. Following a titanic struggle, I push him into a river, or over a cliff. But his body is never found. So, he can make a return in a later book in the series.”

   “More like,” said Candice, with a grin. “The author kills you off in the final chapter.”

   “No! Never! I’m the hero.”

   “Yes, but,” said Candice. “You’ll die a hero, darling. Probably, rescuing a kid from a fire or a runaway lorry.”

   “She wouldn’t k-kill me off? Would she?”

About the author 

The author is a retired computer programmer who writes short stories across a number of genres. He’s had a number of stories published in various magazines. He’s currently redrafting his children’s adventure novel from the point-of-view of a pensioner looking back.