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 Sleeping Princess by Dawn Knox, cocoa

 

‘Kiss her? What d’you mean kiss her? She’s asleep! I’m not going to touch her! What on earth are you thinking?’

‘But you’re the prince! She’s the sleeping princess. You’ve got to kiss her or she won’t wake up and she’s already been asleep for a hundred years. She needs a break!’

‘Forget it, buster! The last time I kissed a sleeping princess, it took weeks for the bruises to go down. And after that piercing scream, my ear drums have never been the same.’

‘But…’

‘No, forget it. She looks pretty peaceful to me. Let’s leave her to it.’

About the author

  Dawn’s two previous books in the Chronicles Chronicles series are The Basilwade Chronicles and The Macaroon Chronicles both published by Chapeltown Publishing. The Crispin Chronicles is coming soon! You can follow her here on https://dawnknox.com on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SunriseCalls Amazon Author: http://mybook.to/DawnKnox

The Last Twirl by Hannah Retallick, luke warm cocoa

 

Standing in the kitchen, with the cupboard door open, Kevin pushed the whole chocolate bar into his salivating mouth.

They call him an addict – his friends, his family, his mortal enemies – but he isn’t an addict, he’s a ‘self-soother’. That’s what they call babies who make themselves go to sleep, isn’t it? Druggies and alcoholics obliterate everything with drugs and alcohol, don’t they? Kevin wasn’t obliterating, merely swallowing his pain whole.

What was so wrong about that?

And yet, he couldn’t bear binging publicly, which was fine, provided the chocolate bar melted or broke and didn’t become wedged in his–

About the author

Hannah Retallick is a twenty-eight-year-old from Anglesey, North Wales. She was home educated and then studied with the Open University, passing her Creative Writing MA with a Distinction. She has been shortlisted/highly commended in many international competitions and won Second Place with Cranked Anvil Press in January 2022. https://www.hannahretallick.co.uk/about

The Importance of Norman Baines

 

by Stephen Ainley

a mug of cocoa

      

Norman Baines was fifty-four years old, but he looked older. He was five feet- six inches tall, but he looked shorter. He was probably the most unimportant man in the town, and he looked it.

Even Norman would have been amazed at how unimportant he was, had he considered himself important enough to think about. But since he held himself in such low self-esteem that he would not even talk to himself, Norman carried on his lonely existence in blissful ignorance of just how unimportant he really was.

After another uneventful day, Norman shuffled off home from his job at the library. He had worked at the library for thirty-five years. Norman was assistant to Mr Corbett, and when Mr Corbett eventually passed away, Norman would get his job. However, this did not fill Norman with cheer, as Mr Corbett was much younger than Norman and obviously much more important.

He walked past the house where somebody famous had once lived and through the park, where he had tripped over a courting couple five years earlier whilst walking his dog, Dennis. The shock of having his normally placid owner suddenly falling on top of him was too much for Dennis, who had broken free from his leash, ran off and never been seen again. Norman still went for a walk in the park most nights, with the dog leash in his hand, just in case.

He slowly walked up the steps to his small flat. “Hello,” he said to his parrot Geraldo. “Sod off,” said the parrot, who seldom showed him any respect, owing to his complete lack of importance.

This evening was much the same as any other evening for Norman. He cooked himself a simple meal, read the paper, had a bath, and then turned on the television to watch the late news. Important events were happening all around the world. “Nothing to do with me”, said Norman and turned it off.

Taking the dog leash off a nail on the back of the door, he turned to Geraldo, “I’m just popping out for my constitutional; you never know, I may find Dennis” “Sod off”, answered the parrot, who had heard the same speech for the last five years, and never liked Dennis anyway.

It was a cold night, and Norman turned up the oversized collar on his overcoat and shrank into it so that he just looked like an overcoat with legs carrying a dog leash to anyone passing.

It was fairly dark by the time he reached the park, “Dennis”, he shouted, “come here, boy”. Actually, he had long given up hope of ever seeing Dennis again, but he always felt a bit guilty wandering around at night, in case people would think he was up to no good. So looking for Dennis gave him a good excuse to be out.

The following day, Norman woke feeling unusually cheerful. He washed, shaved, put on the kettle, and turned on the radio to listen to the news. Nothing important had happened anywhere in the world. “Well, that’s unusual,” said Norman. ‘Sod off”, chirped Geraldo

***

Meanwhile, dirty work was afoot, not far from where a parrot was abusing Norman.

Vicious, Vinnie Vostock, a lapsed Catholic of no fixed abode, was at that very moment, setting in motion a train of events, which would eventually lead to Norman, not only becoming an important person but respected by parrot and person alike.

Vinnie was a sad case, coming from a very deprived background. He was one of thirteen children, all with different fathers. Though a very generous woman, well-liked by the local men, his mother had a terrible memory and would often beat Vinnie, thinking he was an intruder. He was also extremely ugly; in fact, when he first came to the notice of the police, he was immediately charged with being in possession of an offensive face. His upbringing was what set him off on his life of crime. For most of his life, no one wanted him, but now, Vinnie was desperately wanted by police all over the country.

***

Norman put on his hat and coat, picked up his briefcase and left his flat.

***

 

Vinnie watched from his car as the bank manager unlocked the front door and let his staff enter. He pulled the Donald Duck mask over his face, picked up the loaded shotgun and opened the car door.

***

 

Norman strolled through the park, watching the birds drink from the ornamental pond; he walked past the house where someone famous had once lived. He was just thinking what a pleasant day it was as he turned the corner into the High Street.

***

 

Vinnie watched as his large canvas bag was being filled by the shocked teller, urging her on with a wave of his shotgun.  When he had first entered the bank, he had soon realised his mistake; it was very difficult to look mean in a Donald Duck mask; still, at least it was an improvement on his face.

***

 

As Norman walked past the bank, something on the pavement caught his eye; it was a shiny twenty pence coin.  There were several people in the street, and Norman knew that if he made it too obvious that he had found a coin, someone would run up and claim it as theirs. So, he casually dropped his briefcase next to the coin and then said in a loud voice, “Oh dear!!, I’ve dropped my briefcase; I suppose I’ll need to bend down and pick it up”, he continued, just in case someone hadn’t got the message.

At the same instant that Norman stooped to the pavement, Vicious Vinnie ran backwards out of the bank, a canvas bag in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

***

Everything happened in a flash; Norman glanced up from the pavement just in time to see a giant Donald Duck falling over the top of him. Vinnie’s head struck the pavement, knocking him unconscious. The shotgun went off with a tremendous blast. A rather overweight woman, who was just leaving the grocery shop, fainted and fell on top of the fruit rack, causing hundreds of apples to roll off down the street. Albert, the local butcher, ran from his shop, and tripped on a passing Granny Smith and his National Health hairpiece, shot into the air, landed on a passing bus, and was never seen again.

Meanwhile, Norman slowly picked himself up and was still trying to determine what had happened as the police car arrived.

“Bravest thing I ever saw,” said the bank manager, “he captured him single-handed; there’ll be a reward for sure.”

Complete strangers were insisting upon shaking Norman by the hand. A bald man in a butcher’s apron, who seemed strangely familiar, handed him a large leg of lamb. “If only there were more people like you,” he said, shaking his head in admiration.

Norman realised he still had the twenty pence coin in his hand, so he quickly handed it to a passing Guide Dogs for The Blind charity collector, who was busy trying to remove a Granny Smith from the end of her white stick.

He arrived at the library nearly an hour late, expecting a telling off, but instead was met by Mr Corbett, the Mayor and a local journalist. Everyone was slapping his back, shaking his hand and telling him what a wonderful man he was and a credit to the community.  As everyone left him to be interviewed by the journalist, Mr Corbett, who had seldom spoken to Norman in all the years they had worked together, said, “This is a proud day for the library Norman, if you can spare a moment later, I’d like to discuss a promotion with you."

***

It’s been a long, tiring day, thought Norman as he walked home, still a bit overwhelmed by his sudden popularity. He strolled past the house where someone famous had once lived, through the park, past a courting couple in the park for the first time since a nasty incident with a man and a dog five years earlier, and up the steps to his flat.

“Hello, sir”, squawked Geraldo, who recognised an important person when he saw one.

‘

“Sod off,” said Norman.

About the author

 Stephen Ainley was born many years ago in Birmingham, U.K, but now resides in Western Australia. He has had four books published in the hilarious Dennis Bisskit series. And recently the acclaimed WW2 novel, Jessup.

The Winter Thaw

 

by Dawn DeBraal

hot cocoa

 

Raylene stood looking out her window as the snow came down lazily. Normally she loved to see this kind of weather, likening it to snow globe magic, but not now. Tom was gone he was the one who went out and shoveled it, plowed it, conquered it with his snowblower. She only had use of the mighty snow shovel.

They predicted thirteen inches of the white stuff. Raylene had been going out and shoveling the driveway every few hours so she could keep up with it.

It was only January, and already she was sick of winter. There were months to go yet. She drank the rest of her coffee, grabbing her boots she pulled them on and went outside to start the process of removing the snow again, from her front steps and then down the driveway.

“Hi, Mrs. Clark,” her neighbor Cary Gorman stood before her with a snow shovel in hand.

“Hello, Cary!”

“I’ve come to help you with the driveway. You don’t have to pay me. I’m just being neighborly, is all.” His statement made her chuckle.

“Well, that sounds wonderful. How about you help me, and we have some hot cocoa?” Cary smiled, running down the driveway with the snow shovel. Youth is wasted on the young, she thought. Cary worked like he was possessed.  Raylene marveled at what a young child could do. Before she knew it, another few inches of the white stuff, was cleared from the drive.

“Come in for that cocoa.” Raylene held the door open.  Cary ducked inside where it was warm. Kermit, the old golden retriever, came up with his tail wagging and greeted Cary.

“Hello Kermit, good boy.” Cary took off his coat and boots and climbed up to Raylene’s island, waiting patiently while she warmed the cocoa.

“It must get pretty lonely here without Mr. Clark.” What a sweet boy.

“I am glad that I have Kermit.  You are right. It has been lonely without my Tom. But it is what it is.”

“What does that mean?” Cary looked at her inquisitively.

“That means there is nothing we can do about a situation, so you need to make the most of it.”

“Like shoveling together and making hot cocoa?”

“Exactly.” Cary made Raylene smile again. She was glad for his company.

“How come you don’t have kids, Mrs. Clark?”

“God never saw fit to bless us with any.” 

Cary thought about that for a moment. “Well, God has blessed my mom and dad way too much.” 

This made Raylene laugh out loud, for the Gorman family had four boys and two girls. Cary, being the youngest.

“Not too much, just the right amount.” Raylene put the cocoa down in front of him.

“Do you have any graham crackers?” 

Raylene went to the cupboard and pulled the waxed paper-wrapped crackers out and opened them. They each took one, dipping it into the hot chocolate. Cary sighed with contentment.

“This was worth all the work! You know, my grandma died last year. I don’t have one anymore.”

“I know. I was sorry to hear that. I knew Sophie; she was a friend of mine.”

“You knew my grandmother?” Cary’s eyes got big.

“Yes, I did, and your grandfather, too.”

“What were they like in the olden days?” Cary dunked his cracker into the hot chocolate, taking another bite.

“Your grandparents were quite the dancers. They took lessons from a school. They entered competitions all over the state. Your grandmother had the most beautiful dresses that she wore with flouncy skirts. They were quite good, as I recall.”

“Dancing is for sissies.”

“Oh no, you have to be in top shape. It takes a lot of strength and stamina. They won trophies. They had a case in the living room full of them.”

“I remember that! I thought they were bowling trophies like my dad’s.”

“Oh no, your grandparents were State Champions; they were so good.”

“I like that story! It’s so quiet here. At my house, it’s noisy, noisy, noisy, all the time. I can’t think.”

“Well, you can come over anytime you need quiet. My house is just too quiet sometimes. Kermit doesn’t make much noise.”

“Yes, he’s a quiet dog. Do you like having noise in your house?”

“Sometimes. Why do you ask?”

“My mom tells me I’m pretty noisy. I try not to be, but you have to be heard above the others.” 

That made Raylene laugh again. “Yes, I suppose you do.” The phone rang. “Hello, Cora. Yes, he’s here. He helped me shovel my drive. No, he’s no bother. I enjoy the company. Yes, I will tell him.”

“That was your mom, she said when you are done here, you should come straight home.”

“I’m surprised she noticed I was gone.”

“Oh, mothers notice. Why do you think a mother duck will notice when one of her ducklings are missing, and she’ll have a dozen of them?”

“I never thought about it. Ducks can count?”

“I don’t know if they can or not, but they know each one of their children, so they instinctively know when one is missing.”

“Mrs. Clark, you sure know a lot of things.”

“I do, that I do.” He’d made her smile again. He was such a wonderful boy. Raylene opened her purse and took out five dollars, handing it over to Cary.

“I don’t want any money, Mrs. Clark, but if it’s okay with you, I’d like to come and listen to your quiet sometimes and drink hot chocolate?”

“I’d like that very much, Cary. I tell you what. I will put your earnings on an account.”

“What does that mean?”

“Is there something you want, a toy or something?”

“Yes, it’s a video game, but it costs forty dollars.”

“Alright, we will keep tabs. Every time you shovel my driveway or do a chore, I will add some money into your account with me.” She pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote the date in one column, and shoveled snow, and in the other she wrote five dollars. She taped it on the inside cupboard door. “When you’ve earned forty dollars, and your mom and dad say it’s okay, we’ll get that game.” 

Cary’s smile was as big as his heart. “That’s a great idea. Can I come back tomorrow?”

“Yes, you may come anytime your parents say it’s okay.”

“Mrs. Clark, since you have no kids, and I don’t have a grandma anymore, would you like to be my grandma?  I could call you Grandma Clark.” 

Raylene’s heart broke open. She had been so closed off since Tom died. “I would like that very much.”

“Can I give you a hug?”

“I’d like that very much.” Raylene closed her eyes and let his affection sink in. He probably would lose interest in her in a short time, but for now, she was going to enjoy his company.

“Well, I better get home.” He pulled on his boots and coat. “Bye, Grandma Clark, see you tomorrow.” Raylene watched him run down the driveway with the shovel in his hand. Her heart was full. In the winter of her life, she’d found a bit of spring.

 

About the author

Dawn DeBraal lives in rural Wisconsin with her husband, Red, two rescue dogs, and a stray cat. She has published over 400 stories, poems, and drabbles in several online magazines and anthologies.