100 Worder: Cry For Help

100 Worder: Cry For Help

Jenny Drew

Stewed Tea

Jim saw the piece of paper slide out from under the door. He checked if Marcy had seen it but she wasn't in the room. He grabbed it as she came in with a cup of tea.

            The note simply said 'HELP'.

            Lucky for him Marcy hadn't seen it, too bad for the girl in the cupboard, she would pay for that. Soft crying could be heard. Jim looked at Marcy ready to explain.

            'You'll need to get rid of that girl, Jim'

            Jim looked at Marcy in surprise, smiling she walked over and handed him the hammer.

About the Author

Jenny runs Basildon Writers group and has written two novels. When she is not writing she is happily creating multimedia art and lives with her family in Essex.

Published February 26 2016

100 Worder Ephemeral

100 Worder: Ephemeral

Angela Haffenden

Hot cocoa with mint

Where warmth and cold collide, I exist. I am ice crystals, flakes, shimmering and falling. I silently glisten on the land, in a pure white covering. Little robin red breast leaves footprints while he searches for food. Children play; making angels, throwing balls, building snowmen with carrot noses, coal for eyes, fallen branches for arms. When the temperature rises, I melt, and slide in slabs from rooftops. Once new and fluffy and full of promise I become black and sludgy. My time on earth is over. I end my time soaking into the ground, nourishing the roots of new life.

About the Author

Angela Haffenden is a mother of four children. She is also responsible for a husband and a dog. She writes mainly to stay sane. She lives by the sea and writes in a cabin in the garden.

Published February 25 2016

Pirate Island

Pirate Island

Lloyd Jenkinson

A cup of Earl Grey Tea – light and refreshing

The boat rocked violently from side to side as the storm grew stronger.

            The waves crashed on the deck and they were getting louder.

            ‘I get in the cabin, Grandpa!’ he shouted as he was thrown from side to side in the flimsy boat. His tiny fingers gripped tightly onto the sides for fear of being thrown overboard into the mouths of the waiting sharks.

            ‘I in the cabin now!’ he shouted.

            We saw the beacon of a distant lighthouse in the early morning gloom. It was Pirate Island. The winds dropped as we sailed towards the flickering light and beached the boat upon the shore. It had been a terrifying journey, as I watched his little legs struggle to carry him safely through the surf.

            ‘I found a cave, Grandpa,’ he said and disappeared inside. ‘Can I have torch?’ he said, ‘It a bit too dark in here.’

            The cave was hot and sticky and we went in deeper and deeper, crawling through narrow channels, the light of his torch leading the way. As we did we heard the thump of heavy feet and felt the thud of each step. ‘I no like Trolls, Grandpa,’ he said, ‘they scare me.’

            ‘They’re only pretend,’ I said ‘They’re not real.’

            ‘I still no like Trolls. No more Trolls.’

            And he hit me.

‘Come on Joseph, it’s time to get up. Time for breakfast,’ his mother said as she peered through the bedroom door.

            ‘I not finished playing with Grandpa. We playing boats,’ he shouted as he popped up from beneath the duvet and slapped the bed. ‘We go to Pirate Island don’t we Grandpa?’

            What do you say? Support your grandson who is having fun or your daughter who wants to start the day?

            ‘Maybe one more time?’ I said.

            ‘Okay, only one more time,’ she said, ‘I’ve got work today.’

            ‘Come on Grandpa, make the boat again,’ he said pulling up the duvet. I curved my legs and he jumped in the gap between them and started to sway one way then the other. ‘Faster, Grandpa, faster.’

            I made the sound of wind and waves as I rocked him from side to side. I spun the torch in my hand, like the flashing beacon of a light house. Red, then green, then white.

            ‘I get in the cabin!’ he shouted and pulled the bedspread over his head.

            ‘No more sharks, Grandpa. I don’t like sharks. You pinch me. It hurts’

            ‘Okay, no more sharks but this is the last time.’

‘Come on you two, breakfast is ready. Mummy’s got to go to work,’ said my daughter standing at the door, clinging onto a bleary eyed sister, untimely ripped from her slumber and not yet vocal. ‘Come on Grandpa, enough’s enough.’

            ‘Ookay,’ I said as I stopped rocking. ‘Breakfast now then, Joseph.’

              Just as I thought everything was going well he shouted, ‘I not hungry. I not want breakfast. Again, Grandpa, again.’ He buried himself beneath the covers. His sister had now woken up and joined in. She screamed as loud as she could, her lungs almost popping out. A piercing sound showing she meant business. ‘I want milk, now.’

            It was strange how the high pitched whine of a distressed baby turned the volume control up in everyone. It always did.

            ‘Now look you’ve upset Eleanor. Come on, breakfast is ready and Mummy has to go to work,’ shouted my daughter.

            It was no use as he was already at sea again, in his cabin, battling the storms. Pirate Island, sharks, sorry, they had gone by request just like the trolls, and a dark cave on a distant shore.

            Where would you want to be?

About the Author

Lloyd Jenkinson is a retired surgeon who now has the time to enjoy the delights of new life and word craft.

Published February 24 2016

100 Worder Pressing The Flesh

100 Worder Pressing the Flesh

Allison Symes

Iced Tea

It was 3 am. The neighbours were sleeping. He must be quick. It was hard to disguise a cutter’s sound but bodies didn’t dispose of themselves. His ancestors knew that. They provided bodies for vivisection - animal or human, it didn’t matter which. There were discoveries to be made. Science then was a hungry beast.

His market was different. So many could not afford the disgusting price of meat. So many could not afford to ask where cheap meat originated and instead were sensible and just ate what they could get.

About the Author

Allison Symes is published by CafeLit, Bridge House Publishing, Alfie Dog Fiction, Scriggler.com and Shortbread Short Stories. She is a member of the Society of Authors and Association of Christian Writers. Her website is http://www.fairytaleswithbite.weebly.com and blogs for Chandler’s Ford Today - http://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/author/allison-symes/

Published February 23 2016

Advent Day Twenty-Four 2015

Advent Day Twenty-Four

December 24 2015

James Phillips

On Repeat

A cup of cold, stewed tea

Harry sips his tea and glares at a glittering purple reindeer, which sits on a shelf above the seat opposite his. It is one of many small and glittery decorations scattered around Maggie’s Diner. Christmas songs are playing through the café’s speakers; not loud enough to prevent conversation, but still obtrusive and annoying. A new song comes on the sound system, lots of sleigh bells chiming and jingling. He’s sure that he must have heard it three times already this morning. Harry thinks that the problem with Christmas songs is that there aren’t enough of them and so they all come round again and again, on repeat, day after day. It’s the same for the whole of December and it happens every year. It occurs to him that a good way to make his fortune is to write a new Christmas song every day. If he starts on the first of January and publishes the whole lot on the thirtieth of November, that will give him three hundred and thirty three songs. If each one averages three minutes and thirty seconds; Harry wrestles with the mental arithmetic, he’s faced with an endless series of threes and keeps losing count. He takes his notebook and the stub end of a pencil out of his pocket and writes the sum down, showing his workings just like Mrs Lettuce insisted. He starts to wonder if Mrs Lettuce is really the name of his old teacher, but then the numbers in his notebook catch his eye and bring him back to Christmas song writing. Three hundred and thirty three, he writes, multiplied by three, is nine hundred and ninety nine; add in the three hundred and three extra sets of thirty seconds and it comes to one thousand four hundred and forty eight minutes and thirty seconds.

Harry looks at this number and decides that it’s a good number. He is on the verge of going as far as to call it a very good number when he realises that it doesn’t mean very much as it is. He needs to convert minutes into hours. Harry feels an initial edge of panic grip him.  He’s going to have to divide by a number that is greater than nine. His long division has never been very strong and the spectre of Mrs Lettuce is so real that he can smell the lily of the valley. He is about to give up on the whole thing when he realises that, instead of sixty, he can divide by six and just move a decimal point afterwards and this makes him much happier. The memory of Mrs Lettuce fades and he starts to do the division. Half way through the sum, he stops when he realises that the answer comes to a bit more than two hundred and forty. He moves the decimal point and gets twenty four hours; a whole day. He’s done it!

Harry imagines himself meeting the Queen to receive his OBE and being received at Number Ten. He will be hailed as the man who saved Christmas. Everyone will be so much happier when no song has to be played more than once per day in the festive season.

It is a lovely image and Harry smiles as he pours himself a cup of cold, stewed tea from the white china pot he’s been nursing for hours. The tea doesn’t pour very well, dribbling into his saucer and onto the table top, where it mingles with the crumbs of a sandwich from earlier on.

What the world needs, is a universal spout design for teapots so that they all pour properly.

He imagines himself designing the perfect spout, installing a potter’s wheel and a kiln in his shed. Well, okay, getting a shed, erecting it and then installing them. He’ll have to attend pottery classes of course, but he has no doubt that he will show natural aptitude. How could it be otherwise when he is being driven by his vision of a perfectly poured cup of tea?

Maggie appears at his table and replaces the old pot with a new one.

‘There you are, Harry love,’ she says, ‘that one must be stewed and gone cold by now.’

She turns and returns to behind the counter and Harry watches her go.

A new song comes on the sound system, lots of sleigh bells chiming and jingling. He’s sure that he must have heard it three times already this morning. Harry thinks that the problem with Christmas songs is that there aren’t enough of them and so they all come round again and again, on repeat, day after day. It’s the same for the whole of December and it happens every year.

About the Author

James Phillips is a house husband from Bangor, North Wales. He spends his days writing, drinking tea and avoiding housework and his evenings playing and promoting live music. His blog is at https://jamespmphillips.wordpress.com/

Published December 24 2015

Merry Christmas from all of us at CafeLit! See you in the New Year!

Advent Day Twenty-Two 2015

Advent Day Twenty-Two

December 22 2015

B. Lieve

Night Shift

Cold Milk

Small fingers pressed lightly to glass, tracing circles in the mist. Listening for the soft magical tinkle of sound that says he’s come. They laughed at her in school. You don’t really still believe he will, do you?

She listens for the silent tramp of snowy boots, the creak of the armchair, the soft pad of footsteps on the stairs, imagines mince pie crumbs in his beard. He must come, he promised.

As she turns she hears it; a soft magical tinkle of sound. A key in the door. Her mum’s voice. Dad? This year he did make it home.

About The Author

If you believe it, he will come.

Published December 22 2015

Advent Day Twenty/Twenty-One 2015

Advent Day Twenty/Twenty-one

December 20/21 2015

Allison Symes

Telling The Time

Cappuccino

I inherited the beautiful grandfather clock, aptly, from my grandfather. He swore it kept better time than Big Ben. I tried telling him that was the name of the bell but he was having none of it.

            Much as I miss my grandfather, part of me is glad he isn’t around to see his wonderful clock has gone horribly wrong. It has not been the same since that mouse got into the workings. Instead of chiming the hour, the bloody thing squeaks now. 

            On the plus side, I always know when it is 1 o’clock.

About the Author

Allison Symes is published by CaféLit, Bridge House Publishing, Alfie Dog Fiction, Scriggler.com and Shortbread Short Stories.  She is a member of the Society of Authors and Association of Christian Writers. Her website is www.fairytaleswithbite.weebly.com and blogs for Chandler’s Ford Today - http://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/author/allison-symes/

Published December 21 2015