Fashion Critique

 

By Dawn Knox

ordinary tea

‘Just look at her, dahling! She’s got no idea—brown’s so drab.’

‘I know! It’s ghastly! And brown with flecks is even worse.’

‘I must say, you’re looking rather splendid today, as usual, dahling!’

‘Why, thank you, dear. And so are you. That blue brings out the colour in your eyes and as for that red splash, it’s masterful! So becoming!’

The hawk circling overhead suddenly swooped. It didn’t notice the small brown, speckled bird which remained camouflaged in the undergrowth, but the two birds with the beautiful plumage were in its sights.

It would take one or the other.

 

About the author 

Dawn’s blog - https://dawnknox.com/

Three People in a Boat

 

by Stephanie Simpkin

a very cold tinny of ‘Fosters’

 

Suzy and I had been friends since childhood, both in our early thirties. I lived on a farm with my husband.  Suzy was a renowned architect. I saw an advert in a yachting magazine:

"Crew wanted to deliver a small sailing yacht from Sydney to Cockatoo Island. Must be experienced sailors and have relevant documents"

 My husband told me to go for it, the money was brilliant, and I deserved a break. And so, I went for it.

 Suzy and I arrived in Sydney to meet the third crew member, Bruce a bronzed Aussie hunk. We found out very quickly he was an idiot, a lazy idiot, in his late twenties. First, he chatted up Suzy then me.

 ‘You two lesbians?’

 ‘No, I am married.’

 ‘To a man?’ asked the fool.

 ‘What do you do Bruce?’   

‘I am a Disc jockey, it’s great for pulling the Shelia’s!’

 ‘Bruce, you ever been married, had  a long term girlfriend?’    

 ‘Yea once! She left me, I was bothered then; she came back I was really bothered! The perfect girlfriend, stays up all night having sex, then turns into a peperoni pizza! 

             ‘You can do the cooking, you the cleaning!’ said the sexist moron.

 ‘Why’? We asked incredulously?

 ‘Because, you’re girlies, I am a fella, so I am the leader!’

 Is this why Pankhurst, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer and all the many others, fought so hard for equality? For this chauvinistic idiot?

 We explained democracy to him, very, very simply, and very slowly.

 ‘By the people for the people. The opposite to tyranny and dictatorship.’

 ‘What, you mean we have to vote?’  

 ‘No,' said Suzy, 'there’s two of us’!

 I awoke with a start. We were in a dingy on a beautiful sandy beach, surrounded by palm trees, the turquoise water lapping gently. Suddenly I remembered. The idiot had shouted 'FIRE! Quick get into the life raft,' so we had. He lost one oar then the other.

 We drifted for hours. Luckily the water was calm, and now we were here. We did a recce, the island was about ten miles by eight-ish, uninhabited by humans, but we saw chickens, small wild pigs, and most importantly a small waterfall with clear crystal water.

 Suzy and I stripped to our underwear for a swim.

 ‘Great tits,' the moron dribbled, ‘and a great arse Suzy.’

 We decided the beach we had arrived at was the best place to make camp.

 The idiot said ‘Shame we had no tents.' Hhe would be Tarzan and build a shelter for the  girlies.   

 Suzy told him she was an architect and she would do that.

 ‘I will get our food!’  What was that noise, oh yea, Tarzan beating his chest

 ‘Have you ever killed an animal, butchered and cooked it, caught a fish gutted it?’ I asked.

 ‘No!’ He shrieked, I am a vegetarian.

 Wish you luck with that, a coconut, some nice green leaves, and mouldy yams. ‘You, can be in charge of collecting firewood, starting a fire and keeping it going and, make sure we have fresh water ok?’

 ‘Any one got a lighter?’ The moron asked.

 ‘Perhaps you could be the DJ like Desert Island discs, what book do you fancy, War and Peace, Playboy? Your luxury item would be?’

 ‘I don’t have a record player or a deck do I? Any loo rolls?’

 ‘Yea! Ten rolls, I managed to grab them, when you, shouted fire!’

 ‘You being sarky?’

 Two days later we had our sturdy shelter and  I had killed a pig cooked it on the fire. It smelt great. The VEGETARIAN asked for seconds, and any barbie sauce? ‘I’d kill for a cold tinny of Fosters.’

 ‘Perhaps you could kill a chicken?’

 ‘EH! No,’

 Was he really this thick, or was he joking?

             ‘Wanna hear an Aussie joke, what do I want to  see hanging from my Sheila’s ears?’

 ‘Corks?’ I asked.

 ‘No their legs.’ Said thicko.

 Suzy said she found him vaguely amusing in Neanderthal kind of way.

 ‘Really!’ I said.

 ‘Yeah, some of the men I’ve dated recently!’

 Thicko screamed, he had been fishing, we ran. Perhaps a shark, a jelly fish sting. No… in the fishing net he had dozens of tins. Condensed milk, potatoes, corn beef, pineapple, baked beans, some tins with no labels. He was so excited. “We can have corn beef hash, beans anyone got a tin opener”?

 After he almost severed two fingers with a rusty bit of metal, smashed three fingers with a rock, he gave up and did what he did best, fuck all, worked on his tan, slept for hours.

 ‘I am going to kill him. I mean it Suzy, if we are not rescued by tomorrow, he’s dead! He tells sexist jokes not funny, he’s lazy and rude, and I had to collect the water, and relight the fire today’.

 ‘Calm down! I have a plan!’

 ‘Tell me, please. We have been here a whole week. Why is no one looking for us, surely?Jake will be missing me, the yacht owner, someone!’

 ‘Tomorrow! Dawn! Bring a large plastic bottle filled with water.”

 Sun up, Bruce was fast asleep, what a surprise! Suzy beckoned me over. “Ready?”

 Suzy had repaired the dingy made some oars, she thought it would be seaworthy. ‘Are you ready to take a chance. The bad news is, it will only take two not three.’

 ‘That’s bad news?’

 We set off, suddenly. Bruce saw us. ‘Wait for me!’ he shouted hysterically.

 We didn’t! ‘We'll send someone to rescue you.’

             “What about democracy”? he whined.

 After an hour rowing we were knackered. Suddenly we saw a cargo ship in the distance it got closer it saw us! Rescue.

 They rang the coastguards. They picked us up. “What happened to the yacht?’ we asked.

 ‘What do you mean? When we found it was just like the Mari Celeste. We thought maybe pirates had kidnapped you.’

 ‘What about the fire?’

 ‘Fire? We found a blown up toaster and some very burnt toast, but no fire. The missing person report said three crew. Anyone else with you?’    

 ‘No!’

About the author 

Stephanie left school at 15 with no qualifications. Dyslexia was diagnosed in her late 20’s.
On retirement she joined a creative writing class, and hasn’t looked back.

Biscuits, With Malbec

 

Biscuits, With Malbec

Mike Lee

a Malbec

 

 

I need to undarken the room. 

Irina rose from her chair, and with a smooth flourish she spread open the curtains. 

Her approximately onyx eyes squinted in the light, as she peered beyond the alabaster of the terrace wall. She rested her gaze at the peak of the mountain rising above the sea pines and the cumulus dotting the sky.

Irina wanted to ascend that mountain. The hike was scheduled for tomorrow. The journey was expected to be a straightforward, leisurely climb and to lack the surrealism of the novel Mount Analogue, a book that evoked Irina’s dreams, ones she usually concealed.

She read the novel at a time when she was struggling to live without judgment, to be at peace with the present, and accept a likely future framed by traditional expectations.

Irina turned from the window and sat, picked up the book from the side table and began to read.

The mountain brought Irina to the concept of a quest. She revisited the plan of climbing it shortly after they moved to the city to begin their office jobs. She even purchased a print of the mountain to hang it in her cubicle.

From reading Mount Analogue, Irina discovered a valuable insight: she realized that the journey is not a straight line, but circuitous. The journey in itself, perhaps, was but a means to an end. 

The door to the invisible must be visible.

Yes, baby. What?

I’m quoting the book I am reading.

Oh. That novel. You’re obsessed.

She looked up from the pages.

Perhaps. The word extended from her lips with a sensuous hiss.

They arrived at this resort on their first vacation in more than three years. The city was a day’s drive north of this minor paradise on the coast. This helped make it the first choice for Irina and Antonio to take a break.

The second was for the mountain.

Irina first encountered the mountain in childhood in an afternoon geography class during middle school. She was immediately attracted by the images when they flashed on the screen in the dark classroom.

The video was an exploration of the then-newly opened national park that encompassed the forest-covered mountains. Enraptured, Irina fell smitten, feeling a sense of belonging that was unlike anything experienced before.

The mountain became the land of her secret commonwealth, as she drew pictures of the mountain, and imaginary maps of the land surrounding the peak. She created towns and cities, roads and rail lines, all linked to magnificent futuristic cities rendered in her head.

Then sixth grade became seventh. Adolescence intervened, distracting her. It was years before Irina returned to dreaming of attaining the summit.

Antonio programmed a mix of jump blues on the sound player. Slim Gaillard Quartet’s Dunkin’ Bagel was the first song, which transformed the sedate hotel suite room into a fantasy of a halligalli.

Irina turned and pulled her right shoulder to her chin, and smiled coquettishly.

Splash in the coffee, baby. Irina said, her red lipsticked lips parting to show her profound overbite. Though she had the salary and dental insurance to get them fixed, Irina chose not to have the work done, inspired at seventeen by the words the younger sister of her then-boyfriend said: 

They give her character.

She agreed.

So her mouth remained unchanged, proving that all it takes is a few words from someone, somewhere to lift spirits and raise self-expectations.

Those black pools for eyes. Antonio said this when they first kissed. He repeated those words still in intimate moments. Another reason to love him, she thought as Irina applied the eyeliner, curving at the outward corners.

They were not very hungry, so they settled on ordering biscuits with butter and jam. They decided on a bit of decadence, so Antonio retrieved a bottle of Argentine Malbec from the cabinet. The wine was none too cheap, and its hints of blackberry could have been a breakfast all its own.

While they ate on the white balcony, Irina looked toward the horizon. Clouds ringed the summit.

The weather is lovely, but the pollen in the air is rotten. But that’s me, arguing with St. Peter, again.

What else is new? What will you be arguing with him about later?

Where it was that I lost my confidence.

That. Again?

Her brow furrowed.

Antonio was in a mood, which was unfortunate. Despite loving him deeply, Irina found his brooding unattractive sometimes. She pictured Antonio as the gloaming of an overcast sky, and it certainly marred his otherwise romantic nature.

She steered the conversation elsewhere.

I am truly excited about tomorrow. The hike will be such an adventure. I feel I have already projected that when we go through the forest path that it will be memorable, and therefore I feel like now I’m going to set aside an infinite amount of time to build new memories.

Antonio looked up. I know hiking the mountain is important to you.

Irina looked at her husband, reminded that Antonio knowing her was his hottest quality.

Yes, you know I often experience the contortions of an obsessive mind. It is so often like the process of extracting a certain pebble--a tumor--from my churning brain. These pebbles, formed since childhood, sometimes pass as kidney stones; and other times are blasted with explosions of epiphanies. 

Antonio blinked, and breathed deeply.

I just love these buttermilk biscuits.

Irina smiled, reminded of Daumal’s statement that what is above knows what is below. That was the point, after all.

It was time to ascend.

About the author

Mike Lee is a writer, editor and photographer in New York City, His work is published in CafeLit, Lunate, Ghost Parachute and many others.