Reflections

Marie Fullerton

Reflections

Hot Chocolate with Cream and Marshmallows

The skies opened and I ran into the museum for shelter from the sudden downpour.

               I glanced around furtively as I hunted through my pockets with wet hands in search of a tissue. I hoped that anyone watching me would not think it was anything more than just the rain that ran the length of my nose, gathered into a huge diamond droplet on the tip and dripped down the front of my jacket.

               The familiar wax polish smell in the musty warmth of the entrance hall welcomed me. As a child, I’d spent many an hour exploring here during the long school holidays, a good few years ago now. My best friend and I had laughed as we flirted with the boys from the grammar school, hiding in corners and stifling giggles behind our hands; made up stories about the crowns, gowns and robes that how hung lifeless in dusty corners. We’d held hands and cried over broken relationships in the darkened quiet seats as teenagers and spent hours at the study tables trying to put together essays that were different enough to look as though we hadn’t worked together while at college. Just before Anna had moved abroad with her family we’d both bought the same necklace from the souvenir shop and sworn never to take them off as a token of our friendship. Then, in spite of the promise to keep in touch no matter what,

we’d lost contact with each other as the years passed. Ah, the memories that clung tightly to that smell.

It looked like the rain wasn’t going to ease off for I while and I decided to walk round before going upstairs for a coffee in the café. Although the smell hadn’t changed, the exhibits had. A dinosaur exhibition that had housed rows of bones and artefacts had grown and now also had screens that allowed me to see the creatures they came from at the touch of a button. History documentaries played on monitors close to each exhibit. I remembered the dinosaur story we had written one afternoon for a project on evolution our first year in senior school. The ammonite fossil caught my eye; captured in what looked like an old granite kerbstone, the curled shell nestled tightly inside a quartz casing. More tiny pieces of quartz were glistening between the folds and I smiled as I thought how much like life was this ancient creature; how much like my life!

I walked up to the café, bought myself a cream cake and a latte coffee and sat by the window looking down onto the street below. Rivulets of water joined together as they ran races to the frame at the bottom of the window. I reflected on the ammonite. Such a beautiful shell incarcerated in a coffin of grey stone, taunted by the sparkling of reflected light on its prison walls. I sighed and looked outside. Large droplets of rain clung to the window, little images of people in the street below drifted through each drop. The vibrant, magnified colours of their clothing faded away to the grey of the pavement once they had passed and left me with just my broken reflection. I wondered where the years had gone, where Anna was now, if she still thought of me. I sipped my coffee.

               ‘Lorna?’ A voice broke into my daydreams. ‘Lorna, I don’t believe this, it

is you.’

               ‘Anna?’ My heart leapt. It couldn’t be, could it?

               ‘Lorna, have you any idea how I have missed you?’

               As I stood up her arms embraced me and I held her tight.

               ‘Oh Anna!’

               I was speechlessly gazing into her eyes as she brushed my face with her

thumb.

               ‘You old silly, I knew we would find each other again. I just moved back

and…’ She paused for a second. ‘It’s funny; I sort of knew I would find you here.’

               She removed her coat, shook it and hung it on the back of a chair. I watched her graceful movements; she hadn't changed a bit.

               ‘I’ll get you a drink,’ I said, ‘hot chocolate with cream and

marshmallows?’

               ‘You remembered!’

               She smiled and pulled the damp, silk scarf from around her neck. A tiny silver ammonite pendant nestled between her breasts.

               ‘I think we both did, didn’t we?’

               She laughed as she caught my arm before I left the table and pulled me toward her. Slowly she undid the top button of my blouse, ran her finger down the chain and touched my pendant. Our eyes met.              

               ‘Did you put it on especially?’

               I kissed her hand. How could I have known, how could she? I smiled at her and hugged her again.

               ‘No Anna, I never took it off.’

About the Author

Marie Fullerton is a retired lecturer, she has eight grown up children and she has wanted to be a writer forever.  She also started painting twenty-one years ago and is completely self-taught. At fifty she was proud of her 2.1 BA degree for English language, literary history and creative writing at UCC and has since had several poems published in anthologies and short stories in E-zines. She is currently working on two novels. Although she has sold many paintings she has only recently tried her hand at illustrating. You can see her artwork on her Facebook page using the following link here: LINK

Blog pages: http://wordangell.wordpress.com/

                     http://mariesimaginings.blogspot.com/

You Never Know

You Never Know

Lindsay Fisher

Espresso

I have played things over and over in my head, trying to recall if there was anything in our first meeting, anything to show that she was different. But there wasn’t. Not that she was the same, not the same as any of the girls I had dated before; but nothing in her then to say she was different in the way that she was. Nothing in the first meeting or the second.

                We met in a crowded bar and I think I was the one who talked first and she was the one who wasn’t interested to start with. I bought her a drink, but I don’t remember what she was drinking so I don’t think there was anything so odd in that. Later it was bourbon, just the one kind, but on that first night it might have been wine. She was there with friends; that’s what she said, though looking back she never introduced me to anyone. She seemed nice enough and pretty as fuck and I gave her my name and she gave me hers and we got to talking.

   I walked her home that first night, a smaller and smaller distance between us as we walked.

She said it was not far and that she lived with her folks and she was sorry but she couldn’t invite me in. I said I understood. I wasn’t up for meeting her parents anyway and it wasn’t even a first date. It was a bungalow up Barstow Way where she lived, with flowers in all colours in the garden and a light on at the front and a brass plate on the door to tell you it was number twenty-three. I walked her to the gate and she kissed me and said I was sweet and we should meet again. I had her phone number in my pocket when I walked away and I walked away taller.

     I saw her maybe six times after that and sometimes she stayed over at mine and that was just fine. Her name was Talulah; it was after a famous actress that her dad had liked. She’d never been able to live it down, she said, so now she didn’t try.

I didn’t know what that meant, and so I shrugged and said how I liked the name and it was different.

     If I’m being honest, it was sometimes a little crazy with her. Mostly in a good way, I thought at the time. She’d bring stuff to eat, stuff she’d cook in my kitchen and serve up to me like she was my mam, chilli with chocolate and chicken cooked with bananas. And she always cleared up afterwards and that was something good. One day she brought a small packet of weed with her and lying in bed after, we smoked one joint and then another blowing blue and imperfect smoke rings up to the ceiling. She rolled the joints and seemed to know what she was doing. It was my first time, and I wasn’t sure about it. I felt a little dizzy and light-headed which I thought maybe was the point.

     She drank bourbon straight from the bottle. Knob Creek Small Batch bourbon and no other. She brought the bottle with her. It tasted of maple syrup and a little burnt on the tongue and then, as it slipped down, something with raisins and cinnamon and liquorice. I’d never known a girl who drank bourbon from the bottle, but it didn’t worry me, not then.

     Talulah, when she stayed over, always slept late. That was fine at the weekend, the two Saturdays in a row that she was there. I slept late then, too, and we had coffee together at the kitchen table and she said her ‘fucking head hurt like it’d been squeezed in a vice’. We had our coffee with the kitchen curtains closed against the hurtful sun and then we went back to bed and I had no complaints there.

     But there was a Thursday and then a Wednesday that she came over and I had work the next day and so I left her sleeping, dead to the world, and I snuck out of the house like a thief and I closed the door soft behind me. When I got back at the end of my shift, she was gone and there was a note pinned to the bedroom door and she said how she’d helped herself to breakfast and she’d put the sheets and the pillowcases into the washing machine and she’d see me at the weekend. Then her name was drawn in letters like a child’s and underneath it three outsize kisses and a heart.

     Truth is that I liked her. It was early of course, and I wasn’t looking much further than the weekend, but I liked her and she seemed to be good for me, except for the weed and the bourbon. I wasn’t thinking to take her to meet my mam, not yet, but I wasn’t thinking not to either. Then things took a sudden turn and she got a bit weird. There was a night where she turned up late and I think she’d started the proceedings without me and I was drinking bourbon to catch up with where she was. That was the night of our first fight, and I don’t really remember what it was about. She swore a lot, and I remember I told her to keep her voice down on account of the neighbours and she went to the door then, not a stitch on her, and she shouted to the street that the neighbours could all go take a flying fuck. We laughed about it afterwards.

     Make-up sex is always the best and so when I woke the next morning I woke up smiling, and she’d already gone, and I wasn’t too fussed thinking it was good between us again. The smell of her was still on me and I was in no hurry to climb into the day or to wash her from me. I called in sick for work and just lay back thinking of her.

     But it turns out we weren’t good and I don’t understand why. She came round one last time and we went at it again and all over nothing that I could figure. I got a bit fed up,

 if I am being honest, and I swore some too that day. Anyway, she said it was over and broke all my plates and she screamed and said that she didn’t want to ever see me again, and I said fine. She slammed the door behind her and that was that.

     Except it wasn’t and it isn’t. She left her bag behind, see. Her handbag. I thought she’d be back to get it and that maybe there’d be a chance we could make up again and it’d be better than it was. I sat at the kitchen table waiting for her knock at the door, her bag before me, and two shot glasses full to the lip with her favourite amber bourbon. She didn’t show.

I gave her a week and still she didn’t call. I even went back to the pub where we’d met and I retraced that first night walk to her home and to the bungalow up Barstow, number twenty-three. I walked past the house several times, hoping I’d be seen and I wouldn’t have to knock. Then I pushed open the gate and rapped on the door.

Turns out that two men live there. Been there for almost twenty years and they never heard of any Talulah, except wasn’t there an actress by that name and she was sometimes on the tv in black and white films. I asked them if they were sure, and I had Talulah’s bag, and I was just wanting to return it. They looked at me funny and said they were sorry and they shut the door against me.

     I took the bag home and I thought then that it was okay for me to look inside, looking for some sort of address where I might find her and give her back what was hers. There was other stuff besides the bag, some clothes and a pair of high-heeled shoes and an ivory backed hairbrush. I tipped the contents of the bag onto the kitchen table and got the fright of my life. There, amongst the eye pencils and lipsticks and an open pack of tampons and a heart-shaped bottle of perfume and seven old shop till receipts and an open pack of Doina cigarettes and a matchbook for a club in the town that had closed down and the clear plastic bag of weed and a blank notepad and several pens that had been chewed at the end and paperclips and bus tickets and a roll of Selotape and a rabbit-foot key ring with only one key and a purse with no bank cards and nearly seven hundred dollars in cash, there amongst all of that was a gun. It fell with a heavy clatter onto the table.

     ‘Shit,’ I said and I backed away from it knocking a chair over and I didn’t dare touch it at first. Then when I did, I did so wearing gloves. It was a glock pistol and it was loaded, ten .45 rounds in the magazine. My hand was shaking just holding it.

     I looked back over everything then, like my life flashing before my eyes, only it was my six days with Talulah and nothing else. Sure she’d been crazy at the end, what with the swearing at the neighbours and breaking the plates, and there’d been the bourbon and the weed, and Talulah kissing me at her front gate on that first night only it wasn’t her gate at all; but a gun in her handbag was something else.

     I didn’t know what to do, whether to go to the police or not, or if she was in trouble, or someone to be afraid of and she’d be back to do me harm. So I hid the bag under the loose floorboards in the hall and I laid the carpet back so you wouldn’t’ know, and I changed the lock on the front door, changed it for a double cylinder dead bolt, and I went out less than before and kept looking over my shoulder when I did.

     Still she hasn’t come back and it’s been over a year now, and I check the gun every day and I check the ten rounds in the magazine and I always wear the same gloves when I do. I smoked the weed one night when I was bored and that was just stupid, and stoned I kept getting up to look out of the window and I kept checking the bolt on the front door just in case and checking the phone to see if anyone had called.

     I look for her in the street all of the time, look for her name in the phone book, the only name I have and that's Talulah – and it turns out her name is not so unusual after all. She said her name was Talulah, and she was named after an actress that her dad liked, and if any of that is true then that’s what I know and nothing more than that, except the bourbon and the weed and the gun.

About the Author

Lindsay Fisher leaks stories and the leaks grow bigger with each passing week and more and more of them spill out into weird or wonderful places. There ain't no rhyme or reason to what is written, at least none that Lindsay can discern. They're just stories.

A Stop Along The Way

A Stop Along The Way

Olivia Smith

Blue Lagoon

We haven’t always been here but the white walls have, here for those who never wanted to grow up, who weren’t ready to go just yet. Some stay here a long time, some leave within a few days. It’s not really for us to say who stays and who goes. That’s decided by someone else and someone else was still deciding where to put me. We all had a life before this; some had a family, some none at all, family is something we try to forget, I sometimes wonder if mine has forgotten me. I don’t remember much of my life before I came here, I’d like to think it was a happy one; happiness now hard to come by. Not found in a birthday cake or the opening of a Christmas present, how could it be? When time stands still and celebration is spent.

                 When I first got here I feared the change. Now it leaves me unfazed, it is my home. If I could tell you how long I’d been here I would, but the clock’s hands were ripped off long before my arrival and the year has seeped from my mind. Perched on a bench I cock my head in the direction of a newbie, skin a sickly yellow and hair tied poorly into bunches, I nod my head in her direction, she welcomes my presence with a timid 'hello.' So young and afraid, she hurriedly looks around for her parents, she won’t find them here.

               'How are you today?' I politely ask, in a feeble attempt to abate her trepidations.

                'I’m feeling much better, thank you,' she replies.

               At least her parents taught her manners before she wound up here. I nod my head and walk away. I want to stay and show her the ropes but what good would it do? She needs to find her own way, she could be here a while.

I make my way to what would be the bedroom if it were to possess a bed, although I’ve come to realise why bother to have a bed when no one ever sleeps. Elmer is already there, playing with his wooden yo-yo, he doesn’t even look up. 'Elmer!' No response, I hate when he ignores me. 'Elmer!' Focused on the toy as it bounces up and down, up and down 'Hey Elmer, you should put on a coat, you’ll catch your death.' He meets my gaze then storms out of the room, I laugh heartily at his annoyance. Elmer doesn’t speak, I don’t know if he can’t or he won’t but all I know is Elmer got such a shock when he ended up in this place that a word hasn’t come out of his mouth since. At least that’s what the other kids say, Elmer’s been here a lot longer than me, you see. A lot of the kids are like that, shocked when they end up here. I guess it makes sense; one day you’re sat at home with a loving family then next thing you know you’re here; no parents, no relatives, no nothing, just a bunch of children waiting to be put in a new home.

Rumours go round every so often about where we might wind up, one place sounds nice, one place sounds awful. One thing’s for sure, I ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. At fifteen years old I was lucky to get in here, seems sixteen is the cut off. I don’t know where you go if you’re any older than that, not sure I want to know either. I say the less you know, the happier you are. I make my way to the garden, nothing grows but it’s nice to feel the cold air. It gets awful hot in the home, causing me to take my hat off, the other kids laugh ’cause there isn’t any hair on my head, not that that bothers me anymore, I got used to that a long time ago.

I hear the chorus of three young girls singing yet another round of ring a ring o’ roses. There used to be four of them singing but one left recently, it always got me down when people left but I guess that was the nature of this place, it wasn’t designed to be lived in forever, it’s just a stop along the way.

I saunter back into the home; full of so many other children. It makes me happy to have so much company yet it makes me sad to think the same fate has befallen so many others. I get my iPhone out of my pocket, not that it works here, more an act of ritual from my previous life than anything else. In hindsight I wish I’d brought something else with me, not that you get to choose, you just end up with what was on your person when you were taken. The same goes for your clothes, I hate being stuck in this gown, had I known I would have thought to change. Not that there’s much point thinking about this now, nothing’s gonna be any different just ’cause I wish it. If that were the case there’d be a whole lot of wishing going on around this place.

               If the truth be told I always figured I’d end up here, well maybe not here exactly but I knew I wasn’t going to be staying there for too much longer. It was my mother’s tears that had given it away. She’d said I was going to be fine, that I was going to stay with her but the tears told a different story to the one her mouth was telling. My dad told me to stay strong but I could tell he was crumbling inside. And my sister, well I don’t think she knew what was going on, it was for the best, innocent minds shouldn’t have to know the evils of this world. The doctor’s often ignored me, scared to give me answers to my questions. The nurses would feed me drugs as my mother fed me lies. Telling me it’d all be OK, telling me I’d get better any day now. Well at least I’m not sick anymore. None of us are, that’s the one good thing about this place. We might still look it, with balding heads and bust up bodies but we don’t feel it anymore, so I suppose I should be thankful for that. I think I spend more time thinking about the past than I do the future, there’s a certainty in the past that the future can never hold. It was so long ago that I can hardly even remember it now but some memories were built never to be forgotten. The time I walked through the meadow with my mother, the day my parents brought home my new baby sister, eating too much ice cream on my tenth birthday, the day I got told I was sick and lastly the day I died. These were memories I would always keep, no matter where I went next. This is the limbo of Infants and like I said this place isn’t for living. It’s just a stop along the way.

About the Author

Olivia Smith is an aspiring writer in her final year at Salford University, studying English and creative writing. English has been a passion of hers since a very young age and she has contributed to the Cafelit website on several occasions.

Tantric Twister

Tantric Twister

Tracy Fells

Gin and Tonic (with ice and a slice)

The midsummer sun penetrates the conservatory, amber shafts of light slipping between the polished slats of the wooden blinds. Judy backs up to Peter so he can unhook her bra. The white straps fall easily from her chestnut shoulders. Her tossed-aside blouse hides the bashful eyes of cuddly toys, corralled and tidied onto the bamboo sofa.

               As Judy wriggles off denim slacks, followed by simple cotton panties, Peter’s concentration skips to a lone yellow Lego brick on the plastic sheet. He must remember to put it away. The imprint of Lego in soft flesh was a typical hazard on Thursday evenings.

               She tugs the navy polo shirt over his head and unbuckles his belt. Her bifocals dangle, bouncing off creamy breasts. For most of the afternoon the baby had fixated on the glinting links of the chain, plump pink fingers grasping, only succumbing to sleep for the last hour of the weekly visit. While Peter became Black Pete, Pirate Captain of the vegetable patch, to tempt the twins outdoors for fresh air and vitamin D. Giving Judy time to bond with their new granddaughter.

               Silly old goat.

               Her words still smarted. ‘Why do you love me?’ Peter had growled, fumbling socks over saggy feet. And she’d called him a silly old goat.

               Judy’s hip bumps his naked buttocks as she bends to the floor. Her back is smooth, dotted by a familiar map of honey freckles.

               But Judy wouldn’t have said goat. What had she called him? Silly old …

               Silly old fox.

               Silver fox was her pet name. When Peter’s raven hair retired, he grew accustomed to (and secretly admired) his distinguished slate-grey look.

               Peter entwines one leg around her lower calf to anchor himself before stretching fingers towards the needle on the mat. Judy’s skin smells warm, he thinks of baked apple spiked with cinnamon. The terror of losing words engulfs him like seawater; an ice-cold wave strips away the façade of youth, exposing the crumpled reality of age beneath.

               Judy’s nipples precociously protrude, demanding his attention. Peter thinks of strawberry sauce dripping over dollops of cream. What had she promised to make him? The gooseberries were almost ripe.

               Gooseberry fool.

               Silly old fool.

               That’s what she’d called him, her eyes sparkling, engorged with love.

               He is an old fool. Not to remember why she loves him. She loves him for all the myriad of reasons that he loves her. And he loves her because she still wants to play Twister on Thursdays once their daughter has collected the grandchildren.

               Peter’s thigh trembles and he topples backwards to thump onto the sticky plastic sheet. Judy lands on top. They lie together, wrapped in giggles. She traces her finger along a line of grey hairs, moving down his body. Even the stabbing press of the Lego brick cannot block his growing desire.

               ‘Gin and tonic?’ Judy murmurs.

               ‘Shall we take them upstairs?’ says Peter.

               His wife, of forty-eight years, smiles like a coquette. ‘Well, it is Thursday.’

About the Author

Tracy writes both short and long fiction for adults and children. In 2012 she was shortlisted for the Fish International Flash Fiction Prize and won both the Steyning Festival Short Story Prize and the Choc-Lit Short Story Competition. Her fiction has been published in Take-a-Break Fiction Feast, People’s Friend, Writing Magazine, The Yellow Room and The New Writer.

Tracy shares a writing blog with The Literary Pig at http://tracyfells.blogspot.com

A.P

A.P

Roger Noons

San Miguel, preferably draught

Alan’s hair was still as it had been when he was thirteen years old, unruly and poorly cut. His bristle moustache, toothbrush-like, had been the height of fashion thirty years previously. His head, with its round face and rosy cheeks, sat upon an oval body which drew attention to itself by his waddling gait; the result of an accident on his fiftieth birthday, when he fell from a ladder.

    His redeeming features were his smile and his personality. Had the Queen entered his presence, his greeting would have been the same as with anyone else.

    ‘How er yer doin?’

    Unless you were extremely rude or had no English, you could not ignore him. His infectious laugh and immediate welcome and friendliness enveloped you, and forced you to stay, just as if he had wrapped his strong arms around your torso.

    Initially, people underestimated Alan, but it did not take long for newcomers to appreciate that beneath the bonhomie and all-encompassing attitude, there was an alert and highly intelligent mind. Although he rarely mentioned it, Alan Pelling had been an employee of the British Government. The principal reason he remained silent was that much of what he might have been expected to discuss, was still covered by the Official Secrets Act, for AP had been a spy, code name Adonis. His moniker was the result of his immediate boss, a Cambridge Don, being a Greek scholar with a unique sense of humour.

    I got to know something of his history by accident. My wife and I had met him and his partner Avril, whilst on a SAGA holiday in Menorca. We found ourselves at the same table one evening after dinner, and as you do, over coffee and brandy, we engaged in conversation. The following day we sat in adjacent seats on the coach to Ciudedela, and after that we palled up. Jill got on well with Avril and I enjoyed AP’s company. Our humour had emanated from adjoining Christmas Crackers. At the end of the holiday, they asked us to stay in touch, and we did. Hence the following year we went on holiday to Mallorca together. 

***

We had flown from different airports, but met up within three hours at the Hotel Marina in Puerto de Soller, in the north west of the Island. It was the following morning when the girls had caught an early tram, so that they could assail the shoe shops in Soller town, that Alan and I strolled down to the marina to reintroduce ourselves to San Miguel.    

    Still licking the froth from our upper lips, we heard a shout. Alan ignored it, but I looked around. I did not however recognize the portly, bald headed man in old fashioned khaki shorts who was making a beeline for us.

   He halted alongside our table and stared first at me, then at my companion.

    ‘Well I’ll be damned, if it isn’t Andy Preston. How are you, you old sod?’

    Alan glanced briefly at our visitor and said quietly, I’m afraid you’re mistaken old chap, my name’s not … what did you say, Preston?’

     ‘Come on you old bastard, I’d know you anywhere, recognize you no matter how many years had passed … Joe, Joe Mortimer, you must remember me, we got through some fire water together back in, where was it …  Poland, that’s it, Bialystok, near the border. We got those three lads out from ….Baranavichy in Russia; well I don’t know what country it’s in now.’

    He stared at Alan, imploring him to confirm his statement, but Alan just shook his head.

    ‘Christ man, we spent three days together, crawling through the woods at night, holed up like hibernating badgers during daylight.’ Anger and impatience were beginning to creep into his speech.

    ‘Badgers do not hibernate,’ Alan said, softly.

    ‘What?’

    The stranger’s exclamation drew the attention of both waiters and patrons at adjacent tables, so I stood up. I smiled.

    ‘It seems like you have made a mistake, my friend, so why don’t you continue your journey to wherever it is that you are going.’

    As I slowly stressed each word, I increased my grip on his elbow and when my sentence concluded, I could see the signs of pain in his eyes.

    ‘But I …’ he was more subdued.

    ‘Have a nice day,’ I concluded, pushing him forward.

    Shaking his head, he walked away, pausing after about ten metres to turn and study AP for a final time.

    After I had resumed my seat Alan said a quiet thank you.

    ‘Ready for another?’ I responded, picking up my glass and draining the contents.

***

Neither of us mentioned the episode, although I did describe it to Jill as we were changing for dinner. She frowned.

    ‘It’s easy to make a mistake, particularly after many years, we never remember people as they actually were.’

    ‘Mmm, but I don’t think the chap had made a mistake.’

***

It was two days later, that Alan brought up the incident. We were sitting outside at Can Prunera, the Museum of Modern Art, waiting for the girls, who were poring over a display of early twentieth century handbags.

    ‘That chap, the other day …’

    ‘Yes?’

    ‘What he said was all true.’

    ‘OK, thank you for telling me.’

    He stared.

    ‘You don’t want to know more?’

    ‘It’s none of my business.’

    He shook his head.

    ‘You really are an amazing person, anyone else I have ever met would be clamouring for me to tell them my life story.’

    I shrugged.

    He obviously chose to ignore me.

     ‘I worked for the British Government; a Department that was not in the telephone book. We …’

    I raised my hand.

    He paused, frowned.

    ‘Please do not say any more.’

    ‘But …

    ‘Alan, I know, you were an Agent … so was I. What more is there to say?’

    ‘Well you could tell me who you worked for,’ he challenged, as he gripped my wrist.'

Author Bio

Having spent the best part of thirty five years writing reports on such subjects as ‘Provision of Caravan Sites for Travellers’ and ’Aspects of Pest Control in the Urban Environment’, Roger Noons began even more creative writing in 2006, when he completed a screenplay for a friend who is an amateur film maker. After the film was made, he wrote further scripts and having become addicted, began to pen short stories and poems. He occasionally produces memoirs and other non-fiction. He has begun to perform his poems, and has just published ’An A to Z by RLN’, an anthology of 26 short stories. He intends by the end of the year to have followed that up with a novella.

He is a member of two Writers Groups and tries his hardest to write something every day. As well as CafeLit, he has had credits in West Midlands newspapers, The Daily Telegraph, Paragraph Planet, Raw Edge and a number of Anthologies.

Roger is a regular contributor to the CafeLit site and a couple of his stories have been selected for the Best of CafeLit 2012.

Astral

Astral

Ginny Ratcliffe

Absinthe

The first moments of dawn brought with it a breeze strong enough to shunt a passing seagull off course, its outstretched wings blending in with the final few moments of a pinkish moon. The bird made towards land, its reflection gliding across the sea, rippling, following.

***

The screeching of brake pads pressing against hot rubber filled the morning air as a Ford Escort M1, that had seen better days, came to an abrupt halt at the edge of a cliff.

               Renee wasn't sure what to do now she'd come this far. She was still getting her mind round why she was here in the first place. The sun was threatening to rise and she rolled the window down to take in the sea air. She spent a few moments, breathing in, out, and mentally engineering a ploy to destroy the solar system, if only it meant she could just rest her eyes. Just a bit of peace, a minute for her mind to... be. A little stolen time.

               Instead, she reached for the glove compartment and pulled out her sunglasses, hooking them on her t-shirt. Life was all about making do, right? Plus, she figured, you can't go wrong in Ray-bans. And if you did, well; at least you'd be a suave looking mistake.

               She paused for a moment, tracing her finger down the pile of tapes that were stacked by the gear stick. Her memory threw weak grappling hooks to thoughts of better days. She contemplated the weirdness … no, the strength of the mind, of how one song can transport you back in time.

She shut her eyes and felt green grass around her toes. Her bitten nail came to a halt on a particular cassette, her eyelids rose, and she remembered.

Back in the day it was all fields and making out, summer fayres and alcohol – decks, sex and electro. She missed the high pitched twangs of the top E, skittering around her ears like electric mosquito's in the breeze. She longed for the hot, wet summer days climbing over rocks in streams, sleeping under trees and walking home barefoot covered in pollen, the soles of her feet black with dirt and bruises. She still had the odd scar, and looked upon them as old friends. Scattered remnants of better days, a bloody map of teenage adventures, silvery lines of a life long since lost, but not forgotten.

Renee removed the keys from their leather and steel encasing, turned up the radio, and exited the car. The sun was casting long shadows across bits of battered tarmac, catching itself in nooks and pebbles, leaving parts of itself behind on its long stretch to the bottom of the cliff.

               As the door swung shut, she glanced at her other self in the wing mirror. Ivory skin, freckles dotting around her face and straying over the lines of her lip, long auburn ringlets wrapped around each other in some eternal tangle that she'd never quite been able to tame. Turquoise eyes peered out of their reflective prison, golden flecks tinting them green in one continuous circular wave, like spilled champagne on the surf.

               She dragged her trainers on the walk to the boot, scuffing lines into the dirt, contemplating, as she lifted the door.

Removing the sunglasses from her t-shirt, she brushed away an auburn ringlet and placed them over the docile green eyes of the limp, crumpled body in front of her. A pale, almost opaque arm lay over its chest. Renee's eyebrows faltered as she leaned over and gazed upon a girl she once knew, so well. A tear escaped her eye and trailed down her cheek, landing on the girls face, from one freckled maze to another. The reflection in the Ray-Bans was of someone she didn't particular know any more. She bent down and pulled the laces from her boots, held them up to trail in the breeze, then swung her leg backwards, forwards, and kicked off her shoes, straight over the edge of the cliff.

               The sun was almost fully risen as Renee walked around to the front of the car, sat inside, turned up the radio and released the handbrake.

***

The seagull lifted his head out of the foaming water, a small black fish in his mouth as a great metal lump came plummeting towards the rocks. Pushing his feet off the wet sand, he flew to a higher distance and in the process, dropped his dinner. The fish fell through the air and straight into the birds watery reflection, causing the wings to part in obscure circular ripples.

               Footprint marks trailed up the beach, followed by various metallic nuts and bolts, and the gull watched as a bare, bloody foot disappeared behind a rock; then turned back to his now peaceful reflection.

Author Bio

Ginny Ratcliffe is a 21-year-old Creative Writing student from Yorkshire, i.e. that place that looks a bit like The Shire but with less hobbits. She can often be found in dark corners and/or record shops questioning reality, or attempting to show her friends how she can psychically guess the contents of a Kinder Egg without even opening it.

She enjoys writing prose and screen plays, and has a slightly unhealthy obsession with Hacker the Dog off CBBC. Her favourite authors are the whimsical masterminds Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

Dance Nocturnale

Dance Nocturnale

Roger Noons

a glass of Asti Spumante,a little fizz, but not too much alcohol

Something awakened me; compulsion drew me from the bed towards the window. Despite shivers passing through my torso and along my legs, I felt no cold; in fact my face was burning. My eyes scanned the moonlit lawn beyond the parterres, zig zagging in order to leave no space unchecked. In the far corner to my right, beneath the berry-laden holly, there was a badger; snuffling and foraging, its body rolling with the effort. I was mesmerized.

    My reverie was disturbed by a sound from within the house. The closing of a door I surmised, until I recalled that there was only me present. I concentrated; closed my eyes, unmoving. For at least five minutes there was silence; not a creak, no hum, nor a drip. A pleasing smell of lavender reached my nostrils.

    Convinced that I had imagined it, I returned my gaze to the garden. The mammal had moved to the opposite edge of my view. As I watched, it reared up on hind legs and I stared, open-mouthed as, after stretching, the shape peeled off a hairy garment and tossed it onto the grass. The exposed figure, which could have been male or female, was slight in build and naked, the glowing skin, hairless.

    Still with its back to me, the person began to dance. At first, slow, careful steps, but as I watched in my trance-like state, the tempo increased, the movement quickened and it became a frenzied programme, a blur of bright colours subdued by the available light. More figures appeared; the dance becoming an expertly choreographed chorus, and I began to hear the accompanying music. Involuntarily, my foot moved to the beat. Tap, tap, tap … my hand joined in; fingernails against glass.

    My brain crescendoed with the movement until there was a flash. My vista filled with silver light and when I reopened my eyes, all was still, the brightness muted, no sign of any living creature, and no indication of sound. Slowly, shaking my head, I returned to the bed and sitting on the side, with my back to the window, thought about what I had seen. I picked up the letter and began to read.

Cher Patrice,

 I have decided that I no longer wish to continue dancing; the control and discipline demands greater effort than I am prepared to give. Therefore after the current tour is …

     I swung my legs onto the bed, screwed up the letter and flung it across the room. I lay back and closed my eyes, a smile creasing my face.

Author Bio

Having spent the best part of thirty five years writing reports on such subjects as ‘Provision of Caravan Sites for Travellers’ and ’Aspects of Pest Control in the Urban Environment’, Roger Noons began even more creative writing in 2006, when he completed a screenplay for a friend who is an amateur film maker. After the film was made, he wrote further scripts and having become addicted, began to pen short stories and poems. He occasionally produces memoirs and other non-fiction. He has begun to perform his poems, and has just published ’An A to Z by RLN’, an anthology of 26 short stories. He intends by the end of the year to have followed that up with a novella.

He is a member of two Writers Groups and tries his hardest to write something every day. As well as CafeLit, he has had credits in West Midlands newspapers, The Daily Telegraph, Paragraph Planet, Raw Edge and a number of Anthologies.

Roger is a regular contributor to the CafeLit site and a couple of his stories have been selected for the Best of CafeLit 2012.