I Can Show You the World and other stories Read online

  She would have preferred to sit for Mr Webster in the garden. Her husband muttered some concern about the changeable weather when she suggested it. She imagines the rain dripping down her hair onto her face, her wet petticoats clinging to her legs. What a different painting that would make.

  The garden isn’t even visible from where she’s sitting. It intensifies her longing to be outside. She wants to run like a small child, not around the perfectly manicured hedges and flower beds, but in the woods beyond. There she could be young Cally again, not confined indoors like the peonies displayed in the hearth but tossing her loosened hair in the wind like a carefree bluebell.

  She closes her eyes to picture it more clearly.

  ‘Look at me, Mrs Ross.’

  She complies immediately.

  One of the young maids in her husband’s household enters the room, leaving refreshment in a tall jug for Mr Webster on a small, octagonal table. One glass is left with it. The maid curtseys slightly before leaving. Annie. That’s her name. Caroline has spotted her on occasion during her excursions to the kitchens. She often dreams of being a servant girl. A simple cotton bodice and petticoat would be far more practical for running in than silk and lace - and stays. She imagines what it would be like to thrust her hands into cool dough. Or through the hair of a stable boy like Tommy who attends her horse.

  ‘Let’s rest a few minutes.’

  It is a demand from the artist, not a request, for his benefit, not hers. She is used to being dictated to. She wishes it was as easy to take a rest from being Mrs Ross of Westwick. Standing, she spies the woods through the window, the twisting paths between the trunks, and the green canopy like a vibrant sun shade.

  This evening Mr Ross is going out, about his ‘business’, which he never tells her about because she ‘wouldn’t understand’. Then she will slip into the wood in her petticoats while there is still some light. She will dance around the trees like little Callie Henderson and run, run. And if she’s lucky, Tommy will respond to the note she slipped into his hand this morning, when she returned from her early ride.

  ‘Let us continue,’ says the artist.

  She takes her seat, Mrs Ross of Westwick once more.

  Flash Fiction World

  Ever Has It Been That Love Knows Not Its Own Depth Until The Hour of Separation.

  By Lorna Louise Hutchison

  16:27. A whistle blows at Leeds City Station. Three minutes away, she waits on a bridge, her bare legs dangling. Her eyes are closed and a fury of memories fills her mind. She’s half way down City Road, turning back to look at him. If he turns too, she thinks. And he does, blowing a kiss and tipping the peak of his imaginary hat. She laughs and throws a kiss up to the clouds: the dizzying opening scene. Then they’re falling, stumbling through parks, holding hands beneath tablecloths, slow dancing to Elvis around living rooms, pushed up against walls, kissing, fighting, furious, night after night, fuelled by too much wine. They’re interlocking fingers, straining against headboards, pulling hair, slamming doors, returning, leaving, and returning again. Her head spins with the thought of him: black leather, loose morals, sweating palms, concrete, sky, rattling, lead, concrete, sky, lead, rattling, rattling, rattling, until there’s nothing else. She pushes, feels the breeze against her face, and falls.

  Flash Fiction World

  The Day The Music Died

  By Iain Pattison

  Even the dark, gloomy, theatrically menacing clouds over the Salzburg cemetery seemed to know that the world’s greatest were here to mourn the passing of a genius.

  “Wolfgang would have appreciated the irony,” Beethoven told the luminaries of the classical music firmament huddled around the gaping grave, “that we spend a few short years composing and the rest of eternity decomposing.”

  Everyone nodded, musing on their own mortality and the fact that life was going to be very dull from now on without Mozart around. The lary librettist had been their maestro of mirth; the philharmonic funster guaranteed to pull even the most crotchety musak-meister out of his fugue.

  Yes indeed, they were all going to miss the nights on the town – falling drunkenly into The Mason’s Arms as Wolfie grinned lewdly at the serving wenches asking if they’d blow on his magic flute. Then – when they slapped his face - hiccupping as he slouched to the floor, muttering: “I suppose that means a sextet is out of the question?”

  And his music wasn’t bad either.

  “His sonatas were simply sublime,” Debussy whispered reverently.

  “His chamber movements never stank,” Bach agreed.

  “What I’d give for him to still be here,” Haydn chimed in. “Just one concerto - give it to me…”

  Yet, not everyone in the crowd was so generous. “Personally, I thought he couldn’t tell his arias from his elbow,” Salieri said, face twisted with jealousy even now that his arch rival was in the big orchestra house in the sky. “I’m glad he’s gone.”

  Beethoven gave him a B-sharp look. “The poor man’s not even cold,” he hissed, “show some respect.”

  Salieri shrugged. He didn’t care anymore what the others thought. The Wunderkind was dead - gone. Now people would spend nights at the opera listening to his music, not that Amadeus slush.

  He felt evilly happy. He’d always hated the rude little upstart. That’s why he’d made it requiem time, slipping the poison into Mozart’s evening cocoa. One mouthful and it had been Goodnight Vienna.

  Often, over the years of envy, Salieri had wondered if he was capable of murdering his nemesis and now at last he finally knew. And he had the perfect excuse - Wolfgang’s constant goading, sneering, belittling of his talent, sending up his religious fervour; not to mention the melodious moron’s scrawling on the symphony hall lavatory tiles that compared to his, Salieri’s canon was tiny…

  Amadeus had it coming. Everyone knew it. No jury would convict.

  It was as the Emperor had warned the preening prodigy: “Too many gloats, Mozart, too many gloats!”

  Lancashire Writing Hub’s Competition

  The Haunter

  David Hartley

  You get to choose where to haunt so I pick your parents place, these fizzling fingers primed for revenge, these wisping arms super-charged with poltergeist powers. I envisage myself appearing in the bathroom mirror; a fleeting glimpse of my bloodied snarl as your mother takes one of her stubbornly long showers. I’m going to flick your dad’s tools on at midnight, let the drill drop square into his dog’s head, pin the carcass to the door of his precious workhouse, spin the hands on the clock as he weeps for forgiveness. I will be satellite interference on the Adult Channel, an unseen mouse fraying router wires, ecto fluff clogging sinks and drains, cracks in crockery cutting lips, slicing toes.

  But I arrive to discover that at some point during those three distant years they had quietly and quickly moved house. Now, I’m stuck with a lovely old couple from Burnley who collect cat ornaments. I catch the things they drop and do nothing more.

  Lancashire Writing Hub’s Competition

  Alone

  Debbie Walsh

  An Ink pen.

  An A4 pad – Inspiration?

  I’d write about world events but that’s just repetitive. I’d write about love but it always ends the same way. I’d write about life but ditto.

  “Why don’t you just wake up an’ face the facts girl, you’ll never be a writer…”

  The kettle’s boiled, again. I like the cooling droplets flaking past the spout. Everything’s clearer in the space after noise – except the story.

  Outside I can see clouds cramming before a shower. I can see the flick and flack of wings, the rushed movement as I ghost the stillness.

  Inspiration?

  There’s a cast spreading, a pustule, on a slice of cheddar in the fridge. I could eat it. It might be mind-altering? It might be toxic to the point of near death and then I’d have a story. If I keep heaping thoughts into the blankness of white paper how will I ever fill th
e space?

  Space. That’s it. Where all odds separate, begin.

  Once Upon A Time

  I Can Show You the World

  By McKenzie Barham

  The car sputtered, groaned pathetically and died. The road was at a slant and I pulled over with the last bit of juice the old jeep had. The sweat poured but I pulled my sleeves all the way to my palms. I didn’t need to see the bruises. Thus far, my escape had failed miserably. And now the nearest gas station was 10 miles away - if I went back to Franklin.

  A white truck filled my side mirror, a hazy image against the summer sky. I stuffed myself under the dash, praying desperately, tears leaking. A shadow washed across the jeep. I heard an engine fading and then - silence. I breathed. Something tapped my window. I screamed into my hands, hoping that for once he would lose his composure and kill me.

  ‘Hey, it’s all right!’

  Unfamiliar voice. I hit my head on the dash as the door opened and I tumbled onto stumpy, dry grass. I looked up. ‘You’re not… You’re not Solomon.’ An angelic, unfamiliar, boyish face looked back, wide-eyed.

  ‘No… You okay?’ His eyes were deep, chocolate pools and filled with concern.

  ‘No. Yes, I mean, I’m out of gas…’

  ‘Where you going?’

  I shrugged. ‘Anywhere.’

  He nodded his toward his truck. ‘I have room.’ His truck was piled high with shabby rugs of all shapes and sizes. Otherwise, it looked rather safe.

  ‘You’re not going to take me to Solomon?’ I couldn’t quite believe I was really being rescued.

  He smiled. ‘Nope. Just offering you a ride.’ He held out his hand and gently pulled me up from the ground. I was still shaking.

  ‘I’m Noah. What’s...’ We both heard it. Police sirens. They had found me.

  ‘They found me.’ Noah swore and ran toward his truck. I followed, confused.

  ‘But I ran away… What are you doing?!’

  Noah was throwing rugs out of his truck. ‘I only need one.’ He turned suddenly. ‘Do you trust me?’

  The first blue siren came up over the hill. ‘Yes!’

  ‘Get on.’

  He sat down on a dirty rug and winked at me. ‘You want to see the world?’

  Once Upon A Time

  Pink Bells

  By Oliver Barton

  The pair progress laboriously along the path in the park. He leaning on a stick, each step a pain, she almost bent double, hand in his. She clutches a paper bag. They sit carefully on a bench, very close, avoiding the damper spots. In front of them stretches a sea of pink bells.

  It is nine in the morning, and the bag contains croissants. Gertie hands one to Arthur. They nibble in silence, flakes fluttering like confetti.

  While a blackbird sings and sparrows edge towards the crumbs, Gertie extends a bent finger towards a plaque half-submerged in the flowers.

  ‘What does it say?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, because it is several feet away and his eyes aren’t too good.

  With a groan, she gets to her feet and shuffles towards it. Bent as she is, she still can’t make it out. She retrieves a pair of spectacles hanging round her neck, and peers closer.

  Arthur hears her saying something, but his hearing is not too good either. He sees her move forward among the flowers. As she does, she shrinks, smaller and smaller, until she vanishes into the pinkness.

  Two sparrows squabble over a croissant crumb and fly off, startling Arthur. He struggles to rise. With his stick, he moves the blooms aside so that he can see the plaque clearly. He expects something like the name of the business that has sponsored this bed, but it simply says ‘Come in. Make yourself at home.’

  So he steps into the sea of flowers, and at once the pink bells inflate and grow until they are several times his height. The scent is overwhelming, the chime of the bells deep and sonorous. He walks towards Gertie and the others, praying that it doesn’t rain. A raindrop the size of a settee would be unsettling. But, he thinks, they must have ways of dealing with that.

  Back on the bench, a little breeze sweeps the paper bag off into a graceful dance, an homage, an obeisance, and all is still.

  Once Upon A Time

  A Mermaid in Texas

  By Angela Readman

  She don’t know why, when she said yes to the legs, yes to the idea of dancing with a guy in a tux, all Fred Astaire, she wound up in Texas. The guy had a motorbike, but that didn’t stop her. When she considered dancing it was always old timey, he took off his leathers to Ginger her.

  Hot as the devil’s fart, she thinks. The air con blinks. She gets beer out the fridge, wishing she could flop inside like a fish. She don’t do seafood, makes her sick. It arrives at mini-marts in dusty vans, all the sea sweated out.

  She limps down the steps, never got too used to the walking thing. It’s too early to stare at application forms. She don’t write good. Everything she ever needed to know came in waves.

  She sniffs, dips her feet into her paddling pool the kids a trailer over probably pissed in. Bastards, won’t leave it alone coz she don’t yell - just looks, eyes grey as caught carp.

  Sometimes, she misses her voice. It seemed a fair trade. She weren’t much using it. Water talked for her. Then, when it didn’t, when she got the legs and the man, her mouth got kept too busy to chat. It’s good, he said, to be a woman who don’t bitch.

  Somewhere, on a shale beach lies the conch with her voice in, surrounded. She imagines kids picking it out to take home in plastic buckets. Maybe, someone is holding her shell to their ear. Hears. She wonders if it still sings, likes to think she has a song out there.

  The paddling pool stagnates, flies drown. She drags bleach from under her deckchair, pours it in the water and gets in. Sniffs. The neighbours don’t speak, hate her, coz she stinks. She scrubs bleach on her thighs and lowers herself, lets it clean the gutted bit between her legs, because she stinks. She knows it. That’s why he stopped touching her, never came home.

  The Word Counts

  The Sofa

  By Barbara Weeks

  The sofa – long past its first flush of youth - sat exposed and embarrassed on the Trenton Cross roundabout. Dumped without ceremony, it was like some faded Hollywood starlet, once beautiful and feted, now aged and unloved. As I passed every morning on my way to work I would wonder how it had come to find itself in such unhappy circumstances; rained on, mud splattered and windswept. And it remained there for days and days, poor thing, as if it were waiting - like Greyfriar’s Bobby - for a much loved master to return. It had sat there for about a week before I noticed one morning that something had changed. There was a man. A man in smart suit and tie sitting motionless on the abandoned sofa as cars and buses and lorries circled endlessly. Like castaways, I thought, on an island in an unfriendly sea.

  And so I took the next exit, doubled back towards Trenton Cross and parked in the industrial estate. I marched up to the roundabout, side-stepped across the busy lanes as drivers gestured in irritation, and then jogged over the damp grass to face them - the man, the sofa - both impassive as the traffic streamed about us.

  ‘It looked lonely,’ he said.

  I nodded and sat beside him. And together, centre stage – the sofa, the man and me - we watched as the world hurriedly madly around us...and waited.

  Writing East Midlands Competition

  Good Advice

  By Chris Bridges

  I’m lying here, thinking and I’m not sure what I did wrong. I tried to help. Passersby would be concerned to see a woman prone in a flowerbed behind the train station, stockings torn, suit crumpled. They’d approach to help, only to stop and wonder what was pinned to her clothes.

  It started innocently enough, as I suppose these things do. I bore easily on journeys. I don’t read or like music and scenery becomes tired after a while when travelling the same route. I’m observant. I like to look and naturally my eyes fell on the other passengers. You usually see the sam
e people every day.

  A woman would get on the carriage wearing a fetching green coat. The problem was it wasn’t the right hue for her, her complexion being sallow. It made her look drawn, sickly almost. I’m good with colours and working in fashion I pride myself on steering women away from buying the unsuitable.

  I’m not sure I’d have done what I did if the note cards hadn’t been there. They were a gift from my son, unsuitable as always, who would I write to? It saddens me that he doesn’t choose to get to know me better. I was searching for my powder compact when I saw them. I’d thrown them in there when I’d been to collect my belated birthday gift.

  I wrote a gentle note “Green isn’t really your colour. It drains you so and you’re a pretty girl. Try earth tones.” I hesitated, reconsidered then, uncharacteristically, acted on impulse. Slotting the card discretely into her bag, we left the train. She didn’t notice a thing.

  I was gratified the following week to see her looking radiant in red. It should have been a one off but there was so much to see, so much ugliness. I couldn’t resist.

  A few weeks later the carriage was taking on a better appearance. The nervous lady was wearing more subtle make-up, the teenager’s skin was looking better (surely due to the lotion I’d suggested) and the elderly man had abandoned the foolish hat. I smiled to myself, glad to be helping.