Before and after-short story

In an instant, a life can divide into Before and After. A phone call, a news flash can do it. Invariably, something remains as a reminder. For Joseph, a colleague at Chloe's office, it is Bach playing on the stereo before the screech of brakes, the crunch of metal, an ambulance, the hospital.

"I hear Bach now and think: oh, yes, I used to love that. Before. In my other life."

For Chloe's sister, Anna, it is a body shampoo. She told Chloe how the shower was hot and steam clouded the glass. She stood in the warm fog, then sniffed the fresh, pine scent of the new Badedas body shampoo. That clean scent of mountains and good health. Just seconds later, her fingers, tentative, pressed back and forth, smoothing the skin as her brain bristled indignantly. It can't be! But it is, yes, it is. I think it is. A lump.

And after – doctors visits, surgery, chemo, hair loss, pain.

Chloe will be reminded of these conversations in four minutes. Right now she chooses a pretty china cup, Staffordshire, patterned with red roses. She pokes the tea bag with a spoon while she pours in the boiling water and then decides to start the laundry while the tea steeps. Dan's shirts are already loaded in the washer but she pulls them out anyway, to shake them. She is nervous that a stray ballpoint might lie forgotten in a pocket, leave a Caspian Sea of navy ink never to be bleached away. As she shakes the shirt, something flies out, floats up like confetti to land on the lid of the dryer. She studies, frowning, a pair of ticket stubs for a New York City theatre.

She is puzzled at first. Then remembers, of course, the business conference in New York City. Seven days had stretched to ten; Dan had been exhausted when he came home, complaining about the demands of clients, the tedious conversation of his colleagues. Chloe studies these tickets with a sense of unreality, as if she is watching herself on a movie set, frowning for the camera. But her mind is seething with questions. Dan had not told her of this theatre visit. Off-Broadway does not seem appropriate, somehow. Hedda Gabler is an odd choice for an evening with a client. Or a colleague.

With cold clarity, Chloe sees that these stubs will lead to questions that she does not want to ask, but must ask. That will lead to answers she does not want to hear. Later, a Decree Absolute, loneliness.

Chloe knows as she stirs her tea, stirs what is now gungy, tarry soup, that she is already in the after. She throws the tea away, gets a fresh teabag, starts over. The tea, though freshly brewed, still tastes thick and stale.

She understands now, that she has moved in space, slid towards some other life. She has crossed that invisible but solid line. Lipton's Orange Pekoe has joined Bach's St. Matthew's Passion and Badedas with Original Scent, to be forever in the before. And there is no going back.

untitled short story

Sef was gazing out the open window to the kitchen The guys were enjoying themselves. They were talking mainly to Sara and mainly about how women wanted nothing but money for all of their sensitive feminist chatter.

Fred said "marriage is buying a house for a stranger." His wife had just skinned him after staying in Colorado by herself for two years when his "duty" brought him here, to fort Jackson. "She wanted to part amicably" said Fred "be the kind of good friend who drains your account."

"If women can be gratuitous in their interests," he continues "why do they object to being valued, measured, quantified for their sex appeal." Fred does not think that he'll find another committed woman. Sara tells him "You keep looking for a Barbie all the time ... it confuses the whole issue." Fred says "All men would like a Barbie ... if they don't have one its just because they ended up settling for second best."

Sara does not try to argue this point, and come to that, neither does Sef. But Sef's sense of moral insight is much more flushed and annoyed by this military chatterwal. He thinks to himself "you have defined all life as an economic contract, then you get upset when your business partner enjoys a profit!"

Sef lights a cigarette. He actually thinks a lot more than this, but he keeps his mouth shut, having wasted words in such fruitless discourse far too many times with far too many swine. Sara likes Fred ... thinks he's good for Sef ... and would like to see him unravel his baggage.

Sef says to Fred as well as the rest of the GI's in this strangely solitary circle "Well, they're whores if they do it, and their bitches if they don't" knowing full well that the remark seems out of place ... and blows this callused smoke through the kitchen window.

Bun fight-pt 1-short story

Joanna, smartly turned out on her first unsupervised day in her black ‘barista’ shirt, cleared the detritus of spilled coffee and shattered biscuit, quickly wiping the table down. What the hell had those two jokers been playing at?

Ten minutes earlier, she’d been working behind the counter and served one of them, a very elegantly turned out man in his fifties wearing a badge, which read “Mr Richard Sommersbury – Executive Director KLC Corporation.” He’d pocketed the badge while waiting for his double espresso and ginger nut biscuits. Obviously been to a meeting in the city by the look of him, expensively cut suit and carefully knotted tie, looked like real silk to her; neatly folded broadsheet newspaper tucked precisely under his arm. Having collected his coffee and biscuits she’d watched him out of the corner of her eye, not so much sit down at, as take possession of the table with the best view of the destination board. Oh hell, that table needed clearing now! Just behind him in the queue, a tall grey bearded man bid a brief farewell to his partner, a dark haired woman, all new age with her arty dangling dreadlock beads and feathers. “See you when you get back from Birmingham, Dave.” She gave him a showbiz ‘air kiss’ on both cheeks before sweeping out of the coffee bar and taking her jangling beads with her.

Joanna looked sideways at Marcus, who suppressed a snigger while frothing up a new batch of Milk for ‘Dave’s’ coffee. Bet she knows her own star sign backwards, she thought. Piotr, her supervisor tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at the tables that needed clearing before disappearing back into the cold store.

Poor Piotr, his English wasn’t too bad, but he was so painfully shy that he went to pieces every time Joanna gave him her special shy smile over her freckles, the one she reserved for people she really fancied. How on earth was a girl to get a man to ask her out if he forgot how to speak? Checking her sleek dark hair was properly bundled up in its ponytail as per company policy, she grabbed a black polythene sack, hand spray and cleaning cloth before heading over to the worst tables. Maybe if she asked Piotr out instead of waiting for him to make the first move?

Dave spotted the spare chair at the cluttered window table and made his way over. This particular Victoria Station coffee shop was always crowded. Still, it afforded a good view of the destination boards and the bustle of the floor below its historic Victorian clock.

He made brief eye contact with the smartly dressed man in his fifties reading a broadsheet at the other side of the table, gesturing at the chair. The man nodded, barely grudging assent. Dave set down his Latte and pack of three ginger cookies before sitting down. A quick glance at the destination board told him he had a good forty-five minutes to wait. Taking out his dog-eared copy of Proust he slid into the prose.

Richard was engrossed in the Business section of his broadsheet and barely nodded assent to the gestured question from the man in open necked shirt and Jeans. As a token of unconscious self-defence he paused in his reading and straightened his Windsor knotted silk tie.

Joanna suppressed a grimace at the state of each table, swiftly pushing everything into the black rubbish sack as quickly as she could, whilst trying not to think too much about the mess. Besides, if she was quick at clearing away, mightn’t she get a few words of praise from Piotr to break the ice of his Polish standoffishness? Why did she always have to fancy shy men anyway?

Both the men barely acknowledged the black uniformed girl who hurriedly cleared the detritus of empty wrappers off the table. In her distracted hurry to clear, she swept one of the two open packets of ginger biscuits into her black plastic sack.

Dave reached for a biscuit without looking and dunked it in his coffee, savouring the rich bite of ginger nut and extra shot of espresso. Richard did likewise, taking a bite then a sip of espresso with its delightful tobacco edge to counterpoint the crumb and crunch of the ginger. He finished it fastidiously with the slightest licking of lips. Dave dunked the rest of his before washing it down with a gulp of sweetened latte.

Richard lowered his newspaper for a moment and looked aghast at the solitary biscuit remaining. He looked up, glaring across the table at the interloper. Bloody cheek! You let some scruffy greybeard sit down and they immediately help themselves to your biscuits!

Dave looked up, innocently reaching for another of his ginger nuts. What was Colonel Blimp over the table glaring at? Hang on, who’d had the second of his biscuits? His hand paused. Both men looked away, uncomfortable with public confrontation on strange territory.

Bun fight pt2-short story

strange territory.

Richard began to reach across the table. Dave paused, then glared at his opponent, his hand creeping closer to its goal. They each looked sidelong at the remaining ginger nut, neither daring to move. An agonising minute crawled by with neither man daring to blink, staring down at the solitary focus of their attention. All around them the sounds of Victoria station echoed whilst eyes narrowed, staring like gunfighters in some spaghetti western waiting for the signal to draw.

The tension mounted; for a split second Dave’s grip loosened and his paperback slipped from his grasp. Richard dropped his newspaper and snatched. Dave’s hand was closer but slower off the mark.

Exploding crumbs skittered across the tabletop as they both recoiled from the suddenness of warm flesh. Hurried grabs were made for unstable cups as coffee threatened to spill, leaving an isolated torn wrapper and a few ginger fragments as sole evidence of the conflict.

For a moment they glared spite at each other. Dave retrieved his paperback from the floor. Richard picked up his broadsheet and made a disgruntled sound that could have been “Hmph!” Dave grunted an angry obscenity under his breath before they slowly and carefully turned away from each other, furiously concentrating on their respective reading material.

Joanna glanced over – what! She’d only just cleaned that table! Some people weren’t even housetrained!

Melting sky

It's mornings like this I want to fade away. The rain falls down and I begin to envy each drop as they roll down my window. Stuck in the morning traffic.Where have they been and what have they seen?At least they have a story to tell.
It's times like this I want to disappear. I wonder, who would care. I'm sick to death of the same mundane routine. I want out! I ponder the posibilites. In that moment of the windshield wipers steady swoosh,I decided I want to live like the rain drops. I look up at the cloudy sky.Take me away! I plead with the melting sky...I want to fade away.