Squat shop by Stefan Sofiski, red wine

Beaten by burdens, pondering aging, I wait for the trolleybus. I gaze at wet cobbles, city lights.

Sofia is full of them- Roman, Tsarist, communist cobbles... When they dig up the streets, they put them on piles and then lay them back on.

A cheap tobacco smell pulls me from cobble thoughts. - They don’t sell these anymore! - I turn… no one around. Then I see it. - The squat shop! It was here!

Rusty shutters in front of a basement window in an old building.

Squat shops popped up everywhere when capitalism arrived. Basement businesses selling cigarettes, liquor and sweets. A client would select from a display on the street and squat for the transaction… hence a “squat shop”. All gone now, replaced by malls and “proper” establishments.

Memories rush into my tired, sleepy head… fifteen... We’ve dodged school. Stride toward the squat shop for cigarettes and booze. Ahmed, an old Turk with a mustache yellowed by nicotine, greets us.

‘Welcome back… Two bottles for the price of one?’ Ahmed would entice from underground, raspy voice, thick accent. Like a devil.

Party in the park, under towering monuments of dead communists… Push the corks inside the bottles, pass them around... Laughter and mucking about… The taste of a girl’s lips-  cold but soft, hint of wine... eager hands stroking warm bodies under coats.

Occasionally, a coppers’ Lada would stop and chase us away… Our flight slowed by laughing and whooping.

I shake my head and step toward the once squat shop. Shutters hang slanted on corroded hinges. I squat and run my fingers on the chipping paint... I haven’t smoked in years, but crave one badly. - Ahmed must be dead now, - I think.

‘Two bottles for the price of one?’ From the eternal dust of the basement, I hear his ghost.

About the author:

Stefan Sofiski is the pen name of an engineering professional with a badly hidden secret passion for writing. 

Clown by Bea Smith, piña colada

 

Jessie was confident and ready.
“You seem nervous”, said Jessie’s Dad, as her trembling hand spooned coffee granules into a tea-stained mug.
“Just be yourself and have fun.”
What was she, twelve?

As she walked to the station, Jessie realised she was very unwell, and she was going to throw up at any moment. She wouldn’t be able to go, she’d have to drop out and do it next year, if there was a next year, because she might be dying. As she started to cross the road a Lime bike whipped past, narrowly missing her, its Airpodded rider barely registering her latest brush with death.

She held a lump tightly at the back of her throat as she continued across the road, her eyes nervously jittering as she scanned for more danger, her new Doc Martens scraping a layer of skin off her heels with every step. She must not vomit on the tube. Might even get a few looks for that – other commuters, wrenching their eyes away from the hair regrowth ads to shoot some disgust in her general direction.

How she’d so longed to be part of the choreography of the quotidian 9 to 5. Now it was here, it was kind of gross. Alongside spillages of H&M-workwear-clad professionals, she boarded the train.

Four stops till she could get off. She was trying not to gag on the big ball blocking her oesophagus. Three. Such a lot of people in a tiny space. Two. She wished that old mole-y man would stop knuckling and kneading his groinal-region. One. Why’re so many people reading self-help books? Should she be reading a self-help book? As the train lurched to a halt, she picked her moment to stumble towards the doors, trying her best not to fall onto the groin-kneader-at-large.

It was (or would be, if she wasn’t dying of a mysterious illness) the first day of the rest of her life. Big day. She was going to clown school. By some fate written in the stars, the legendary Christine DeLoonay was over from Paris teaching a clowning course at RADA. Jessie’s Dad had sensibly agreed to invest through the £900 fee.

She’d tried other things. Temping hadn’t worked out because there was just too much phone-picking-up involved, which was pretty traumatic for Jessie, given her phobia.

“I can turn my hand to any task”, she’d explained on her first placement.
“You’ll basically just need to answer the phone,” replied the stone-faced office clone.
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to do that.”

After a bit of back and forth, Jessie was left alone at the reception desk with nothing but the phone, ringing, like a crying baby trapped in a tin can. She got her bag and left.

Then she tried waitressing at a posh restaurant, but it seemed that the ideal employee was a weightlifter with thick reptilian arms on which they could balance countless burning hot plates. Unfortunately, Jessie had the bones of a sparrow with a low pain threshold, and so the role wasn’t really suited to her abilities.

All she’d ever wanted to do was be a clown. Sometimes she looked at baby photos and wondered if she’d been preparing for it all her life. She wasn’t the class clown at school or anything. In fact, she could rarely control when people laughed at her. Sometimes they’d laugh at things she said and she couldn’t work out what was funny, and when she tried to be funny they’d just stare at her and then change the subject. She knew she was a clown though, deep down. There was just something in her that deeply wanted to harness that magic. And this passion, it needed to work, or she was out of options.

It all started at Sophie Monroe’s sixth birthday party. The matte orange curly hair, the colour of American cheese. The cherry-red plasticine smile, contorting and contracting like a water balloon. The wide eyes that made you feel the show was just for you. She wanted the clown to follow her wherever she went, like a colourful shadow. She wanted her there when she went to school and watching over her when she fell asleep. She wanted the clown to be her mum, her dad, her best friend and her own reflection. If this wild, delirious obsession could be pinned down with a word, it would be dream. That was the day it was born.

So there she was, on her way to Christine DeLoonay’s prestigious class. A chance to prove to herself, and the world, that this was what she was supposed to do.

DeLoonay was a master of mime. Her movements were so precise, it was like she existed in a plain of matter entirely separate from everyone else. In the air she saw objects, and in her performances, she brought them into the ordinary, so ordinary, world. A large white feather, tickling a man’s chin, or a step, tripping her up. Or shoelaces, neatly tied into a bow. Everything she saw, for a few moments, she let you see it, too. That was good, thought Jessie. Did she make that up? She should write it down anyway.

Off the tube at Euston Square, she walked weirdly along Gower Street, checking her map every second second. She felt ugly in the eyes of the West London commuters and the splendid Georgian houses. Her hair looked greasy, she should’ve washed it. And her top, tucked into her too-tight waistband, was all lumpy and uncomfortable. She wanted to unzip her skin and flop out of it like a pond creature.

She eventually came to the RADA entrance, awkwardly checked in at reception, and followed a young woman with blue hair along the corridor and into the lecture theatre marked CLOWN. She found a seat somewhere near the back. DeLoonay was already there, at the front of the room, like a morose, queenly giraffe, all dressed in black. She was elegant, pale and unimpressed by the gormless young people sat gawping at her. Her tight, simple clothes revealed large joints and a long, knobbly spine. She observed them one-by-one, grimacing.

Eventually, she spoke, her deep French voice like a crack of thunder.
“I was just five years old when entertaining saved my life.” Jessie scribbled this down in her notepad. “Ze Nazis, they adored my clown.” Silence fell.
“Art,” she meandered, “art is survival.” She paused, looking round the lecture theatre.
“Ç’est ca.”

Jessie was transfixed. She’d read about DeLoonay’s childhood growing up in the Warsaw ghetto. After DeLoonay’s father was killed, she was solicited by Nazis, who made her perform for them. It was true, art really was survival. But wasn’t clowning supposed to be funny?

DeLoonay stood sternly in silence, her mouth firmly closed as she continued to inspect every face in the brightly lit lecture theatre. Suddenly, she tipped her head to the side thoughtfully and raised her forefinger, as if something had just occurred to her. She walked slowly back towards the lectern and crouched down behind it, looking for something.

After what felt like forever, DeLoonay stood up, her hands out in front of her, holding a heavy, large, imaginary box. Carefully, she brought it round the front of the lectern where everyone could see it. She placed it carefully on the ground and Jessie swore she heard the click as it met the floorboards. Slowly, DeLoonay undid the invisible latch and raised the lid, and she took in its contents for a second or two. Then, fear spread across her face and suddenly, she began to scream. A primitive, hellish scream. Loud, so loud, that Jessie had to cover her ears as she processed what was happening. As she screamed, DeLoonay’s eyes followed some imaginary thing with horror as it rose out of the box and began swarming her, all around her head. Before Jessie, or anyone, knew what to do, the thing, whatever it was, retreated back into the box and DeLoonay lurched forward to clap it shut. She stopped screaming. Her face went blank and she closed her eyes, taking a sharp breath.

“When you open your box,” she said, before opening her eyes and looking directly at Jessie, “what do you see?”

Jessie’s heart shoulder-barged her ribs, trying to get the fuck out of there. She thought they would at least start slow, but this was intense. DeLoonay had just channelled, and in fact was always channelling, a lifetime of trauma through her art. Every expression, every movement, the difference between life and death. How could Jessie match up to that? And, perhaps more importantly, how would she ever get DeLoonay’s praise once she found out that Jessie wasn’t being driven by some deep, traumatic sadness? Jessie felt like a total failure already, and she couldn’t help but feel it was all her parents’ fault.

Thankfully, DeLoonay moved her gaze to a boy, no more than twenty-three, in the front row.
“You,” she demanded, “tell me.”
Jessie could see his ears turning red as he hesitated for a few moments.
“I…Uhhh…I suppose, well…” He paused. “My father. He left me when I was twelve. I’ve probably been trying to make myself worthy of his love ever since.”

Bastard got lucky with that one, thought Jessie. DeLoonay, satisfied, moved onto the young woman sitting a few rows back from the first boy. She knew exactly what to say.

“Well, I struggle with depression,” she said, self-righteously. “And I suppose performance and clowning gives me a way of escaping myself.”

What the actual fuck? Who were these tragic, poetic arseholes? Was it a crime to just want to put on some white face paint and act like an idiot? Desperately, Jessie’s mind wracked through her options, as DeLoonay’s pointing, knobbly finger edged closer and closer.

Jessie didn’t get into Cambridge – that was pretty devastating. She’d cried loads when that had happened, and her Mum said she definitely deserved to get in. Maybe it had made Jessie more driven to pursue greatness?

Or, one time, her year ten Physics teacher, Mr Povey, said her short skirt made her “look loose”. It was really degrading, actually. She hadn’t thought about it in a while but she was sure it had somehow probably played a part in shaping her into the underconfident woman she’d become.

But was it enough? It wasn’t even close to having an absent father or actual, real mental health problems. If she screwed this up, if she couldn’t earn DeLoonay’s respect, if she couldn’t make this work, it was over. She’d have to go back to her parents and tell them this wasn’t it. What would she do then? 

Fuck it, should she make something up? Surely it didn’t really matter. What mattered was the performance, the art itself, right? They hadn’t even got to that, and Jessie was kind-of-okay at mime. Perhaps inventing a story would be the most genius, method thing she could do. Like Bruce Springsteen, he was always singing about being a blue-collar worker, but her Dad told her that Bruce had never worked a day of hard labour in his life. She could never have imagined it would come to this, but could she do it, could she be like Bruce Springsteen?

After eeking some trauma out of a now-tearful young woman two seats away, DeLoonay, finally, turned to Jessie.

She was up.

About the Author:

Bea Smith is a writer and advertising copywriter from South London.

An Epic Journey by Graham Crisp, a nice cup of tea

             A son is unexpectedly summoned to his mother’s Devon home

The frost was starting to clear as a watery sun began poking its way through the morning clouds. I tentatively made my way across the tiny gravel-covered car park, trying desperately not to slip and injure myself. I successfully made it to the entrance of the station, which housed a now abandoned ticket office, and onto the deserted platform.

So here I am on Platform One at Harling Road Railway Station. The best way to describe the ambience of the station is that it was probably foremost in the mind of the author, Arnold Ridley when he wrote his famous 1923 Ghost Train play. In other words … a desperately spooky place.

I’m waiting for the 7.47 train from Norwich, which on previous experience may or may not arrive on time, or indeed not at all. The last time I attempted to catch this particular train was on a Saturday morning, when it didn’t arrive, I had to resort to climbing the ladder to the signal box and ask a startled Signalman if the train was coming. It wasn’t. It had been cancelled.

Anyway, this time my Trainline app is reassuringly telling me that although the 7.47 will arrive at approximately 7.57, at least I know I can commence my journey to Devon with a reasonable start.

I sat on the only wooden bench on this side of the tracks, pulled out the handwritten letter my mother had sent to me, and once again read through the contents. The convenience of text messaging and even emails had passed by my mother, which was somewhat surprising, as she was a renowned past author and currently much sought-after book critic, noted for her acerbic wit. Her work was featured regularly in worthy journals such as the New Statesman and the London Review of Books. I once asked her how she passed on her work to the editors of contributing publications. With a cursory wave of her hand, she replied, ‘Oh, Judy’ (her much put upon assistant/secretary) ‘deals with all that nonsense.’ I later discovered that my mother made handwritten notes that Judy then typed out and emailed to relevant recipients. Much to the chagrin of the overworked Judy, my mother’s Quill Pen and Ink Set remained in constant use.

The note was brief and to the point.

‘Dear Jeremy, come home at once, I need to speak to you urgently, and not on the telephone. My address is on the back of the envelope just in case you have forgotten it. When did you last visit me here? Ages ago I shouldn’t wonder. Anyway, I’m always at home so get going now. Love Mother.’

So, here I am homeward bound.

This is going to be an epic journey: Harling Road to Ely, then Ely to Peterborough and Peterborough to Birmingham, followed by the gruelling three-and-a-half-hour trip from Birmingham to Plymouth. Even when I finally set foot in sunny Devon my journey would still not be over, I had to bus it (or failing that a taxi) to the hamlet of Shaugh Prior where I was raised, and my mother has resided alone after my father ditched her and flew back to his native South Africa. I’m sure there must be other routes, but this is the one I’ve used previously, and it’s always got me there, more or less, in one piece.

Trainline is now telling me that the 7.47 is now expected to arrive at 8.07.

More time to drift backwards to my curious life.

My father was a peculiar fellow. He was an academic scientist, and originally from Vereeniging in the south of Gauteng province, specialising in research into rare tropical and infectious diseases. He was seldom at home, and on the infrequent occasions he did turn up, he spent most of the time in his study. I can’t recall having conversations of any length or substance with him.

Mother met him at some sort of convention. The story (as told by her), was that she got extremely drunk, and they ended up together in his hotel bed. With him being a person of a religious persuasion and fearing God’s retribution for this unholy act, my father thought that he ought to do ‘the decent thing.’ So, they married a week later, and I became the by-product of a drunken escapade! Some fifteen years into their marriage he suddenly upped sticks and went back to South Africa. Mother and I learnt later that he had died, not unsurprisingly, from a rare, tropical and infectious disease! He left my mother 1m Rand, which sounded rather splendid until we discovered that it was probably worth about forty grand in Sterling, which mother cheerfully described as ‘better than a kick up the jacksey.’

He was never spoken of again.

The 7.47/7.57/8.07 finally showed up at 8.09 and now I’m on my way to Ely, it would appear that I will miss my Peterborough connection, which means I’ll also miss my Birmingham train and a subsequent knock-on effect down the line. Hopefully, I’ll make it to Devon at some point, but it may mean a late-night arrival. With no way of contacting my mother; her landline was cut off many months ago, and mobile phones are anathema to her, it looks like either an overnight stay in Plymouth or a late-night arrival, which will probably frighten the living daylights out of her!

***

Things have picked up a bit, I am now on my way to Birmingham, the Peterborough Train was itself late arriving, and although I am still behind schedule, I am at least making some headway. The train is practically empty, but the journey is tedious, stopping at places I’ve never heard of: Narborough, Coleshill, and Nuneaton (which always reminds me of the corney joke about cannibals who refrain from eating Nuns), where practically no one gets off or on.

I eventually arrived in Birmingham, New Street Station to be precise. It’s more like what the Americans call a ‘Shopping Mall’. There are cafés, bars and all sorts of foodie outlets from a strangely named ‘Five Guys Burger Bar’ to a comforting M&S Simply Food shop! Oh, yes, and there is a fully functioning mechanical bull, with fiery eyes and a slightly unnerving snort. I gather this is a leftover from the Commonwealth Games and is named ‘Ozzy’ after the Black Sabbath lead singer, Ozzy Osbourne. He is ‘a true son of Birmingham’, according to a chap standing next to me sporting a claret and blue scarf. Coming from deepest Norfolk, all these goings on made my head spin.

The electronic departures board displayed a 19.12 direct train to Plymouth, which was estimated to arrive at 22.50. That would get me to my mother’s at about midnight which could be a concern, but I decided I worry about that later. My mother waking hours were always variable, so there would be a good chance that she would still be at her desk applying a butcher’s cleaver to the latest novel lovingly written by some young up-and-coming writer.

I made my way through the labyrinth of stalls, and the mass of milling people to Platform 11 where my train was already boarding. I found a rear seat, dumped my bag on the top rack and settled down for the long journey ahead.

More time to reflect.

Mother wanted me to be a writer, and to follow in her footsteps. But, as my imagination is about as sharp as a wooden mallet, and my spelling akin to a dyslectic chimpanzee, we both soon discovered that I should take a different career path. I was OK at sciences, so my mother, using her extensive network of connections got me onto a fast-track degree course in brewing and distilling. This in turn sent me on the way to the lofty position of Distillery Manager at one of the few English Whisky distilleries, based in East Harling, Norfolk. Hence my use of the spooky train station, Harling Road. When I pushed my mother into why she sought out a whisky-related career for me, she replied simply, ‘Free samples dear boy, free samples.’

I made sure that she did get plenty!

My mother had been described by various people as ‘eccentric’, ‘unyielding’, a ‘character’ and sometimes ‘brutal’ in her reviews. However, more recently, she was depicted as ‘curiously likeable’. That last comment was probably from an author that she had given a rare favourable review.

She once actually admitted to me, albeit after several glasses of freebie single malt, that she would have preferred me to have been gay. She said it would have fitted in with her ‘bohemian’ lifestyle. She was decidedly frosty when I introduced her to Marion, my new girlfriend; however, a heavy thaw suddenly descended and her very rare sunshine smile emerged when I told Mother that Marion was a human rights lawyer specialising in illegal immigration. Marion was welcomed into the bosom of my mother like a long-lost daughter, which one day I hoped Marion would become, well at least a daughter-in-law.

There is not a great calling for human rights lawyers in East Harling, immigration for native East Harlingers, means people that have settled there from such alien and faraway places like Norwich or Cambridge. I kept my Devon roots well hidden, I had even adopted a Norfolk ‘twang’ which seemed to have satisfied the indigenes that I had some ‘pure blood’ running through my veins.

Marion stayed mainly in London; we would meet at most weekends either in Hackney or at my place.

As I headed rapidly towards the south, through Bristol and en route to Exeter, I thought about my mother's note. I had visited her/my home several times since leaving at the tender age of eighteen, but I always drove these visits. Mother had never in the past asked me to visit, and I always felt that there was some slight relief on her part when I left.

So, what was she doing summoning me so suddenly right now?

A text message from Marion briefly stalled my insights. She wanted to know if my journey was going well. Not wanting to elaborate on the ins and outs of my junket in electronic messaging, I just replied, ‘Yep fine’ … with a promise to call her tomorrow.

By the time my train departed from its penultimate stop, Totnes, I had decided that this was all ‘something and nothing’, and my mother was just testing me out and that she still had some control over me.

I arrived in Plymouth at 23.02. There was a line of taxis waiting for fares. I jumped into the first one and gave the driver details of my final destination.

We lived opposite the ‘White Thorn’ pub, which was jam-packed in the summer with eager grockles sampling the finest Devon ales, but in the winter, it returned to a local boozer, where sorrows were drowned, and darts rivalries settled.

After settling up with the taxi driver, I slung my bag over my shoulder and marched, slightly tentatively up the garden path. Nothing had changed since I was last here.

I saw that the lights were on in the porch, and I could just about make a light seemingly coming from Mother’s study.

I tapped the metal door knocker and waited. The door swung open. I was confronted by a large lady, clutching a stainless steel kettle, dressed in paisley-patterned dungarees with a scarf around her shoulders that resembled the colours of the Palestine national flag.

“Who are you?”

We stared at each other for a moment.

“You go first,” she commanded.

Taken aback, I stumbled over my words, “I’m Jeremy … er… Tilly’s son … I’ve … er … come from Norfolk … she …er … um … asked me to come.”

“And here I am,” I said raising my voice in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

The lady shook her head, “You’re too late. She’s gone.”

“Where’s she gone? She was expecting me.”

“Dunno.” She narrowed her eyes. “Could be heaven if you believe in that nonsense, or maybe she’s already been reborn as a cat or mouse, who knows, ask a Buddhist, they have some lofty idea about life after death.Or maybe she’s gone the Hindu way, that means we have thirteen days free from impurities. Now that would be nice, wouldn’t it? ”

“She’s dead?”

“Yeah, this morning Matilda, or Tilly as she is known by some folk, left this world rather peacefully. She’d be sorry she’s missed you. But that’s life, or death, whichever.”

I gathered myself. “So, who the hell are you? What did she die from? Where have they taken her?”

The lady picked up my bag and ushered me inside.

“I’m Evangeline I met your mother at Greenham Common many years ago. She invited me down here when she learned that she was terminally ill. I’ve looked after her for a while now.”

“She didn’t say anything to me.”

“Nah, Matilda was like that she didn’t want to make a fuss”.

“But, she sent me this note.” I brandished it in her face. She declined to take it from me.

Evangeline raised the kettle and waved it in my direction.

“We’ve got a lot to get through these coming days, so you’d better come into the kitchen. Tea? Sugar? Milk?”

 

About The Author:

Graham is a retired SME owner, although he still does some part-time copywriting. Principally, press releases, blogs, articles, case studies, and award entries centred on the construction machinery industry. He also volunteers at a local primary school helping children to enjoy reading.

Links:

https://crunchiecrisp.me.uk/

https://amzn.eu/d/7w2TBU6

Memories buried in the hourglass by Louisa Prince, chamomile tea with a dash of honey

Memories aren’t linear.

They’re like random pebbles cast into a pond, rippling outwards—linked through time—connected to our past in unusual ways.

I remember visiting my grandmother’s tiny studio unit, surrounded by mementos of her long life, and how each had a story to tell.

“Until she shared a bed, your mom slept in those drawers,” she’d say.

Too small to sit still, I’d wander the room. I recall my fingers tracing the mahogany dresser, and how they left a trail in the dust. Double drawers, with warn brass knobs—big enough to fit my dolly. Warmth spread through me, and I smiled. The heavy drawer creaked open. On tiptoes, I peeked inside. My hands jerked back and face scrunched.

“Ew … in with your undies?”

Bright, tinkling laughter filled the air, replaced by the hushed tones of grown-up discussions. My six-year-old self, pressed against cool glass, making faces at passerby’s while they walked past her window.

“Come away from that window,” my mother said.

My eyes fixed on the small hourglass, something about it made me think of boats. Of pirates and sea shanties, so much so that a whiff of a sea breeze tickled my nostrils. I picked it up, turned it over and watched the sand trickle into the bottom sphere. Small whirlwinds of white crystals, like the funnel of a tornado.

“Your grandfather gave me that,” my grandmother said.

I wish I’d looked back and lingered around the tiny sofa, absorbing stories of a life breaking apart and vanishing like those sands. Snapshots of conversations never completed.

“… and that’s how I found out my father had another family,” a croaky voice said.

Whoooa … I swung around, eyes wide. “Great grandad had another family?”

Her lips twisted into a sly smile. One that hinted at knowledge unshared. “Yeah, the slimy old bastard ducked and weaved, acting like I wasn’t there … but I noticed him.”

I bounded across to the small chair, plonking down beside her. “Tell me more nan,” I said.

“It’s all because I took him lunch.” My grandmother sighed. “Can you believe that girl? Flapping her arms about like that.”

“Nana,” my voice rose into a high pitch wine. “You can’t stop there, who was she?”

Clouded eyes would search the room, “Oh … look at the time,” she said. “I'd better get dinner … he'll be home soon.”

My mum’s tear-filled gaze landed on me. “What about we wait until next time?” she asked.

Unfocused eyes stared back. “Oh, hello dear, and who do you belong to?”

I glanced across to the timepiece, watching the last sands fall into the bottom chamber, sealing her story beneath a white blanket.

Her time of lucidity over—until the next time, when shifting grains uncovered a story’s memory.

About the author:

Louisa Prince is a self-proclaimed late bloomer, living in Melbourne, Australia whose writing often focuses on family and health. An active member of The Society of Women Writers Victoria, her work appears in the New Plains Review and longlisted for SWWV’s Margaret Hazard Short Story Award.

Fragments of Hope by Charlee Chandler, Earl Grey.

Today was the day.

Jeremiah had been waiting on that day for weeks. He was all wrung out about it.

It was all he could think about as he sat out on the balcony of his apartment. It was well after three in the morning, but sleep hadn’t come easy to him.

It never had.

He doesn’t think he’d ever had a full night’s sleep in his twenty-five years of life.

He was usually restless because of the dreams that plagued his mind while he was asleep, but that night he was awake for a whole different reason. Anticipation.

It was the hope that was keeping him awake.

Jeremiah had never been one to hope. He thought it bread eternal misery. But that night, it filled his very being.

He’d never been hopeful. Always restless.

The feeling of restlessness had always followed him everywhere. He never felt settled. He had always felt like his life was missing something, like he was missing something.

He had known what he was missing, or at least he’d felt like he knew.

He was sure the reason he felt so lost all the time was because of his dreams.

Ever since he was a young boy, he had weird dreams.

It was almost as if he had an entirely different life when he went to sleep. He was a different person. He’d had a different name. A different girlfriend.

They weren’t just dreams. They couldn’t have been just dreams. The love that he felt for her usually woke him from his sleep.

Some nights he sobbed from the weight of a love he would never know. It sat heavy on his chest.

He’d assumed it had to be a past life because everything was too vivid, too real. It was the only explanation he could come up with.

He used to tell people about his dreams when he was a kid. He’d always wanted answers. He’d always wanted to know why, but no one could help him. No one had tried. They’d all just written him off. Some would go on to call him crazy, and some days he surely felt it.

He couldn’t make sense of it, so he stopped trying for a while.

He tried to live his life to the best of his ability. He tried not to let the ever-present despair seep into him too deeply.

He found a job that he loved. He was a firefighter. Saving lives, putting out fires, it was the only time in his life that the void he carried with him had been filled with a purpose unlike any other.

Then he met Shan, his girlfriend of three years and thought maybe she had been what he was missing.

He doesn’t like to admit that the longing he’d always felt had gotten stronger since being with her.

He loved Shan, but she didn’t get him. He wasn’t sure anyone did.

Ultimately, that’s what led him to that sleepless night on the balcony.

Anticipation.

He had a meeting with a woman that promised him that she had answers. He didn’t know her. They’d only spent a week talking, and he knew it was stupid to meet up with a stranger, but he could take care of himself.

And, if I can’t, well, it just must be my time.

He laughed at his thoughts and twisted his fingers through his blond curls. He was usually a head taller than most people and he was in great physical shape. If some strange woman happened to take him out, he figured his number was just up.

It might have been stupid to trust someone he met online of all places, but he trusted the woman he only knew as “L.” They’d talked on the phone, and she had listened to him.

He’s sure she was the only person that had done that. So, when she promised him answers, he believed her.

They set up a time and place to meet. Mel’s Diner. Eight o’clock. He didn’t think he’d ever felt that hopeful in his life.

Weeks earlier, he’d went searching for answers for only the second time in his life. At first, he’d gotten nowhere, but after hours of searching online, he thought he’d found something.

It had been an online forum about reincarnation that he posted on about his dreams. He went into vivid detail about how real everything was to him.

Sometimes he woke up and the scent of his past lover still clung to his nose. Honeysuckle and lavender. He wasn’t making that up.

He wanted nothing more than for someone, anyone, to believe him. It felt like he was constantly screaming into a vacuum.

But late one night a few days after his post, he’d gotten a message on the platform. It was L. That was the name that she had given him. She said she would give him more when they met.

The day of the meeting was finally there.

He spent the rest of that morning out on the balcony.

He’d had a decent day. He kept himself busy, did some work around the house. He had been running on less than four hours of sleep, but he was used to the bone deep ache being tired brought.

He was looking forward to his meeting with L.

He just hadn’t been expecting another fight with Shan about it.

He let her into his apartment at seven in the evening. He was on his way out. He’d had his keys in his hand. Her arrival had been unexpected but based on the amount of pushback he’d received from her since he told her about it a week prior, he should have been expecting her to turn up.

He’d sighed, closed the door behind her and waited.

She hadn’t disappointed, either.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea, Jeremiah,” Shan said.

Oh, for the love of God. Not now, Shan.

His hands twitched at his sides. He had a bad habit of biting his nails when he was antsy, and she hated that, so he had fidgeted with his keys instead.

He organized his thoughts. He always had a lot going on in his head and he was always told he didn’t say things very politely. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but she had been saying the same thing for the past week, and he was tired of hearing it.

“Why would it not be a good idea?”

It was just a meeting at a diner, after all. A meeting he deemed necessary for his peace of mind, but he wasn’t too sure that his peace of mind mattered to anyone.

“You met this person online. They’re feeding into your delusions. Be realistic, Jeremiah. There’s no way this is a good idea.”

“If I’m delusional, Shan, I can’t be realistic. That’s asking too much of me, isn’t it?”

He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but he was tired. I’m so tired of begging people I care about to believe me. He knew he wasn’t crazy, so why couldn’t she support him?

She was supposed to be his partner, and he couldn’t even truly open up to her because she wouldn’t even pretend to understand him.

She did nothing but carve into the emptiness he felt every day.

But he cared about her. He wouldn’t call it love. He wouldn’t call anything love until it matched what he felt for the woman he dreamed of every night.

“I have to go. I need this, Shan. This is important to me. Can you support me? You never support me.”

He hadn’t planned on guilt tripping her, but the way her face fell told him that it had worked. That was all that mattered.

He was going to go whether she thought it was a good idea or not. She’s not constantly suffering. I am.

That meeting meant more to him than she would ever have been able to comprehend. He was going to go. He’d deal with the consequences after he’d gotten his answers.

“I want what’s best for you,” she’d said.

How many times do I have to tell her?

“This is what’s best for me.”

He didn’t know how else to convince her, but that would have to be enough because he needed to go.

“I’ll wait here for you.”

He didn’t want to have company after his meeting, he knew he would need time alone, but he relented, and he left her standing in his living room.

Jeremiah’s drive to the diner had been quiet. He’d been relaxed. He would even say that he was excited.

But his nerves had started to creep up on him the closer he got to the diner. By the time he’d pulled his truck into the parking lot, he had been sure he was having a full-blown panic attack.

He had tried to distract himself. He focused on his surroundings.

The diner Jeremiah parked his truck in front of had seen better days.

There were only a few cars in the lot, and from where he peered out of his front window, the place looked empty.

Mel’s neon sign at the front of the building was missing bulbs in the ‘M’ and the ‘E’. The letters weren’t fully lit but blinking. The lights in the sign flickered quickly, in time with his racing pulse.

He blew out a deep breath and clutched the steering wheel with his shaky hands.

His heart shouldn’t have been in his throat, but it was. His hands shouldn’t have been shaking. He didn’t get scared. He’d spent all his adult life running towards danger, not away from it. This shouldn’t have been affecting him like it was. He fearlessly walked through burning buildings for a living, but the second he pulled into the parking lot of the diner, his heart seized in his chest.

He was going to meet with L at eight P.M., and he had thirty minutes until then.

He wasn’t sure what had made him so anxious. He had been fine until he pulled into the parking lot, and then the dread crept down his spine and settled in the pit of his stomach.

He kept staring at the diner, wishing the sinking feeling he felt in his stomach would calm down enough for him to think.

He glanced at the digital clock on his dashboard, and watched the minutes dwindle down. He only had twenty minutes, now.

He had thought of nothing except for this meeting for weeks. He wasn’t necessarily excited about it, but he had been anticipating it. He knew the meeting would change his life. He would get the answers he’d been wanting since he was a child.

He just couldn’t make himself get out of the truck. He couldn’t even put his hand on the door handle.

Just take the first step, Miah. Just touch the door.

He couldn’t.

His anxiety had been all consuming. The panic had swirled so heavily in his chest that he couldn’t catch his breath.

Should he have let his girlfriend talk him out of it?

No, no. I need this. It’s going to be fine. So, why couldn’t he get his limbs to work? Why was he frozen with fear in the driver’s seat of his car?

What did he have to fear, anyway? He wasn’t crazy, despite what everyone else thought. He knew that he wasn’t crazy.

Jeremiah knew people thought he was strange. He knew his girlfriend was at the top of that list, but he’d long stopped caring what other people thought.

His reality had always been different from others. It would always be different from others.

He was privy to a lot of things most people weren’t. He had just wanted to know why.

Why him? Why did he have to live with such a heavy ache in his chest? Why had it always felt like he was drowning within himself? Why was he cursed with that feeling? Why was he cursed to remember a life that had ended long ago? Why did he dream every night about the woman he loved, then? Why could nothing ever fix the hole he was sure was permanently carved into his chest?

Why, why, why?

He had so many questions. Questions L promised she had answers to.

He needed to go into the diner. He needed to speak with her.

“You need these answers, Miah.”

That vocal reminder had been enough to ease the pressure in his chest, if only slightly.

It was enough for him to finally get out of the truck.

His palms were sweaty, and his breath was still uneven, but at least he had gotten out of the truck.

He’d shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and trekked across the damp parking lot.

The bell at the top of the door had jingled as he entered, and the waitress behind the counter looked up.

“Sit anywhere you like, sugar. I’ll be with you in a second.”

His steps had stalled as soon as he took a step toward a booth, and his eyes landed on an older Black woman sitting at a booth at the back.

He knew it was L. He had a feeling that the woman in her late fifties knitting a scarf was her.

“L?”

She’d looked up from her knitting project, kind brown eyes peered at him from over her glasses. “Jeremiah.”

He’d nodded; his tongue felt like dead weight in his mouth.

“Sit down, honey, I’m Louise.”

Her voice was so warm and comforting that it had eased any remnants of anxiety.

“You said you had answers for me?” He asked.

She’d smiled a soft smile, and he had relaxed even further. He was in the right place.

Finally. For once in his life, he was in the right place.

About the author:

Charlee Chandler is an aspiring author, and current college student. She is using her education to hone her craft and develop her writing skills. In her free time, she focuses on writing her novel, aiming to bring her creative ideas to life and share them with the world.

Sunday Serial: 280 x 70, 53 Statistics by Gill James, whisky on the rocks

 

Introduction

This collection is a collection of seventy stories, each 280 words. They were inspired by the first picture seen on my Twitter feed on a given day. 

53.  Statistics   

"You should take look at this," Jake called from his study.

Suzy put down the pile of linen she was carrying and went into Jake's room. She tutted. "Still on Twitter? Come on, there's work to be done." She wished he'd get on and plant those new shrubs they'd acquired yesterday.

She glanced at his computer screen. Yet another poll. Oh heck, though, that didn't look right. "Can you trust it?"

Jake pointed to a familiar icon in the corner of his screen.  "It bona fide, look."

Yes it was.  Still only statistics, and everybody knew about them, but even so.

Jake leaned back in his chair. "Well, the man's a fool. Everybody knows that."

Suzy nodded. A fool all right. He could never get his facts right, he muzzed his hair before every interview even when he it was to be on radio and he was chumming up with that other ridiculous buffoon on the other side of the Atlantic. She sighed. "What's even more worrying is that some people think he's doing the right thing. They're even more idiotic than him. I think he knows what he's doing even though he pretends to be stupid."

Jake nodded. "Yes, those figures are worrying."

Suzy looked a little more closely at the chart. 34% trusted him totally, 55% didn't trust him at all and 12% didn't know. How could they not know? At least 55% to 34% was a more respectable majority than the 48% 52% split that had caused all the trouble in the first place.

"A pleasant surprise," said Jake. 

"Really? I'm not so sure about the pleasant. But yes, I'm astounded that that many actually trust him."      

About the author

Gill James is published by The Red Telephone, Butterfly and Chapeltown.  

She edits CafeLit and writes for the online community news magazine: Talking About My Generation.

She teaches Creative Writing and has an MA in Writing for Children and PhD in Creative and Critical Writing.    

http://www.gilljameswriter.com  

https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B001KMQRKE

https://www.facebook.com/gilljameswriter

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