Lost in Time

Lost in the swamp

They crossed the ancient wetlands before dawn, their feet shrouded in undulant mists diffusing the light from their flickering lamps. Gethin, older brother of his companion, Arvel – led the way with their sister Branwen between them as they trod carefully along the path, its uncertain surface greeting their boots with raised roots and crumbling stones, each impeding their progress as the clock ticked down.

“We need to move faster,” declared Gethin, “in another two hours, the path will shift.”

Branwen, who stood a head taller than her brothers, glanced uneasily at the stocky, leather-clad Gethin, “I’m more worried about the tide. We can navigate a new path, but once the tide comes in, we are lost.”

Arvel bit his lip and stammered, “We WILL make it, won’t we, Bran?”

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Going To London

Old lady with dementia

Martha Somers was feeling upset again. She’d been talking to her dog, which was sitting in a corner of the room, saying to it, ‘Are you hungry? Shall I feed you?’, when this lady had told her it was a toy. ‘A toy? But I heard him barking,’ she’d told the lady. Then a second lady had come in and said, ‘Time to change you,’ and had laid hands on her. She’d begun to cry, then shout, and said, ‘No you’re not! How dare you!’

            Next thing she knew she was sitting in an armchair in a large room, and there were strange faces all around, elderly women in armchairs, reclining or sitting upright. Some were asleep, some stared into space, one was muttering to herself. There was a horrible smell like poo.

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Alan’s Anchor

dementia

Alan scans the room, bleary-eyed. Where is he?

Why is he in a single bed without his beloved wife, Eileen? As his vision clears, he sees a young woman standing over him, two pills glistening in the palm of her hand.

“Morning, Mr Clarke,” she says. ‘Your pills.”

He must have been kidnapped, his spy network infiltrated. Yes, that must be it. He has to get out of here and fast before he’s tortured for his secrets.

He pretends to swallow the pills. When the woman leaves, he stuffs them into his pyjama pocket. A rustling sound alerts him to a piece of paper nestling there.

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Recovery

For Kiri, patience had never been a virtue. Never had she subscribed to the view that more haste led to less speed. Her sympathy, when hearing of the fabled race, was with the hare, although she did blame him for a loss of focus during the infamous race.

Loss of focus was not one of Kiri’s problems. She prided herself on completing tasks quickly and effectively. Always diving headfirst into a challenge, she was renowned for her efficiency and accuracy. And yet somehow, she managed to sidestep promotions at work and had gathered few friends – no time to waste chatting in wine bars, she always said when invited for after-work drinks on a Friday night.

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At Last

Louise opened her eyes as daylight filtered through the blinds. How good it felt to sleep a whole night. Months before life had been so different. Shuddering she recalled the endless nights of wall-banging, threats through the wall. A new neighbour, who started out as a seemingly nice lady, turned into the witch from hell.

After introducing herself, suddenly she would be popping round as soon as Louise had got up, wanting to go everywhere with her. At first Louise was flattered but gradually it wore her down with work, and her on the doorstep. She had no time to herself. Things went sour when Louise would not take her with her to visit her brother. 

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Dognapped!

The overnight snow had magnified all the scents.   As soon as my lead was off, so was I.  With my nose firmly to the ground, I dodged this way and that, circling and backtracking.  A new scent, rabbit, I was on a mission, tracking towards the fence and through the bushes, and then the trail suddenly stopped.  I pulled up short.  Sure enough, there was a rabbit, a dead rabbit on a length of string.  I was trying to ponder on this when I felt a sharp pain.  My legs folded underneath me.  I was thrown over the railings and bundled into the back of a van.

I awoke in a strange environment.  Along with about fifty other dogs, I was in a large cage, inside a barn.  The smell of farm animals pervaded my senses, but they were all overshadowed by the smell of fear.

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Minor Miracles at Lent

On the toilet pan, straining like a tugboat pulling a liner. Yes! Thank you, God. Father Wexford washed his hands afterwards. iPad on the dresser, set and ready for the Zoom Mass. A small congregation, Covid consequent, but the service would be reverent nevertheless.

            He squeezed the door handle. No movement. Was it jammed again? He couldn’t get out! Perhaps a small prayer for the door’s release? No time. Mass imminent. Nothing for it, he’d have to do his priestly duties astride the toilet seat. What would Our Lord make of that?

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The Price of Healing

Alice wrings her hands together, the scars laced across her right palm glinting silver in the light each time they twist towards the window.

“Let’s stay with that moment,” I say in my gentlest therapist voice, resuming the bi-lateral movement of my index and middle fingers in front of her face. Her eyes glow like fire, tracking the rhythmical movements of my hand as they scan side-to-side in time with the clock on the wall. I’m lulled into a trance-like state myself.

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Fly Away Home

Wrapped up, Charlie heaved the basket out of the car. Staggering under the weight, he made his way to the castle gates. With a heavy heart, he placed the basket down, placing a note on top. Whispering a farewell to his beloved birds, he walked away.

Charlie had found the birds after a storm had blown their nest out the trees. Taking them home, he had hand-reared them. Attila became his favourite, such an intelligent bird. It was he who started bringing him bits of coloured glass for which he was rewarded with his favourite treat. 

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Carrying the Can

Ginger Rogers graffiti logo with Carrying the Can text

It seems that many of us like, or even crave, attention. Why else would we see grown people on TV offering themselves for mass scrutiny through the eating of assorted insects, or people working their socks off to receive publicly bestowed awards? This is to say nothing of little children who dance and run and play instruments, with the incentive of gaining praise and honour, and sometimes even a certificate or medal or tube of Smarties.

Anastasia (not her real name) was not immune from this human trait but, like other shy and shrinking violets, she needed to think carefully about how to achieve both fame and anonymity. It was an interesting problem.

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Sodom and Gomorrah

Dylan Thomas header pic with Sodom and Gomorrah text superimposed

An eighteen-year-old male, short, face of a cherub that was partial to a drink, kiss curl, and large succulent lips employed no doubt for kissing the damsels and smacking pleasurably after imbibing. He fancied himself as a journalist, did he? The editor studied the new employee unenthusiastically. Another cub reporter who head-to-toe would prove to be unsuitable for the Evening Post.

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The Misadventures of Cuthbert – The Couch’s Layer

Cuthbert, now twenty-one, had grown out of his gawky youth and now was slightly bordering on the podgy side.  This was partly due to the amount of time he spent on the couch.

“Hi Cuthbert, you’re home early?”

“Hi mum, what’s for tea” he replied avoiding answering the question.

His mother looked at him shrewdly,  “Did Mr Evans give you the afternoon off then?”

He was rumbled and he knew it.  “Yes, this afternoon and every other afternoon,”

“Oh Cuthbert, you’ve been sacked again, what’s that, about the tenth job in a row?”

“Aw mum, let’s not talk about it now, Star Wars is on in a minute.” 

“You’re just like your father!”

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Widow’s Peak

“This is it!” announced Gav proudly from the clifftop, phone in hand as he live-streamed a video on Facebook. “Widow’s Peak, fabled secret Point-Break. Six foot and clean.”

We charged towards the sea, a rainbow rabble of surfboards, hooting all the way. The wave swelled, glinting in the morning sun and rising like the excitement in our bellies.

None of us were experienced surfers. We were just a bunch of kooks from London on a stag do, but we copied what the locals were doing.

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The Big Wave in Little England

Technician with police car in background

Mack ground his cigarette with the toe of his wingtip shoes, pulled down his fedora and rucked his collar up against the lashing rain.

“Of all the places I coulda ended up,” he grumbled, “I had to land in this two-bit joint.”

He looked at the body lying on the pavement, a pool of blood surrounding the exit wound. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the back of the victim’s head. From the inside.

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The ring of death

cobra

Have you ever wondered about that egg,- the one desperate Nagaina dragged with her into the abandoned rat-hole we called home? The one that Kipling doesn’t mention again. I was that egg. Now I am full grown. I’ve re-located. Living in another country you can deceive yourself that the past is insignificant, even that it never existed. In my reformulation, the story would have ended so very differently. Mostly I can forget that I was born an orphan, with 24 siblings slaughtered by that treacherous Rikki Tikki Tawi. I prefer the condensed moniker RTT;-to grace him with his full name may re- flesh memories preferred forgotten. Still, on hunting nights when the moon is waxing, I sometimes find myself involuntarily hissing it’s entirety, so magic-ing -up his mongoose wraithness.

Mom, you remember, perished but not before hiding me under the dung-enriched earth of a side alcove. Snakes,-cobras in particular,- have an excellent sense of smell and near-perfect recall. The offensive sweetness of desiccated rat-pellets mingling with the stink of jubilant mongoose, the muffled distant cries of Man as Mom was murdered, the jubilant rasping of  RTT as she lay dying, these are my earliest memories.

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A Salutary Tale of Social Death

Bad fairies

Look, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m just telling it as I saw things, without bias of species or kind. Everyone knows that fairies are generally delicate, helpful, magical creatures. Even so, like every species, there is a rogue element amongst the fairy community. My kindred gnome brothers and sisters have long known this. If we have rogue elephants and rogue humans, rogue fairies are inevitable (I’m not saying gnomes are perfect either).

We’ve all shouted ‘I believe in fairies’ to make sure Tinkerbell is revived and her light is rekindled. That’s a decent, humanitarian, cross species response to a kind creature in trouble; a very worthy fairy. But we also have to talk about those fairies who have fallen from grace.

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Death-Life Cycle

I think I may have been born to be wild, but it’s worn off a bit, Em Roberts thought.

            She watched her husband shambling across to the tower blocks. His body, tall but stooped, seemed to have a demolition notice on it. ‘I’ve burnt the candle at both ends, and now I’m paying for it,’ he’d whine to his lady listeners. ‘Had a motorbike when I was younger, chased after the ladies, partied till I dropped, lived for the day.’ A life of being on the razzle, and motor bike crashes, had left him as a crumbling exterior. His inside, Em believed, had been similarly gutted.

            All he did was sit at home and mope, or limp about the estate, both legs stiff like their bones had motorcycle steel embedded in them. In the summer he’d be outside a tower block, trying to impress this man’s wife, or that man’s woman, with recollections of his glorious past.  He still liked the ladies, and if you scrutinised his shambling body, and his unkempt grey hair, you might find a trace of former good looks, like a tint of blood at a road-crash decades after the event. Em had long stopped such scrutinising.

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RING OF FIRE

Trudging home from work, Billy Thomas ran into Owen Davies and his brother.

”Hey Billy, do you fancy a night out in Swansea. The rugby boys have hired a bus and there’s one seat left.”

After a moment’s hesitation Billy thought why not, he’d never been to Swansea on a night out. Rumour had it the girls were fair game and the beer was cheap.

Owen warned Billy that he would have to do the ring of fire as it was his first night out with the rugby boys.

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For Whom the Flames Burn

The first time I saw it, I was thirteen. I thought maybe I was about to have a migraine. Mum always said she saw flashing lights before they came on. It was a ring of fire, whirling like a vortex above my Grandad’s hospital bed.

“What’s that?” I said, as Mum tearfully held his mottled hand. His breathing rattled like Darth Vader.

“What are you talking about, Jake?” she sniffed, distracted.

“That circle over Grandad’s head?”

“They’re just wires. Medical equipment, that’s all,” she said.

“No! That ring of fire.” I said. It blazed larger and brighter by the second, the heat melting me, though everyone else shivered with cold.

Then the machines started beeping and the doctors came running.

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New Beginnings

Siegfried, the scout, was running out of hope and time.  His return journey home would have to be within the hour.  He pushed on a little longer and finally found his tribe’s salvation.  A remote village with a river running alongside nestled in the foothills.  He circumnavigated the dwellings in the moonlight, giving it a final check over before he returned to speak to the elders.

As dawn broke, the villagers resumed their daily chores.  The priest attended to his duties of administering help to the sick and giving the last rites.

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