{"id":697,"date":"2021-01-11T09:52:02","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T09:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=697"},"modified":"2021-01-11T09:52:08","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T09:52:08","slug":"the-misadventures-of-cuthbert-the-couchs-layer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/the-misadventures-of-cuthbert-the-couchs-layer\/697\/","title":{"rendered":"The Misadventures of Cuthbert \u2013 The Couch\u2019s Layer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cuthbert, now twenty-one, had grown out of his gawky youth and now was slightly bordering on the podgy side.\u00a0 This was partly due to the amount of time he spent on the couch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHi Cuthbert, you\u2019re home early?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHi mum, what\u2019s for tea\u201d he replied avoiding answering the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His mother looked at him shrewdly,  \u201cDid Mr Evans give you the afternoon off then?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was rumbled and he knew it.  \u201cYes, this afternoon and every other afternoon,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh Cuthbert, you\u2019ve been sacked again, what\u2019s that, about the tenth job in a row?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAw mum, let\u2019s not talk about it now, Star Wars is on in a minute.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re just like your father!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Cuthbert, smiled at his recollections of his father, who he had last seen on his sixth birthday. Telling Cuthbert that he was off to explore the world, which greatly impressed Cuthbert. His father was actually living two streets away, shacked up with the barmaid from the Red Lion.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to have to get another job.\u201d his mother sobbed, \u201cI just can\u2019t afford to keep both of us fed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In desperation, she phoned her brother.  They had never been close, but he was her only hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAdrian, I need a favour, please take Cuthbert on as an apprentice or something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHang on a minute, why? He hasn\u2019t got a working bone in his body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She bristled at her brother\u2019s remark, \u201cYou remember that vase you broke, Mother\u2019s favourite, I kept quiet for you then, well, maybe I should tell her now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, now you mention it, maybe I could find an opening, send him around to the shop tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood News Cuthbert, you uncle Adrian\u2019s willing to give you a job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s great mum, what does he actually do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, acquisitions I think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan you drive, Cuthbert?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have had loads of lessons but\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His uncle cut in, \u201cGood, I need you for a job this afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His uncle explained what he expected him to do, it didn\u2019t seem too difficult so Cuthbert went along with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He sat in the car down the road from the bank and waited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gang having reached the bank were pulling their stockings onto their faces, when Adrian began swotting a wasp away from his face. Cuthbert\u2019s had taken his glasses off and was putting a plastic moustache on when he noticed him waving. He gunned the car into action. Seconds later the car came to a wheel-screaming stop outside the bank, the gang gave each other a bewildered look before jumping in their getaway car.  They hadn\u2019t even been inside the foyer of the bank let alone the vault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cuthbert, aka The Kid, was very pleased with himself and was confused when his uncle sacked him.  As he had been sworn to secrecy, he would have to let his imagination, which always worked harder than he did, find a plausible reason for his mother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cuthbert, now twenty-one, had grown out of his gawky youth and now was slightly bordering on the podgy side.\u00a0 This was partly due to the amount of time he spent on the couch. \u201cHi Cuthbert, you\u2019re home early?\u201d \u201cHi mum, what\u2019s for tea\u201d he replied avoiding answering the question. His mother looked at him shrewdly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A great new short story from SWANSEA WRITERS - \nThe Misadventures of Cuthbert \u2013 The Couch\u2019s Layer\n\n#FLASHFICTION","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[379,380],"tags":[388,387,389,386],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-379","category-january-2021-crime-wave","tag-couch","tag-cuthbert","tag-layer","tag-misadventures"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-bf","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}