“You know”, he said, while also slowly sitting down, “today is my birthday….”
“Oh, how wonderful! Let’s celebrate that. We go somewhere for a glass of champagne.”
“But… we just got here. I want to celebrate here with you.”
“No”, she insisted, “first we must go out. I want to drink with you, somewhere in a bar. We come back here afterwards, I promise! Just half an hour. Come on, don’t be cheap.” She tried her best smile.
A short silence, then he took a breath and agreed. But nothing was over yet. Sitting at the bar, he looked at her: “Congratulations, you managed to get out of my apartment. But what now, little flower?”
She looked around. People were chatting, drinking, and laughing together. Would anybody believe her, if she asked for help?
That’s when genius stroke her. She knew where to take him to find safety.
(To be continued)
Copyright 2019 Andrea Bernard
words: 154, writing and editing intermingled: 15 minutes
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Appearances can be Deceptive
Appearances can be so deceptive, One of the books I am currently reading features a pretty young lady who everyone loves, but she has to be careful with everything because she has superhuman strength and crush a person’s hand just by shaking it, or shatter a wine glass while relaxing with friends. This book reminds me of an incident while I was working in a shop some years ago. A very scruffy and smelly bearded gent came in, wearing badly fitting filthy clothes. luckily he walked right past my section. He asked for help at another counter bought what he wanted, and left. Afterwards I was told that when he came in again, I was to find whatever he wanted because he was the richest person in the area, owned a lot of property, and was more or less a hermit, only venturing from the hovel that he lived in when he absolutely had to. Since then I look at tramps and wonder.
More recently I saw a shop called Teknicolor. Very smart black and gold fascia with the name in a modern font. In the window were three colour plates of full length fashion models. I thought that this was a photographic studio, or at least an expensive camera shop. But no! It was a unisex hairdresser / barber shop. Appearances really can be deceptive.
Official portrait
When the company moved offices, there was the matter of the Official Portrait of His Excellency — to consider. The secretaries to the CEO and CFO said to the secretary to the Company Secretary of a blue chip company that hers should be the office to accept the honour of hanging the Official Portrait on its wall.
Of course, the Sec. to the Co. Sec. had to accept such an honour. Not to do so would be unpatriotic. It was noted, however, that she did position her desk with her back to the Official Portrait. At least there was one beautiful face visitors could look at when they entered her office.
©2019 Allison Wright
[113 words.]
The Trap (1)
She knew she had made a mistake as soon as she entered the apartment and he locked the door behind her with a key. This was not a normal visit of an apartment available for rent. Staring at the key in the door lock, her mind was spinning. I need to get out of this apartment, was all she could think. “Sit down”, the guy said with a smile on his face. She sat on the big bed that was dominating the room. The bedspread had a leopard skin pattern. I have to stay calm. Not show my panic. Think.
(To be continued)
Copyright 2019 Andrea Bernard
101 words, writing: 3.5 minutes, editing: 8 minutes
Hitcher or Hitched?
On our way to Galway in the van, we saw him, black plastic cape flapping wildly, the wings of a monstrous crow caught in a squall. Soaked, he extended a bony thumb and as we passed, I saw he was an old man, maybe in his eighties, his lined face screwed up tightly against the rain. He was an unlikely hitcher but we stopped, brakes squealing in the wet. I shoved up closer to Joe on the bench seat. The man smelt of wet sheep. “Where to ?” I asked him, “Monroe’s bar, a few miles on,” he boomed out, surprising loudly and cheerfully after his drenching “Drop me there and I’ll stand you a drink and a game of cards.” Later, several pints of Guinness and an unfathomable card game later, he trapped me in a dingy corridor on my way to the loo and begged me to marry him. I told him I wasn’t very good at looking after sheep.
Black for business
James, the geologist, had to walk through my office upstairs to his. That day, he came in after lunch with a new black leather folder that held a pad of A4 paper, and fastened shut with what purported to be a brass clasp.
I greeted him and asked how the interview for the new job had gone. He was somewhat astonished at the question, since he had not mentioned anything about looking for another job to me.
“How did you know?”
I smiled, and took out of my desk drawer my own new folder, identical to his.
“Don’t say anything,” he said.
“I won’t if you won’t,” said I.
©2019 Allison Wright
[119 words.]
Old things
Everyone else thought the candle museum in Sydney was amazing in 1986. So many shapes and colours. To me, it all looked like those useless porcelain figurines people attach value to. On the top floor, there were some other arts and crafts. I was taken by the handwoven cushion covers. Piles of them Any 4 for $10.
I must have spent 30 minutes choosing which ones I wanted. I spent another 30 minutes deciding if I wanted to spent a whole $10. I got good use out of those cushion covers. Decades later they looked a bit shabby, except for the blue one, which was merely frayed around the edges.
I took a piece of denim, and appliquéd two sides to the cushion I made for João’s first wheelchair.
Years later, she got a real cushion, designed especially for her new wheelchair. I stuffed the cushion cover with a new piece of foam rubber and sat on it for years at my desk.
I used it this summer on top of another chair to put my swollen feet up while working
Today I gave an old chair I was refurbishing to a friend. I cannot take it with me when I move. She preferred this old cushion cover to the piece of foam rubber I had not yet covered.
She has a special shack where she sits and thinks at the bottom of her garden.
I remembered about choosing the original cushion cover in Sydney. I had forgotten about the rest until now.
My friend looked nice sitting on the old cushion in the old chair, trying it out for size. She’ll put some life into those old things. I know she will.
©2019 Allison Wright
[279 words. Total time: 11 minutes]
The End of the Line
In a dark corner of my office there is a small box. It’s bright and colorful, but otherwise utterly unremarkable. It emanates a strange odor, reminiscent of the musky, moldy basements where it had been kept over the past twenty years, before my Mom had thought of giving it to me.
In it, there is a pile of yellowing, crumbling paper that smells even older. Pages and pages of text that my 12-year-old self wrote on an old typewriter. Short stories, lyrics, school projects; deep thoughts only a teenager could think. I spent days, weeks, months, pressing down the mechanical keys of that typewriter, seeing letters magically appearing behind the ribbon, words manifesting on page after page, the loud clacking of the keys and the ethereal ping reminding me that I had reached the end of the line.
Ping.
[139 words]
(c) Anett Enzmann 2019
Clarity
“She’s just like you!”
We met Tom and Sally at a small restaurant in Encinitas, California. Tom had picked us up at the airport, but I had yet to meet his wife, son, and sister, who joined us shortly after we had been seated at a large round table. Sally, who had been previously described to me as introverted and awkward, engaged me quite vividly, asking me all kinds of questions about where I was from, what I was doing and the like — the kind of polite scrutiny you would expect upon meeting people for the first time, especially when you’re about to marry their closest friend of thirty years.
After a while I excused myself to go to the restroom — in no small part, to give everyone the opportunity to gossip. My fiancé had been doing this every time we met his friends on this trip: as soon as I left, he would say “So? What do you think? Isn’t she awesome?” I liked that little ritual even though I was slightly embarrassed by the flood of compliments and awe I would receive by proxy when we got home. And this time was no different.
Back in the car, my fiancé told me how Sally — as soon as I was out of earshot — in a moment of clairvoyance had blurted out the one sentence that we keep quoting to each other to this day:
“She’s just like you!”
To this day we are not sure whether she meant it as a compliment or an insult. But whichever it was, she couldn’t have been more right.
[267 words]
(c) Anett Enzmann 2019
Brief exchange
I saw my neighbour with his small tractor and trailer taking old furniture to the communal rubbish bin this afternoon. When he returned, I hailed him.
He stopped on the other side of the road. I stood inside my gate and told him the latest news. He could not hear me above the noise of the engine so he just turned of the ignition in the middle of the road.
A car behind him slowed down and overtook him.
It was a brief exchange. He started up his engine again and went on his way. My nostrils flared at the smell of diesel. They always do.
©2019 Allison Wright
[11o words]
five stray minutes 