‘And you, Keith, have won tonight’s star prize, an all expenses paid trip back to London in the year 1894’
I must admit, I looked quite dapper. I had on a frock coat (I believe that’s what they’re called) tapered trousers, a bow tie, and in my hand a rather fancy cane. Sadly those around me looked a bit scruffy in their tattered clothes, and as I passed by, many doffed their hats.I found that somewhat agreeable.
But the stench of unwashed bodies was horrendous. Smoke from coal fires choked the air, and stained the blonde Portland stone of the houses lining the street. Sewage ran down open gullies, and a herd of cows ambled past leaving steaming stinking pats on the cobbled road. I needed a libation, and I needed it urgently! However, finding a hostelry was not easy. The Temperance Society had been successful in shaming the working classes into a life of sobriety, and many had taken the pledge to abstain from imbibing intoxicating liquor. But I found an inn in Threadneedle Street and felt no guilt whatsoever in downing a frothing tankard of jet black stout.
I overheard a conversation. It seemed that Tower Bridge was to be officially opened that very afternoon, the bridge which I crossed daily in my present life. It had been an era of rapid change in London. In the space of a few years the underground railway had transformed travel. The Houses of Parliament became the seat of power, and Big Ben began to signal the changing hour. The Royal Family moved into Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square became the centre of the city. There I was, in the middle of the age which gave London the sights and images that folk from the world over flock to visit in increasing numbers every year.
I suddenly heard a familiar sound, but one I didn’t expect to hear in 1894! The Nokia ringing tone!
I blinked a couple of time, the ringing stopped and everything had changed back to 2010. ‘Hey, you nodded off!’ said my friend Rosey ‘and it’s your round! Mine’s a chardonnay’.
Little Jimmy went to stay with Granny and Grandpa. He always had fun when he went there. Grandpa had false teeth! Jimmy was fascinated by them because they seemed to move around in a different direction from his gums! Granny said that they’d never fitted properly and sometimes when he dozed off in his chair they fell out completely!
Well, the other morning when Jimmy came down for breakfast, Grandpa had lost his teeth! He was having great difficulty chewing his toast and had to dip it in his cup of tea to make it soft enough to swallow! 'I wonder where they've gone?' said Grandpa scratching his shiny bald head. But he had a huge toothless smile on his face which made Jimmy suspect that Grandpa was about to have a laugh at his expense!
On the table was a new pack of Jimmy’s favourite breakfast cereal, Chocolate Puffs which Jimmy always called rabbit droppings! There was a big bright splash on the box which said ‘Surprise Gift Inside’ so Jimmy plunged his hand into the cereal to dig it out. 'I wonder what it is?' he laughed. 'I love a a surprise!'
Suddenly he yelped! ‘Ouch’ he shrieked, and when he pulled his hand out Grandpa’s set of false teeth were attached to his middle finger. Jimmy shook his hand and the teeth flew across the room then bounced off the wall and fell to the floor.
‘There they are’ said Grandpa with a huge gummy grin on his face. He bent down to pick them up and suddenly they started to scurry across the carpet. Jimmy, Granny and Grandpa’s eyes popped out! The teeth were alive. Casper the cat looked on terrified. As the teeth rat-a-tatted towards him he turned round and fled, but the teeth were too quick for him and all of a sudden they shot across the floor and bit into Casper’s tail! Casper was not impressed and he spun round and round until the teeth let go and went flying up and up and up into the air.
Jimmy, Granny and Grandpa looked up in amazement, their eyes bulging, wondering where they were going to land next! Then down and down and down they fell, straight into Grandpas open mouth! Plop!
Jimmy decided to have a boiled egg and soldiers instead of rabbit droppings. Hopefully there would be nothing unusual lurking deep inside the yolk!
Don't forget to take part in this weeks Carry On Tuesday. Click HERE!
“Quand est-ce que je dois vous rencontrer?” Felicienne was talking on the phone to a friend. “J'attends avec intérêt de vous rencontrer”
I met her last year at an art exhibition. She told me she was a friend of the artist, and they certainly seemed to be very good friends! The first thing that attracted me to her was her accent. There’s something special, about the sound of a fille française! That’s a French girl by the way, and if you are impressed by my sudden switch to French, don’t be! Apart from a couple of phrases like ce qui est votre nom (what is your name) and vous venez pour enfoncer avec moi?, I can’t speak a word! I learned those two questions from a friend at work who was fluent in French. I suppose you want to know what the second question was. I thought it was an excellent chat up line at the time, but the only response I got was a slap around the face. It means...well, you know. Actually it was only a temporary setback and a week later we’d become an item. Finnian and Felicienne, what a mouthful! That was nine months ago.
It’s not that I didn’t trust her. Why should I not have? No, it wasn’t that. But she did seem to have a lot of calls from a French friend called Mystique, and with a name like that I was bound to be curious! Anyway, it seemed that Mystique was a colleague of Felicienne’s at the language school in which they both taught. It was known by the somewhat unoriginal title of The Anglo-French Academy, and aimed to ‘foster a greater understanding of our two great nations by the sharing of language’.Felicienne worked three evenings a week. I say evenings, she often got home after I’d gone to bed. There was clearly quite an after-hours social life attached to her job!
Going back to the language thing, as I said I didn’t suspect there was anything going on that I was being kept unaware of, but I was at the same time a little curious when it came to those long telephone calls.
Last week it was New Years Eve. We decided to make New Year resolutions. Why I don’t know, nobody ever keeps them! But I came up with a great one. I resolved to learn French. I told her that I was about to enrol at her college, The Anglo French Academy. I thought that even if the classes were a bore, at least I’d be able to join in with the fun some evenings after lessons. But her reaction was odd. She took a sharp intake of breath. “That’s a great idea” she said, but there was something about her tone of voice that made her seem a little odd.
I asked if she had any resolutions. She trotted out the usual ‘give up smoking’ one, then lit a cigarette and disappeared into the kitchen with the phone, jabbering away to her friend in French. What I didn’t know was that she had made another resolution. And her resolution was to stop me carrying out my resolution before I had a chance to turn up at college the next week.
Just after that, she said she had to go to meet Mystique, she wanted to join her for a drink and a chat. She changed into a particularly stunning black dress, told me not to wait up and off she went.
No sooner had the door slammed than the phone rang. It was George, a mate of mine. Seems he’d been to the New Year races and won a packet on the gee-gees. He wanted to go out and celebrate. He was a single guy and as he couldn’t tempt out a filly at such short notice, he asked if I would care to join him at the Ivy. The Ivy! One of London’s most expensive restaurants. The waiting list for a table was as long as your arm. It took a serious back-hander to get us in at a moment’s notice.
I felt like a celebrity when I walked in. It’s the kind of place where everyone who enters is greeted with a stare from the other diners in case they are well known. They soon got back to their food!
My eye was caught by a couple at a table on the other side of the restaurant. He was disarmingly handsome and all over his partner like a rash! What a display I thought. It was when she looked up to speak to the waiter I had the shock of my life. It was Felicienne. I didn’t know what to say or do. I moved to the side of our table so I’d have my back to her. There was no way I could make a scene in there. Anyway, it was George’s night so I did my best to carry on as if nothing had happened. Unsurprisingly I had no appetite, but the copious amount of wine and the endless brandies had something of a calming effect.
How could I have been so stupid? She was never a teacher. She never went near the Anglo-French Academy. She was one of a group of French girls that came to England to set up a high class escort agency. No wonder she didn’t want me to learn French. I‘d have discovered she and Mystique were unknown at the college. Not only that but I would I have understood her telephone conversations.
What a difference a week makes. She didn’t manage to keep her resolution, but I did! Tomorrow I’m off to The Anglo-French academy. I’d rather got used to the idea of having a French teacher for a girl friend.Que se produira à l'avenir ?
This week I'm returning to (Fiction)Friday. I will keep the prompt to myself so as not to spoil my story!
He awoke with a start. Through the gap in the curtains he saw sunlight. He realised he was in bed alone, he was confused. Where was Jane? He’d overslept. That was it. But why hadn’t she woken him? And it was Saturday, she always stayed in bed a little longer at the weekend.
He sat on the edge of the bed trying to get his mind around what was going on. Images began to fill his head. Things he'd done, things he'd said. During the past few weeks he'd ignored Jane's pleas. He closed his eyes and saw her anguished face, tears running down her cheeks. He heard her voice warning him that unless he changed, she would leave. He'd not taken her seriously. Jane would never leave me he thought.
The bedside clock said eleven fifty nine. Eleven fifty nine pm. PM? But it was daylight. It must have stopped last night.
The telephone rang downstairs. He rushed out of the room and stumbled as he ran down stairs two steps at a time. He grabbed the phone and steadied himself against a doorframe.
‘Is that John Thompson?’ asked a man’s voice at the other end of the line.
‘Erm, er...’. What was happening, for a second or so he’d forgotten his own name. ‘Yes, er yes. Who’s this?’
‘It’s Sergeant Foster... Bridgenorth police? We have something of yours here at the station’
‘My wife, you have Jane, my wife!’ he yelled. Even as he said it he knew he sounded stupid.
‘Mr Thompson, are you alright?’
‘Alright? Am I alright? Yes,yes, of course. I’m sorry Sergeant. What exactly do you have of mine?’
‘Your mobile telephone sir. It was handed in this morning. If you remember, you reported it lost a month or so ago. We just need you to call in and collect it’.
He went back upstairs and pulled a few clothes on. After another quick look around for his watch, he wandered outside and jumped into his car.
Everything around him seemed to be moving in slow motion. The cars in front of him were crawling. He pressed his horn. He pressed it again. The traffic continued at a snail’s pace. One by one they turned off. At last, he thought. He pressed his foot to the floor and began to hurtle forward.
Suddenly a woman wandered out in front of him. He slammed his hand on the horn and stood on the brakes. His car screeched to a halt, but the woman continued to meander across the road without even acknowledging him. He sat for a moment with his head in his hands, and then slowly started off again.
His eye was caught by a young lady wandering along the pavement. It looked like Jane. It was Jane. He slowed the car, wound down his window and called to her. ‘Jane’. She carried on walking looking down at her feet. She hadn’t heard him. ‘Jane’ he shouted, but she turned down an alley and disappeared from sight. What on earth was happening?
He climbed the steps to the police station. It was strangely empty inside. He pressed the bell on the desk but no one appeared. Pressed it again. Nothing stirred. He decided to leave but then he heard a voice behind him.
‘John Thompson I assume. Come for your phone?’
‘Erm, yes. I am... I mean I have’ John stammered.
‘We had to look at your messages when we were trying to ascertain that the phone was yours. It was after all, thirty days ago that you lost it. One message concerned us Mr Thompson. It was sent to you on the night you reported it missing’
Foster slid the phone across the desk. John felt dizzy, hot, cold, all at once. He flipped the phone open and turned it on. The screen told him he had one message. His fingers suddenly felt like jelly as he struggled to press the key.
It was from a number he didn’t recognise. It read ‘You have thirty days left to live. Use them wisely'.
I wrote this piece for Sunday Scribblings 'Pilgrimage' and Fiction Friday 'Collection' ''
May I read it to you? If so, click on arrow .
. “Have you seen my scarf darling, the blue one?”called Jonathon as he searched under the coats and jackets that hung by the door.
Julia sighed, and with a half smile said “You’d lose your head if it wasn’t screwed on!”
Just lately one thing after another had vanished. Nothing of particular importance. A pen, only a cheap one, but one he liked to use. He’d also mislaid a photograph of himself receiving an award at his firm’s dinner, and another of him reclining on a sun bed. And what happened to last year’s diary? He needed to look up a detail about a meeting, but it was nowhere to be seen.
“Good morning Julia”. Cheryl, their home help breezed into the kitchen with her usual cheery smile.”Jonathan left for work already? I’ll start my cleaning with his study today” she said as she tied the strings on her apron.
Cheryl was a stickler for tidiness. Trouble was she was so tidy that Jonathan often couldn’t lay his hands on things which he had known the exact position of before Cheryl sorted them out.
“I found these in the rubbish bin” she said. Julia looked into the plastic bag and saw a pile of old greetings cards, from birthdays and Christmases past.
“Mind if I take them” she said. “I can put them to good use”
Julia saw no reason why she shouldn’t. Jonathan was a bit of a hoarder, so she was delighted to see the back of them.
One afternoon just as Cheryl was about to leave, Julia asked if her if she would like to take a bag of Jonathans old clothes with her – they were almost new but not often worn. Maybe she could sell them at the church jumble sale. She took them willingly.
*
Cheryl liked to be alone in Jonathon’s study. Behind the closed door she could go through his things and imagine what it must be like for Julia, having him all to herself.
What made her do it, she didn’t really know, but one day she picked up the picture of Julia which sat on the desk and unscrewed the back of the photo frame. It was as if she knew what she would find inside. And there under Julia’s portrait was a faded picture of a young girl with the fairest hair and the palest blue eyes. And by her side a youthful Jonathan, his arm draped over her shoulder.
She took the photo over to the mirror and held it alongside her face. Her smile melted away.
Time had not been kind to her. She took off her spectacles and stared into the glass. Gone the smooth skin and alabaster complexion. Her furrowed brow and tired eyes were a testament to twenty years of sadness and longing. That cropped back hair never really suited her, but it was necessary.
Nothing remained of the girl she was except for her pale blue eyes.
*
It was a cold cruel winter’s day. Cheryl telephoned to say she was unwell and asked if Jonathon could call around that evening with a coat she had left behind the previous day.
She got from her wardrobe the dress she had worn the night Jonathan had walked away from her. It was faded, and no longer fitted properly. She sat in front of the mirror and tried to recreate the face she saw in that picture from all those years ago. Then she slipped on a wig of the fairest hair, and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Leaving the door ajar, she retired to a candlelit room at the back of the house and waited for Jonathon to arrive.
When he did so, she called for him to come on in. He followed her voice and walked slowly towards her.
What he saw took his breath away. In the flickering light of a score of candles he found himself surrounded by his own possessions, old photos, keepsakes and dozens of things he thought he’d mislaid. And there in the corner she sat on a chair, grotesque, absurd.
He froze, unable to think, let alone speak.
She stood and slowly walked across the room, to where he stood, motionless, and wrapped a blue scarf around his neck. She twisted it tighter and tighter until he was no longer able to breathe.
She left the room and turned the key in the lock. Her collection was complete.
This week on (fiction) fridaywe have been given the task of writing about a tree. This is my contribution
'
'
One hundred years ago, a hundred acorns landed on the ground around an old oak tree that had stood there for a hundred years.
Most simply rotted away. But their decomposition was not in vain, for they lived on in the soil enriching it to the benefit of those which survived.
A few years later one sturdy sapling stood tall, reaching toward the sun, soaking up the rain and steadfastly resisting the wind.
In time the stout sapling became a tree. An oak tree.
In the years that followed it looked on as successive generations came and went.
Small children climbed onto to its branches, the same branches that played host to the birds that wove their intricate nests amid the twigs and leaves.
Hearts were carved into its bark in which couples declared their undying love for each other.
' Squirrels scampered up and down with their cargo of nuts whilst brightly painted woodpeckers rat-a-tatted away busily creating hollow caves in the mighty oaks massive trunk.
The ravages of the weather left it unmoved. From the coldest winters to the hottest summers, it took everything in its stride. It never failed to produce a canopy of greenest green with every new spring and palette of extraordinary colours with the onset of each autumn.
But for the first time in its existence it received a threat. A threat too great to resist. The place that it had made its home for a hundred years was to become home to a hundred families in a hundred new dwellings.
'
*
The day before it meets its untimely end, a small child gathers up a handful of acorns which have fallen to the ground. In the next hundred years one of these tiny green acorns will grow into a mighty oak that his children and his children’s children will climb, and carve and love.
' (Fiction) Friday has asked us to write about how our character handles a serious bout of financial troubles. Well this chap's in all sorts of bother! He knew it was stupid. But he was desperate. The banks didn’t want to know him. His friends seemed strangely reluctant to help out. So against his better nature he resorted to meeting a money lender on a street corner in a quiet part of town. . The interest would be crippling. He knew that. But he had no choice. For the sake of his family he needed money and he needed it then. . One month later and there was a sharp knock at the door. He didn’t need to open it to know who was there. Louder bangs. The door shook, he shuddered. He was warned of the consequences if he failed to repay the loan, but he hadn’t been able to. . Only one thing for it. Open the window at the rear and jump. It was a two floor drop, but the risk was worth it – the alternative didn’t bare thinking about. ' He leapt out. He landed awkwardly and his foot folded under him. He couldn’t help it – he screamed out in pain. As he rolled into a ball gripping his ankle he heard the swish of people rushing through the bushes behind him.
Somehow - mind over matter, he didn’t know - he managed to raise himself and hobble and hop out of the garden and into a back street. His whole body was drenched with perspiration. The pain turned to numbness as he staggered out into the road. He heard his pursuers vaulting he fence behind him. A car screeched to halt in an effort to avoid him, but too late. He was lifted off the road, slid across the bonnet and smashed his head through the windshield smashing it into a thousand pieces.
*
‘You have a visitor’ said a gentle voice. ‘I’ll leave you alone, but whatever you do, don’t try to speak'. As he lay in the hospital bed only his eyes were visible through the bandages which wrapped his face and neck.
He recognised the person holding a large bunch of flowers.
He was filled with panic and fear. He saw the nurse disappear from view, and used every muscle in his body to try and force a cry for help. But no one heard him. The last thing he remembered was the curtains closing around his bed. . .
. . ULleft a comment on one of my posts in which she mentioned Fiction Friday. I thought I’d have a go. The idea seems to be that you write a piece in no less than five minutes then post it without first correcting it. That goes a bit against the grain for me, because I usually write articles a couple of days before posting them, then return to them several times for 'fine tuning' before hitting the Publish button! If you think they are pretty poor when you read them, you should see the original versions! Actually, I’ve already broken the first rule because I am supposed to post this on Friday, and today is Saturday! But this is my first go, so I should get away with no more than a slapped wrist!
The prompt was ‘New Year's Resolution your character breaks? How soon? Why’ So here it is. Well, as if that wasn't enough, up she popped again with another writers site -Sunday Scriblings! By co-incidence the prompt there was very similar to FFs - New Year, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one spoon so to speak! . . I resolved to go to bed earlier every night. One a.m. instead of two. At one thirty I realised I’d broken my first resolution. More sleep deprivation!
I resolved to eat three meals day, like breakfast lunch and dinner. But it only lasted for one day! It gave me constipation!
I resolved to change my route to work. Drive a different way each day. On the first day I took a wrong turn and got lost. Maximum confusion!
I resolved to drink only red wine. Good for my heart I was told. But I liked it so much I forgot to stop. Serious intoxication!
I resolved to go more green, and change my bulbs for low energy ones. Now I can’t see what I’m doing. Poor illumination!
Then I resolved to be myself, and stop trying to change the way I do things. I'm managing that one! My final resolution!
Is that it? Guess so. Now I'll pop off and post a couple of links and see what happens! Fun isn't it!
