The opening titles to Storybook International, a CITV show from the 80’s. It served as a signal that the next 20 minutes would be spent watching a tedious badly-dubbed foreign-made morality tale, and wondering why He-Man couldn’t be on every night.
Which is why I’ve used the flamboyantly-dressed herald of disappointment as the avatar for Friday’s Short Stories. It seemed appropriate.
He patched up the dam with his hands and his heat vision, posed for photographs, signed some autographs, rose into the air, hovered long enough to salute the cheering, grateful crowds then returned to his kitchen in a blur of red and blue.
He opened the packet of bread and reached past the crust to select the third and fourth slices and heard the sound of a flare gun going off in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
After setting the oil tanker down in a Honolulu dry dock he hovered long enough to salute the cheering, grateful crowds then whoosh, and he placed the bread under a medium grill, started to grate the mature cheddar into a bowl and he felt the faint yet distinctive vibrations of an attack by a giant radioactive monster off the coast of Kamakura.
The creature safely shrunk and placed in an empty screw-top beer bottle, he paused briefly to give two thumbs up for the assembled news teams then up, up and away and turning the bread and chopping some olives and gunfire in downtown Metropolis and he tied the Octomaster and his henchmen up using tentacles torn from the large, and largely unnecessary, robot octopus they had been travelling in and gave a wave to the chief of the MCPD and leapt a tall building in a single bound and pulled the grill pan out and carefully spread the cheese and olives evenly over the bread.
The evil genius had barely opened his mouth to gloatingly exposit his plan to decimate the eastern seaboard using the giant atomic gorilla he had grown in a big vat under his volcano lair before he was slammed through a wall by what appeared to be an angry red and blue streak of impatient energy.
He knelt at the grill: not quite done. The timing was crucial.
He gently set the stricken Jumbo Jet down onto the runway, and, leaving the passengers and crew none the wiser as to how they had pulled out of the nosedive at the last minute, he checked the grill again. Brown. Bubbling. Perfect.
The perfect cheese on toast. He got a plate from the draining board and, with thumb and forefinger made heatproof by exposure to yellow sun radiation, delicately lifted the toast from the grill. He smiled. He heard the sound of tyres screeching, and a child crying and shouting for a lost cat. He looked at the toast. He wasn’t a cat person.
Johnny happily reunited with Tintin, and aware of the dangers of leaving the front door open when you own a cat and live on a main road, he flew through his kitchen window and tipped the cold toast into the pedalbin.
He opened the packet of bread, and reached past the crust.
******
The Perfect Cheese on Toast by Harris
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I have been sitting patiently in this cupboard for about as long as I can bear it. It’s hard to tell exactly how long that is because the door is shut, and it’s dark, and I’m dead. Probably a few years though, if I had to guess.
That door will open any minute now.
Haunting a cupboard is easy, but boring. Unchallenging. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have a little corner of the corporeal world that I can call my own, and it’s good to have a job to do, but the trouble is nobody has ever opened the bloody door. Ever. And for a ghost, ever is quite a long time. It’s properly ever, you know, from the point you die to the heat death of the universe. As close to infinity as a person can get. And I’m spending it in a cupboard. Which is, I’ll admit, starting to get me down.
Any minute now.
I’ve tried to keep busy. I’ve sat here rehearsing techniques and strategies; planning temperature drops, disembodied murmuring, a little whispered breeze to the back of the neck of whoever might open the door; all the things that I figure would constitute a really top-notch haunting. I’m not just going to waft about going “Wooooo!”. I do take it very seriously, but so far it’s all been for nothing. Because the door stays shut. And I sit here, all see-through and, frankly, a little testy. Testy because I’m feeling useless, and also because I’m having a bit of a crisis. I’m starting to doubt my own existence.
That door will open.
Because, when I think about it, I’ve never actually seen a ghost. I’ve been worrying about that. Couple that with the fact that I’ve never even seen myself – of course I haven’t, what with it being dark in my cupboard, and what with me being transparent and everything. I suppose that makes sense, right? But… but what if I can’t see me because I’m not actually here? What if ghosts don’t exist, full stop? What then? Because that raises all sorts of interesting questions about me, and my, well, I was going to say “my life in this cupboard” but as life is the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, that wouldn’t really be accurate, but what is the noun for the condition of being a ghost and why did nobody tell me what it was before putting me in this cupboard? If somebody did put me here. I can’t remember. It was a while ago.
Any minute now.
I’ve thought about trying to open the door myself, of course I have, but the way I see it I must be here for a reason. I wouldn’t be sitting dead and invisible in a dark cupboard if there wasn’t some purpose to the whole endeavour. That would be crazy. Maybe… I mean, I could maybe just reach out a phantom limb, I must have one, I can’t see it but I must have at least one, mustn’t I, and push the door, give it a nudge, open it a crack, just a crack, no harm in that, take a peek, see what’s what, I could just pop my head out, look around, take a step or two, outside the cupboard, not too far, and I’d find somebody, and frighten them, get that reaction, then I’d know because they would feel it and believe it and I would believe. I could.
It’s dark in here and I’m not sure I’m real.
That door will open any minute now.
******
Haunted by Harris
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– Oh will you look at… They’re bloody doing it again!
Who are dear?
– Them bloody kids, who do you think? They’re out there again.
Can’t you just ignore them, dear?
– Oh they’d like that, wouldn’t they?
I really don’t know dear, would they?
– What? I’m telling you. It’s getting beyond a joke. The spitting and swearing, well, kids will be kids, won’t they? And the drinking, who didn’t at their age? And the knives and the ketamine and the crumping. All part of growing up. But this is beyond the bloody pale. Beyond. The. Bloody. Pale. I mean, look at them.
What are they doing dear?
– They’re floating, that’s what they’re doing. Floating there by the bus stop like… like big… look at me! I’m stuck for a simile, that’s how bloody angry I am!
Calm down dear.
– You calm down.
I am calm, dear.
– Well fine. Stay that way. I just don’t know how you can be with those bloody teenagers bobbing up and down in the breeze like… like… God damn it I’m angry! Floating kids. What next?
I wouldn’t know, dear.
– I’ve got a good mind to go out there and glue their feet to the floor. There, try floating now you buggers. If I were ten years younger I would have, just see if I wouldn’t.
They’re not hurting anybody, are they?
– Not hurting? Not..? What’s that got to do with… they are blatantly breaking the laws of bloody physics out there, right in front of my bloody house, and I don’t see why I should have to sit here and watch them drifting through the, the area like… like bloody… God damn it!
Dear? Dear, are you ok?
–
Dear?
–
Dear, are you crying?
– I wish I was young. I want to be young. I wish I was young.
******
Them Bloody Kids by Harris
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Will and George stood at the doorway, peering in to Brian’s bedroom.
“Brian! We’re off out. Sure you don’t want to come?” asked Will.
Brian just lay on his bed. The curtains were drawn. Something sad by Sigur Ros burbled away on the stereo.
“Pathetic,” said Will.
“Oh come on. It hit him hard,” said George. “She stole his heart.”
“And that’s why he’s not coming out? The big puff.” said Will.
“Look at him. He can’t come out like that, can he?” said George.
Will shrugged, unimpressed.
“She really took his heart.” said George.
“So now’s the time he should be out and about. Meeting new people. Having a flirt.” said Will. “He’s a lovely feller when he’s not moping around with a big cavity above his left nipple.”
“Yeah, but a gaping chest wound like that, it’s going to distract from his personality, no matter how winning.” said George.
Brian just lay there, immobile, with a big hole where he used to have ventricles and an aorta and all that useful stuff. Sigur Ros got incomprehensibly yet stirringly anthemic in the background.
“It is a massive wound, yeah, but… you know, this music won’t be helping. What is this shit?” said Will. “He should put some Newton Faulkner on. I wonder what she did with it. His heart, I mean.”
“Ate it, probably.” said George. “What? How do I know what she did with it? Wrapped it in foil and put it in her box of memories? Threw it out? Filled it with helium and carried it bobbing behind her like some grisly wet party balloon? Who knows?”
“So. He’s not coming out then.” said Will. “The big puff.” he reiterated.
“Not tonight,” said George. “Still, time heals all wounds. Give him a couple of days, he’ll be fine.” he added, philosophically.
They looked at the exit wound once more. It was crusted with dried blood and black cakey bits.
“Maybe a week.”
They left him to it.
******
Brian Isn’t Coming Out by Harris
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My three regular readers will have noticed that I am trying to write a story a week (if you’d like to read them all, just click “tiny tales” in the categories menu to the right there). I started doing it to try and encourage myself to regularly write something creative, even if it’s only short. And whatever I write on Thursday night, that’s what I’ll post. Which means quality will vary somewhat. It also means tone will probably vary according to my mood, as I’m not giving myself time to edit or rewrite.
It’s instant storytelling, disposable fiction. It’s laziness, basically.
So some of them might be ok, some might not. Some are funny, some really aren’t. Some of them are coherent, readable etc…
You can’t hit a coconut every time, is what I’m saying. Please do feel free to add comments though, whether you enjoy them or don’t. Give me kudos or a kicking. I’d love to hear from you. Constructive criticism will be gladly welcomed – I’m new to this short story lark.
“We could go you know? Come with me,” he said. “Hawaii. We never could before, but now… honestly, it wouldn’t be easy, but we could do it.”
“No… I don’t know… no. It’s impossible,” she said.
“Impossible? I mean… well, it just isn’t. It’s not Narnia. It’s not even slightly allegorical, it’s totally real. They have flights there and everything.” he said.
She looked at him, eyes glistening with tears.
“It’s impossible,” she said, “because I’m in this hole”
“It’s… yes, you are in a hole,” he said, “But it’s quite a shallow hole.”
He peered down into the hole. She looked back up at him and shook her head sadly.
“I’m in this hole and so we can’t,” she said. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“I could help you out, if you’d like,” he said.
“Out?” she said, incredulous, “You?”
“Well, “ he said, “I mean, I could just sort of reach my hand out and you could hold it and I could just help you out of the hole. It might work.”
“But… What if it didn’t? Or, what if it did? Then what would happen?” she said.
“I can’t honestly say for sure,” he said. “But you’d be out of the hole, at least.”
“I might fall back in,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “You might.”
“Or a bus might drop on me.”
“I…”
“If I was with you, and out of this hole, so many bad things could happen.” she said.
“Yeah. I’ll admit the bus thing simply never crossed my mind.” he said.
“I’d probably be best just staying in the hole until you’ve gone away,” she said. “In case of buses, or whatever.”
“So you want me to…”
“Or evil squirrels, with throwing knives. They can’t get me in here. Hey! You should go to Hawaii without me,” she said, seemingly brightening a little. “You’ll love it there and you’ll meet lots of great people, and you’ll have fun and all the people you meet will be better than me, because they won’t be in a hole. And you’ll be happier.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “Do you think that’s true?”
“I love you,” she said. “Goodbye.”
He stared into her eyes, eyes which were once again filling with tears. Tears for whom, he couldn’t say. He looked away, then turned and began to slowly walk away from the hole, in the general direction he imagined might lead to Hawaii. He made it five steps away from the hole before stopping, turning and stepping back again. Now he was crying.
“I can’t leave you,” he said, “This hole, it’s not that deep. And I could get a rope. Or a ladder. I can get a block and tackle. Or balloons and helium. A big plunger. Some kind of lever, just flip you out of there like a, like a pancake, or, I… please, just take my hand.”
He reached his hand into the hole, fingers outstretched. His tears were falling, falling into the hole like rain. She raised her head, looked deep into his eyes, looked down again, looked up once more. She smiled, and he could no longer tell if the tears on her face were from her eyes or his. And…
One hundred years later, they were both dead.
******
The Hole by Harris
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Jessica’s head rested on the car window, and she watched the trees rushing by in a blur of reds and golds. Autumn was her very favourite time of year, and the forest her favourite place. But the pretty colours couldn’t console her, not today.
She sniffled, and wiped her nose on the back of her pink woollen mitten.
“Mummy,” she whined, her feet kicking the back of the driver’s seat, “I love him. I’ll look after him. It’s not fair!”
“He’s not happy with us in our house. You didn’t want to have him put down, did you? Well, did you?” said Jessica’s Mummy, looking in the rear view mirror at her daughter.
“No!” said Jessica.
“No. So… look, at least out here he’ll have a chance, living in the wild.”
“But.. in the wild? But you said he could go and live on a farm. You said…”
“I know what I said, but I just don’t think there are any farms that would take him,” said Mummy, pulling in to the side of the road. “He’ll love it out here. He can eat… I don’t know, rabbits or something.”
Handbrake on, she opened her door, got out, had a quick look round. She stared into the dense woodland for a moment.
“He’ll be happy out here, you’ll see” she said, opening the rear door for her daughter to clamber out. “Come on”
They both walked to the back of the car. Jessica’s mummy opened the boot.
“Come on then. Come on. Out you get,” she cooed.
Gerald, bloodshot eyes wide with terror, leapt out of the boot and half-ran, half-stumbled into the woods without even bothering to try and release his hands from the gaffer tape.
“There look. See how happy he is?” said Mummy. “Now come on, let’s go and find you a new Daddy!”
Jessica sniffed once, and took a final look into the forest, to see Gerald run headlong into a tree and drop like a sack of spanners. She smiled. This Daddy was funny. She sniffed again, then climbed back into the car.
“Can we have one with a moustache this time?” she asked, as the car pulled away. “I like the ones with moustaches”.
******
Every Dog by Harris
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DCI Allinson surveyed the crime scene. It was a living room like any other in Britain. Magnolia walls, IKEA coffee table, a ridiculously bulky widescreen plasma TV burbling in the corner. And on the sofa, Mr McCarthy, a middle-aged man in decent shape, lying sprawled with a large wooden stake through his heart.
I should get one of those TVs, thought Allinson.
His gaze fell on the man’s wife, sitting on the tastefully-upholstered armchair. She appeared distraught, hands shaking as she drew hungrily on a cigarette.
Allinson’s partner, DCI Welsh, was taking notes in his little pad.
“And you admit you stabbed your husband through the heart?” said Allinson.
“Yes. I… I had to. It was self defence. He was a vampire.” said Mrs McCarthy.
Welsh looked up from his pad.
“He was a… I’m sorry, what?” asked Allinson.
“A vampire. Nosferatu.”
“Um…” He glanced over at Welsh. Welsh looked confused.
“How many eff’s in Nosferatu?” asked Welsh.
Allinson looked up at the ceiling for a moment. Nice cornicing.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” he said, eyes returning to the suspect, “what led you to believe that your husband was a… a vampire?”
“Well… he wore a lot of black”
“Go on.”
“And he… he didn’t like garlic,” she added.
“What? Oh for… you’re telling me you killed your husband because… Jesus Christ. Look, I’m wearing black and I don’t like garlic. Are you going to..?”
With a scream DCI Welsh leapt to the sofa, wrenched the stake from Mr McCarthy’s body, turned and thrust it into DCI Allinson’s chest.
As Allinson sank to the carpet, gurgling, Welsh knelt by Mrs McCarthy and laid a calming hand on her shoulder.
“There there, it’s OK. I am so sorry,” said DCI Welsh. “I had no idea. Dirty vampires, they get everywhere.”
******
Vampyros Stupidos by Harris
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Gazing up at the stars that cloudless summer night, I felt compelled to speak.
“Hi God,” I said.
I didn’t believe in God. I had no faith at all. Then again, nobody I knew had any faith in me, and I existed as far as I could tell, so I reasoned it was worth a try.
“God,” I said, “I’ve made a mess of things.”
I paused: no answer. I took this as a cue to continue.
“Really badly. So, I was just wondering. Could you maybe help me fix everything? Make it all better? Somehow?”
“No,” said God, “Not really. Sorry.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I am sorry,” said God.
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I didn’t really… I mean, I just thought it was worth asking.”
There was an awkward pause. I wanted to leave but… How do you leave the presence of God? He’s omnipresent. You can’t walk away from Him, you’d just be walking towards Him at the same time. So I just stood there for a bit.
“I could give you some advice, if you’d like, ” said God, breaking the silence. “For what it’s worth.”
“Right. Er… yeah, ok,” I said, “Why not?”
And he whispered in my ear. It was good advice.
It wasn’t really applicable to my current situation, but it was good to know that, if somewhere further down life’s winding path I was to get attacked by a grizzly bear, I’d know what to do.
“Thank you, God, ” I said. And he was gone.
Thinking about it, the last time God sorted out a big mess it involved carpenting a nice man to death over a long weekend, so I could see why he’d be reluctant to intervene in this case.
Me, I’d have considered it.
******
The Big Mess by Harris
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Ramshackle Charm 