Leo by Andrea Marcusa, hot chocolate

Home alone I hear a funny noise and my cockatiel, Leo, fluffs her yellow feathers, pecks at her tail, hops on my finger and says, “No one’s going to break into the house because criminals don’t like Northeasters and it’s raining cats and dogs.”

According to Leo, there’s no way there would be time to tie my bedsheets together during a housefire so I should save up my allowance and buy a 20-ft rope ladder from Amazon.

When I bring home a helium balloon from a birthday party, Leo tells me popping a balloon is bad luck and instead to let it deflate over time then cut it with scissors and toss. My mother wants to dump it as soon as it arrives. “Why save that thing. It’ll never look as good as it does now.” But I refuse, telling her Leo wants me to save it.

Plus, Leo says don’t believe or do everything everyone tells me, even my mom. “She’s the queen of data-free analysis.  Believe me I know.”

Last month she said that broccoli won’t make your hair curl and there’s no way when I cross my eyes that they will stay that way.  

Yesterday she whispered that my mom’s friend Barbara who texts and calls constantly is really a man called Bill.  “You know that sales conference you mom went to last month and you had to have mean Ms. Quizzard stay with us? That was the two of them going upstate for a weekend at a B&B.

One morning before school, Leo hops onto my shoulder, leans out, takes a poop, it lands on the floor and as I scoop it up, she says, “It’s okay to pretend to be sick and skip school.  It’s Hitchcock week on TMC.”

“I can’t Leo.  I have a math test today.”

“Don’t be such a lapdog. Those pathetic canines drive me crazy the way they’re always looking for a pat on the head and waiting outside their human’s closed bathroom door. It’s degrading.”

Mom’s already left for the office, so I stay in my P.J.s and flop on the couch with Leo on my shoulder.

While we’re watching Vertigo, Leo tells me when Jimmy Stewart runs up the Mission Church bell tower, that religion is for the birds. “Man created religion. Why would God want a bunch of men in robes acting important when birds run the world?”

That same day she tells me that Santa Claus is fake news. But I sort of already knew this. 

Then she says, “Metaphorically speaking, you need to make some friends. You can’t hang out with me forever and become one of those crazy ladies with birds.”

I can’t believe she’s said this. I thought Leo was my pal. Usually, she’s a lot nicer than the kids at school so I forgive her.

After Vertigo, we watch Rear Window, and when it’s over, Leo suggests making chocolate chip cookies. “I’m not supposed to use the stove or oven when mom is at work.” I tell her.

Leo gives me her one-sided, side eye and says, “It bakes at 350; it’s not like you’re using the broiler.”

I take out flour, sugar, butter, baking powder, eggs and chocolate chips and make the batter, pushing the spoon into my mouth as many times as I feel like. Leo doesn’t seem to care.

I pop them in the oven, clean up so there’s no mess for Mom to find when she gets home and then settle down with Leo to watch Netflix’s Botched about failed plastic surgeries. Leo loves commenting on terrible nose jobs.

“How can Dr. Nassif call that man’s hook nose a beak! He should lose his license!” She squawks.

I don’t think of the cookies again until smoke fills the den.

“Leo, why didn’t you remind me?”

But Leo remains quiet, busying herself with her tail feathers. I dump the burned cookies in the trash, open the front and back doors to the condo to clear out the smoke before Mom returns from work and then run upstairs for a sweater because it’s cold.

When I return, I can’t find Leo. I check the living room, the bathroom where she usually rests on the shower fixture. I race to the yard calling “LEO!” I pedal my bike around the neighborhood calling and calling. But she’s nowhere. I post on lost pet internet message boards, and tape paper fliers on telephone poles. I leave seeds on our front porch and pray each night for her return because it’s okay to pray to a being (bird or otherwise) even if religion is manmade.

How could Leo have left? I thought she liked living in my house. Enjoyed the treats of toast corners and bits of banana I always saved for her.

I thought she liked me.

When I arrive home from school each day, I keep thinking I’ll see her in the house flying about or hear her chirping.  But it’s dead quiet now.  Watching TV isn’t even fun when she’s not here. I find myself looking forward to school because there I don’t think about Leo being gone. And there are kids to talk to. They all felt bad for me, made a card with a drawing of a bird and every kid in the class signed it. One girl, Amanda, told me about losing her cat Skunky last year. She now saves me a seat at her lunch table and today she gave me half of her red velvet cupcake

A week after Leo’s disappearance, my mother finally realizes that my bird is gone.

“She flew away.  I tried to stop her, but she just flew took off out the back door.” I fib a bit, so she won’t get mad. Leo always said that a fib isn’t the same as a lie.

My mother frowns, sighs and says, “We can get another bird.”

But I shake my head, no. I’m old enough to understand that Leo wasn’t just any bird. Instead, I turn on Netflix to watch the episode of Botched where Dr. N. calls the man’s hook nose a beak. Mom joins me on the couch, something she rarely does.

When we reach section about the man with the hook nose, I say, “He can’t be much of a doctor. That man’s nose is nothing like a bird’s beak.”

My mother laughs. Another odd occurrence.

Then I add, “I think he should lose his license.” 

About the author 

Andrea Marcusa's writings have appeared in Gettysburg Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Citron Review, and others. She’s received recognition in the competitions Smokelong, Cleaver, Raleigh Review, New Letters and Southampton Review. 

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On the Wrong Track by Jane Spirit, coffee from a fancy machine

 How many times did Kate have to tell Mark that she’d ended up on the wrong track in life? That was the way she had put it to him in any case, although to her it felt as if she had careered off some mountain trail on a speeding motorbike before plunging onto the rocks below and bursting into flames. These days Kate had no certainty that she would ever be able to rise, phoenixlike, from the glowing, metallic scraps of her failed dreams.

Kate had never wanted so very much either – only a small though well-designed flat to call her own and an interesting job doing something creative, or in the media. The icing on her cake would have been a little bit of recognition for her talents. Only after that would she have dared to aspire to placing a cherry on the top. A stable kind of relationship formed a soft-focus background to this in her mind’s eye, against which the resulting children she envisaged were sharply silhouetted. They unfolded in her imagination like a chain of paper dolls: three identical little girls, their dresses and matching diminutive shoes ready to be coloured in with pink and pastel blue crayons. Kate would then raise these triplets in a wonderfully haphazard, multitasking way and each would become uniquely brilliant.

In the meantime, Kate had grudgingly come to accept her lot. At times she had even settled into a kind of bleary-eyed contentment when others congratulated her on affording the nice enough flat to come home to from an ‘interesting’ job that kept her busy helping other successful, creative women. Kate advised these clients on the best way to arrange their finances so that they could stage their event weddings or choose the furniture and décor they desired for their family homes. Kate’s expertise would make it possible for them to dress their children in candy-striped cotton and to find the time to scrape back their babies’ blond hair into cute ponytails, despite their constant artistic commissions. The ribbons in their toddlers’ hair would match their mother’s own casual polka dot blue trainers. Oh, and there would be a kind partner too, she reminded herself, a constant steadying presence who seemed anxious to commit themselves to her and to her ambitions. To be fair to Mark, she reflected, he was certainly a steadying influence. His was always the voice of reason. Having children, from his perspective, was always a question of affordability, a potential outlay to be considered at some more distant point in time when their own financial arrangements had borne the necessary fruit to sustain a comfortable if mundane future.

On that morning, Kate realised as soon she stepped into the designer Mariana Pendula’s’ penthouse apartment, that her own life had not gone off-piste through some momentary carelessness or bad luck that could be corrected. No. Her true life had been stolen from her and was now being paraded in front of her eyes to torment her. The woman who had greeted her on the intercom and who now buzzed her into the white carpeted hallway even looked a little like her, although her wavey auburn hair was casually scraped back whilst Kate’s recent sharp cut had been styled to frame her paler face. Kate was wearing a well-tailored charcoal trouser suit with a cerise blouse to add the obligatory splash of colour. Her client’s faded jeans and baby pink cotton shirt seemed effortlessly elegant as she held out her hand to shake Kate’s. When Kate moved to return the handshake, she caught a glimpse of the woman’s blue polka dot designer slip-ons. Somehow, Kate still managed to maintain the warm and engaging smile she had rehearsed earlier in her bathroom mirror as a means of getting into character for work. Recently Kate had found that her smile sometimes uncoiled itself a little as she practised and, if unchecked, would form itself into the rictus grimace of a cartoon rattle snake. The woman had offered her a coffee from her fancy machine and invited her to take a seat in the small office off the main reception room. From there Kate could view the full extent of the open plan living room and its offset couches as well as the distant prospect of the kitchen area with its massive, marble island and far-flung extendable dining table. Seated tentatively with her coffee, Kate found that she was not even surprised when three small girls came bounding into the room in a flurry of pinkness, pursued presumably by their nanny. Their blond hair, as Kate would have expected, had been caught up in blue-checked ribbons. Each was quickly tamed by a casual embrace and gentle words from their mother, then handed back to the nanny and calm restored; the interruption being just a part of their mother’s no doubt wonderfully haphazard multitasking day.

When Kate got back to her office at lunchtime, she reached into her capacious work handbag to extract the morning’s signed documents and discovered that she must have left them behind. She had no choice but to retrace her steps, wasting valuable work time. Much worse, she would have to appear particularly obsequious, apologising to the woman who had somehow purloined her life, for the inconvenience of buzzing her up to the apartment and steering her again to the little office to pick up the papers that she had left neatly stacked, face downwards.

When she left the penthouse apartment for the final time, Kate could think only of how close she had been to breaking down. She hurried, head down, through the streets, remembering the way that, when the woman had left her alone again for a few moments, she had found herself opening her handbag to finger the pretty little gold lighter she always carried there to remind her of her grandmother. It would have been so very easy to fumble with the ready primed keepsake and then tilt its tiny flame down towards the paper stack. She would not have let anyone suffer as a result of course, but still, just for a moment, it had occurred to her how much it might have cleared her head to watch the other woman’s perfect life begin to crinkle a little at the edges, suddenly vulnerable as it caught light.

Then Mariana had returned, and Kate had realised that she need do no more than smile and leave. The other woman’s casual composure had gone, and Kate could see from her eyes that she had been crying. Mariana had closed the door behind her, but as they had spoken their goodbyes the sound of a man’s voice shouting and small children screaming in tantrum had still penetrated the small room. As Kate made her way out, the crash of glassware against exposed brick had been unmistakeable, though neither woman spoke of it. Kate had been surprised by the mixture of shame and relief, but also by the extraordinary calm she had felt as she descended in the elevator towards the street and back to her ordinary life. That other perfect life, the one with the fabulous apartment, the creative job, and the triplets in pink, had not been stolen from her after all. It just hadn’t ever existed, except, it seemed, in her mind.

Kate made her way home. She could not bring herself to look at the completed papers from Mariana or to explain to Mark how her unhappiness had brought her close to taking desperate measures. Mark could not understand why she handed in her notice the next day when she had just been assigned the first of what might have turned out to be many prestigious clients. She told him simply that all she cared about was finding a meaningful way to fill her days and to be happy with him. She no longer aspired to a different life. How many times would she have to tell him that? She could only hope that he might one day come to believe her.

About the author

Jane Spirit lives in Suffolk UK and has been inspired to try writing fiction by going along to her local creative writing class. 

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Never Mind the Weather by Eamon O'Leary, strong tea

 So far this year, we seem to have spent most of our time grumbling about the weather. Thankfully, that came to and end when grandchildren arrived to spend a few days with us over the holidays. Before suitcases were unpacked, and despite hail peppering the kitchen window like gunshot, the eight and four-year-olds, as excited as if it were Christmas morning, wanted to know.

‘Can we go to Rocky Bay tomorrow, Granda?’

It may seem daft for despite the ominous forecast, we struck off for our favourite spot around midday, the boot packed with wellies, footballs, numerous changes of clothes and lunch. Oh, yes, lunch! For there is nothing to match the taste of a sausage cooked outdoors.

Our luck was in for the tide was out. We’d acres of pristine beach to ourselves. Giant love hearts, all our names and the occasion – Easter 2024 were soon etched into the sand. The caves proved popular for hide ‘n seek and ideal for sheltering during the random showers.

We played football for ages with Granny and Granda on opposing sides. With no VAR, there were a few contentious decisions, but we resolved everything by declaring a draw.

With appetites whetted by the crisp air, I set about lighting the disposable BBQ. A wonderful invention and far removed from the days of the primus. These three-legged contrary contraptions required endless patience, paraffin, methylated spirit, a primus needle, and an abundance of good luck to get them going. Success was never guaranteed and the hissing sound when in full song could be scary.

As we set about devouring our sausage filled burger buns and drinking scalding cups of tea from the thermos, the sun made a welcome and prolonged appearance. With skewers in hand, the lads set about the all-important task of toasting marshmallows.

Our tummies satisfied, buckets and spades were used to prise periwinkles and clams off the rocks, and wishing to test the efficacy of his waterproofs, I’m told they are known as onesies, Archie lay in one of the rock pools. They worked although he weighed a ton and when with the sky turned charcoal grey we called time.

After gathering our rubbish and packing away the sodden gear, we headed for base camp. As two tired boys settled into their car seats and called.

‘Granny, can we come back tomorrow?’ I launched into the vocals with …Never mind the weather, never mind the rain, long as we’re together, off we’ll go again.

About the author

 Eamon's collection of humorous childhood memories entitled - I'm a Big Boy Now will be published later this year by Gill James and the team at Bridge House Publishing. He regularly reads his short reflections on RTE Radio ( Ireland's National Broadcaster). 

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La Bella Luna by Kate Durrant, spring water

‘I’m going to paint my toenails black,’ she says as she reclines against multiple pillows.

One hand uncomfortably stretched away from her body holding the phone, allowing me a glimpse of her distended stomach and her pregnant chins.

The other idly cradling her unborn baby.

I think of 1992 when she was born and the faded, much photocopied Preparing for hospital A4 page which stated, as clearly as the worn cap-locked typewriters letters could REMOVE YOUR NAIL VARNISH.

‘They have better ways to detect cyanosis now,’ she says, reading my mind.

 

She passed her due date four days ago, and we chat by messenger on the shoulder hours of the day. As I get up and she heads to bed, or I head to bed as Morning Mum appears on my screen.

‘Do you want to talk?’ I type.

‘No,’ she says, as firmly as only a nine month and four day pregnant woman can.

‘Will he be home from work soon,’ I ask. Checking my world clock, which reminds me that most of the time we don’t share the same day.

She tells me he will, as a photograph of the Australian night sky slides onto my screen.

‘Look at the moon Mum,’ she types, reading my mind again.

We may not share the same day but we do, at least, sometimes share the same moon.

 

She promised me she wouldn’t stay in Australia.

A clairvoyant told her that her tall, dark, handsome man would have his feet firmly planted in Irish soil.

She lied.

The clairvoyant that is, not my daughter. She didn’t lie, she just fell in love.

 

‘She’s going to come today Mum,’ she says, pushing herself up with difficulty, shuffling over to the microwave in her open-plan Antipodean kitchen to heat up another pad for her aching back.

As, inside her, the baby inches slowly towards the light and prepares to meet her mother.

 

It’s 5 o’clock on one of those dark, damp nights between Halloween and Christmas that have neither rhyme nor reason.

I wander, lost, around the supermarket.

Picking up 70% off chocolate ghosts and full price gold-foil wrapped reindeer.

Trying to summon up enthusiasm for non-grandchild related activity, when the text comes in.

‘We’re on our way to the hospital,’ I read, before bursting into tears.

I hide behind the door of the vegetable freezer in the frozen food aisle. The florets inside the packet of picked fresh for you broccoli softening in my hand.

I should be there.

She needs her mum.

I need my daughter.        

I put the broccoli back, carelessly in with the carrots. Abandon the ghosts in my trolley, and return to my car leaving a trail of tears on the tarmac of the multi storey.

This was not how I planned it thirty-one years ago when I removed my nail varnish and waddled into the labour ward.

 

I text a friend, who sees past the lie of the smiley faced emoji.

‘Coffee?’ she replies.

As it happens we have marshmallow-topped hot chocolate instead.

Extra large.

She hugs me.

I cry.

‘She needs me,’ I tell her.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she says, cream clinging to the slight shadow on her upper lip, ‘she’s in agony, she’d tell you to get lost.’

I laugh.

She misses her mum, recently gone.

I miss my daughter.

So we talk instead about the war raging on the other side of Europe, as the dead and the unborn lie silently on the table with our crumpled empty sugar sachets.

We finish our chocolate and go our separate ways.

Waving goodbye, only drowning a little.

 

A message comes in from sky-diving Sam, my daughter’s love, about to take the biggest free-fall of his life.

‘She’s doing fine,’ his text tells me, before he gowns up to stand at her right hand, and his mum arrives, taking over the role as publicist.

‘She’s amazing,’ my daughter's mother-in-law types.

I know.

 

I pace the floor of the virtual maternity ward through the wee small hours. My path lit by the full moon, now keeping me company, having left her alone to her labour.

My phone taunts me with its silence and when it finally vibrates into the darkness, waking me from my sleepless night, my fingers fumble in their haste to accept the incoming video call.

I half cry and half laugh as she comes into view.

‘I can see the moon,’ I say, turning my phone to show her the village she used to call home. Bathed in silvery light, so bright it could be day.

I bring the phone back around to face me.

I stand still, and take a deep breath, as I search her exhausted face.

‘I can see the moon too,’ she says shyly, as she reclines against the hospital pillows.

One hand uncomfortably stretched away from her body holding the phone.

The other cradling her tiny, perfect, daughter, Luna.

About the author

 

An award winning short story writer, Kate’s fiction and poetry has been published in Irish Country Magazine, Irish Examiner, Sunday Independent and numerous anthologies and journals. She regularly contributes her vignettes to RTE Radio One; Pause for Thought BBC Radio Two, and The Irish Farmers Journal. 

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Sunday Serial, 240 x 70, Gill James,12. Umbrellas 8 March 2018, coffee,

Introduction

This collection is a collection of seventy stories, each 240 words. They were inspired by the first picture seen on my Twitter feed on a given day.

 

This would do the trick, most certainly. What was there not to like. Books. Coffee. Tea. Cake.  How marvellous. 

Sally pushed open the glass door and wiped her feet vigorously on the mat. Her spectacles steamed up as soon as she walked into the warmth. She couldn't see a thing. She was aware that her mac and her umbrella were dripping. Her hand found the edge of a chair. She hoped nobody was sitting on it.

"Here, let me put your umbrella in the bucket. Remember it's in the blue bucket. If you ever come again do be aware that you can take one from the yellow bucket if the rain catches you out."

What was this about umbrellas and buckets? She felt her own being taken away from her. She couldn't make out who was speaking but she could see the yellow bucket now. There were dozens of umbrellas there all sporting advertising. What was that all about?

"The advertising pays for the umbrellas.  And then everybody can read about our shop as you walk about in the rain."

She could see who was speaking now. It was that sales assistant who was always so enthusiastic.    

"Are you here for the event? It's really good value. Tea or coffee, a slice of cake and a copy of the book. Just £5.00."

"Yes, that's right."  She proffered her five pound note. Well of course she was.

What a truly fantastic place. She must get the other members of her writing group to come here. Well-known authors and umbrellas as well.  What a pity she had her own umbrella with her.  She rather fancied doing her bit to promote local businesses. 

About the author

Gill James is published by The Red Telephone, Butterfly and Chapeltown.  

She edits CafeLit and writes for the online community news magazine: Talking About My Generation.

She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing and has an MA in Writing for Children and PhD in Creative and Critical Writing.    

http://www.gilljameswriter.com  

https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B001KMQRKE

https://twitter.com/GillJames