Guest Writer Times Two: Heroes by Michael Bloor

(Note: We conclude this latest guest week with Mick with two of his micro fictions, which both get a fresh look on the net today. We thank Mick and are always glad to have his work be a part of the site–Leila)

Heroes by Michael Bloor

Patrick, my friend and neighbour, and myself were arguing back and forth about our literary heroes:

is their influence always for the good? I spoke in their defence, citing Robert Burns fostering the belief of every Scot that ‘A Man’s a Man, for A’ That.’

Patrick denied that literary talent necessarily overlaps with moral courage, political acuity, or even a healthy quotum of commonsense. He instanced Conan Doyle, who believed in faeries and dodgy spiritualism, but clinched his case with Kafka’s diaries. The entry for August 2 nd 1914 reads:

‘Germany has declared war on Russia. In the afternoon, swimming lessons.’

And…

Mother and the Minister by Michael Bloor

Sixty years ago, it was still commonplace for ministers in rural Scotland to call on all their parishioners, welcome or not. Mother would seat him at the kitchen table and put the kettle on, while I listened at the door as they discussed father’s behaviour. After one particularly disreputable episode, the visitor concluded:

‘Weel mistress, you’re nay marrit. So my advice wud be just to put him richt oot the door.’

My mother pondered this a moment, ‘Aye, minister, I’ll do as ye say. Can I ask a favour though? Would ye collect his pay packet for me every Saturday?’

Michael Bloor lives in Dunblane, Scotland, where he has discovered the exhilaration of short fiction, with more than a hundred pieces published in Literally Stories, Everyday Fiction, The Copperfield Review, Litro Online, Firewords, The Drabble, The Cabinet of Heed, Moonpark Review and elsewhere (see https://michaelbloor.com).

5 thoughts on “Guest Writer Times Two: Heroes by Michael Bloor”

  2. mickbloor3's avatar mickbloor3 says:

    Thanks again, Leila, for republishing these two hundred-word pieces (both originally published in The Drabble). From your comment above, I’m guessing that you guessed that ‘Mother and the Minister’ was a disguised true story. I reckon some of the very best written stories actually happened. bw mick

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  4. DWB's avatar DWB says:

    Great work this week, Mick!

    Your pieces from earlier in the week were truly a revelation.

    Your ability, and willingness, to engage with and keep alive the earlier literature, history, mythology, and literary figures is a very, very, very rare thing these days, quite unique, unusual, culturally valuable. Like Conan Doyle, I have my own idiosyncratic ideas about the spirit world based on literature and I believe William Morris and Jane are smiling down upon you, maybe even literally!

    I have to confess that I always interpreted that Kafka quote as having been made with extreme, stinging, scathing irony, sparing no one including himself, and akin to Jonathan Swift saying the Irish could solve their starvation problem by eating all the babies. Also worth pointing out that Kafka published “The Metamorphosis” in 1915, a work that went a long way toward explaining the true, deep, root causes of that war (and all wars).

    You are a truly interesting writer with a lot of tricks up your sleeve, entertaining, educational, and more.

    Dale

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  5. mickbloor3's avatar mickbloor3 says:

    Thanks for commenting, Dale. You’re a generous as well as a careful reader.

    I’m happy to accept your informed judgement that Kafka’s diary entry was scathing irony and that, accordingly, he was prescient about the cataclysmic slaughter of the First World War. I imagine, though, that you’d agree that he was one of the few that saw what was coming. It’s often forgotten that the trenches poets and authors on both sides (Graves, Sassoon, Remarque, Blunden, etc) all started the war as patriotic volunteers. Not much foresight there, despite their later condemnation of the slaughter.

    And I do very much like your conviction that William Morris is smiling down on me!

    (Oddly enough, I once wrote a piece about Morris and the 3rd Marquis of Bute sitting and having a picnic and a gossip in the Elysian Fields).

    bw mick

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