Guest Writer

Happening (A Minologue) by Geraint Jonathan

If I hear you say ‘what happens, happens’ just one more time, I’ll be responsible for my actions and it won’t be pretty. What happens happens, what the fuck am I supposed to do with that? What doesn’t happen doesn’t happen, what do you say to that? No don’t, please, don’t answer that, I’m sure there’s a perfectly unreasonable explanation. Things happen, don’t happen, might happen, have happened, will happen, may never happen: I get it. We all just happen along, as you say. But at this precise moment, I happen to be what’s known in the trade as mightily pissed off. Unnervingly so, if I say it myself. That what happens just happens to happen because it happens to happen is no good to me. As to what’s actually happened, it could’ve done with not happening, trust me, its having happened at all being the very thing that shouldn’t have happened. And even though it has happened, I can’t, like you, shrug it off saying ‘these things happen.’ That these things of course do happen is of no consolation at all. They’re not supposed to happen, that’s the whole point. But it’s happened and I’m the one it’s happened to. There’s no getting away from it. Or perhaps there is. Maybe you happen to know what no one else happens to know. Any chance of that? Happening, I mean.

Geraint Jonathan

(Image by CJA)

Blonde Noir by DC Diamondopolous

Kit Covington sat on the sofa in her Pacific Palisades mansion with a cigarette lodged in the side of her mouth. A cloud of smoke floated around her head. She adjusted the oxygen tube in her nose, then brushed ash from her dog Muffin’s champagne-colored curls. The miniature poodle dozing in Kit’s lap startled when the camera crew from The Great Morning Talk Show banged equipment into Kit’s antique furniture.

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Domestickery by Geraint Jonathan

I did not, of course, get round to building the table, any more than I got round to fixing the faucet on the kitchen tap. The wood was ordered, paid for, but remained in a heap in the corner of what Libby laughingly called my “workshop”. The faucet, on the other hand, proved resistant to every effort I made, and there was no lack of effort. But drip on is what the tap did, and continued to do for the duration. A dishrag or sponge sufficed to cushion the sound but this in itself proved remedy enough to acquire the trappings of parable. So Libby saw it. The table, after all, would have been just that, another table, one to replace the table we already had; or an extra table. Not so the tap. The tap was something else entirely. A leaking faucet, no matter how silenced by dishrag or sponge the drip of water, tells a story all its own, a fathomable one, muted, terrifying in its lack of promise. There was every getting away from it; two ways about everything. That Libby laughed on saying a word like “workshop” is testament to her endurance, and much else besides.

Geraint Jonathan

Menopausal Male Bombshell by Michael Bloor

Alan had won second prize in a writers’ magazine poetry competition for his ‘Ballad of the Menopausal Male.’ The postman had just delivered the prize, a copy of The Chambers Thesaurus (5th edition).

As Alan hefted the thesaurus in his hand, he recalled that, in what used to be termed The Dark Ages, poets were feted and richly cosseted in the courts of Kings and Great Lords. When Gunnlaug the Worm-Tongue* (‘worm’ as in snake), the great Icelandic skald (= poet) was presented to the English king, Ethelred the Unready, Gunnlaug chanted four lines in praise of the king and was rewarded with a gold-thread-embroided, fur-lined cloak and was invited to spend the entire winter at the royal court.

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Christmas To-Do List, Nick Botkin Edition by Yashar Seyedbagheri

(Editor note–We like to welcome Yash to the Springs. He holds the record for most stories published in one year at what I like to think of as , if not sister, but our cousin publication of Literally Stories UK. One read will tell you why he is so successful–Leila)

The to-do list stares at me, letters running across the page, like railroad tracks of responsibility.

Pick up sisters’ favorite wines. Nan likes Sauvignon Blanc. Colette worships Merlot; Nan is not drinking any fucking Merlot (sorry, Paul Giamatti, I know I plagiarized Sideways, but original words are stuck in my throat).

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The Odyssey of Ellison by Doug Hawley and Bill Tope

(Ed note-Gotta live dangerously. Here we go with another fresh one during this month of reruns. Enjoy-Leila)

Looking Back

Ellison stood in her lavish garden, staring across the expanse of hydrangea, bougainvillea and sundry other plants, at her husband of 20 years. He was standing over the BBQ grill, his usual place during the summer months. He wasn’t pretty, she thought. Nor was he tall nor particular fit, but he fit her well enough. She smiled.

Feeling himself under scrutiny, Dewey glanced back at his wife. Dewey thought, not for the first time, how lucky he had been to lock onto such a foxy lady as Ellison. Even now, more than two decades after they met, she was a sight for sore eyes. What was that smile about, he wondered. But then, Ellison often seemed to be lost within herself, tickled by what she saw. He turned back to the pork steaks.

The next thing Dewey knew, Ellison was at his side, doing provocative things to his backside.

“Hey, sailor,” she whispered.

Dewey grinned. “Can I interest you in some…grilled meat?” he said, then thought, wow, what an original line. “You wanna pork steak, Babe?”

“Um,” she murmured. “I’d prefer a wiener.”

“I’ll need to put some on,” said Dewey.

“I’ll take care of it,” she told him, and led him into the house.

Later, after they’d done unspeakable things to the other, they lay atop the mattress, talking.

“Are you happy with me, Ellison?” asked Dewey. “With us, I mean? Is there anything we’re missing?”

“Well, I’d prefer $10 million in our IRAs, but no, I’m happy enough. You?”

Dewey could have played it cool, but he decided to come clean. “Baby, I’m over the moon happy with you. In fact, happy doesn’t even touch the way I feel.”

“Aw,” said Ellison, leaning in for a kiss.

“Really,” he said. “You gave me two beautiful kids,” meaning Vin and Sugar, who were in their first year of college, half way across the country.”

“Well,” she said, “I do have a case of empty nest syndrome, you know? Seems the kids were always under foot, but now that they’re gone, I miss the hell out of them.”

They lay in silence for some time before Dewey said, “Do you wanna have another kid?”

Ellison said nothing.

Dewey shrugged, felt a little rejection, but decided to put the issue off until later. Then he heard Ellison’s soft snoring and realized she had not dismissed the idea after all. He smiled and thought back to where it all started…

Get Her Number, First

Dewey Mercer looked up at the new barista in his favorite Starbucks and noted with appreciation her slender hips, her cute face and the gorgeous auburn hair spilling down her back and shoulders. He had noticed her the last two times he’d been here, but had been too afraid to approach her. He wanted to ask her out; what to do? He thought for a second; his older brothers, Huey and Louie, always told him, “Either dazzle them with brilliance or baffle them with bullshit, man.” Nodding to himself, Dewey stared into her pale green eyes and stalked forward and stood before the pretty young woman. She looked to be about his age — 19. She glanced up, smiled, and asked, “Yes, how can I help you?”

Dewey’s mind spun. Brilliance or bullshit? he wondered wildly, momentarily at a loss. Then he gave it to her with both barrels: “The Double Ristretto Venti Half-Soy Nonfat Decaf Organic Chocolate Brownie Iced Vanilla Double-Shot Gingerbread Frappuccino Extra Hot With Foam Whipped Cream Upside Down double blended, One Sweet’N Low and One Nutrasweet, and Ice.” He gasped for breath.

She stared at him blankly for a moment, then blinked. “Would you like a cookie with that?” she asked. He shook his head no and she went about the process of preparing his Frankenstein drink. Dewey scowled; that hadn’t gone well; she took it in her stride and now he was on the hook for an expensive libation. After some minutes, the cute barista set the drink atop the counter and said, “$149.99 please.” It was Dewey’s turn to stare blankly and blink.

“Put it on my card,” he muttered, pushing his debit card forward. His Visa, of course, was stretched beyond its limit. She told him so. He hung his head. Now there was a crowd growing at the busy coffee shop. Deprived of their caffeine, they were turning ugly.

“C’mon, move the line,” someone behind Dewey groused.

“He ordered some freakin’ bogus drink and now can’t pay for it,” hissed another.

“Deadbeat!” seethed a third.

Feeling belabored and outnumbered, Dewey went for broke. “Could I…uh…have your number?”

She surprised him and smiled. “Are you asking me out?”

He smiled too. “Uh huh. I’m Dewey,” he said.

“I’m Ellison,” she confessed.

“I know, I read it on your name tag.” They both tittered.

“C’mon, get a room!” someone in line barked. “I want my latte!”

Ellison scratched out her number on a paper napkin and handed it over.

“I’ll call you, Ellison,” he promised, shoving the napkin in his pocket and turning away. That went well, he thought, smiling.

First Date

They met at Clarke’s Pub. Ellison’s expression indicating she was slumming. Dewey understood and asked “I can see you aren’t overwhelmed by where I took you. Why did you agree to this date?” He took a big drink of his beer.

“You aren’t good looking, you clearly don’t have money, so the only reason I could think of that you were so confident was that you were a great lover or stoned.”

Dewey turned red and blew beer out of his nose.

Ellison said “Maybe I said that wrong. Is it that you’ve got something great in your pants?”

Dewey had no more beer to expel out his nose, so he gathered his thoughts and said “Yes, I do have great taste in pants. I have ten pairs of great pants.”

Dewey and Ellison stared at each other and then broke out laughing. This time Ellison blew beer out her nose.

Coda

Dewey stood at the foot of the hospital bed, regarding the science experiment that was his wife. Tubes and wires and monitors and all the surreal accoutrements of hospice were onerous in their intensity.

Ellison’s oncologist entered the private room and walked up to the bed, tablet in hand. He had done his due diligence, thought Dewey, and even now, at the end, was playing his part. Finally he looked at Dewey.

“Is it the end, Doctor?” he asked, his voice coarse and scratchy.

“Ellison’s living will compels us to forgo heroic measures,” he replied.

Dewey nodded. “She didn’t want to lie on display, dying with no hope.”

“As of yesterday, we discontinued the meds, aside from the morphine. We still give her water, of course, and do what we can to make her comfortable, but the late stage medicines, the Belzutifan and the Welireg and the others, were withdrawn. It’s up to God now, Mr. Mercer.”

Dewey nodded. He cast his thoughts back two weeks, to just before Ellison entered hospice, to the last cogent conversation he’d had with his wife of 60 years.

. . . . .

“I want you to meet someone new, Dewey,” she said.

Dewey frowned. “Ellison, I’m 80 years old. I’m not interested in dating.”

“You know you’ll go crazy if you have to live in that big house by yourself,” said Ellison. “I…I don’t want you to be lonely, is all.”

Dewey heard her softly sobbing and quickly sat by her side on the bed. “You’ll be with my always, Ellison; I’ll never be alone.”

Ellison, obviously in pain, looked at her husband with a little smile and said, “You always knew what to say. You were never pretty, but you had a way with words. I want to sleep, Baby,” she said, and crawled under the covers.

. . . . .

As the heart monitor signaled Ellison’s flatlining, Dewey gave a start. The room was suddenly flooded with hospital workers. As Dewey stared helplessly at his wife’s corpse, a strong hand folded fingers over his bicep and a voice said,

“C’mon, Dad, let’s go home.” Dewey recognized his son’s voice and went with him from the room. Since his diagnosis of dementia, Dewey’s son, Vin, had bought a home on the same block as he and kept close tabs on his father.

That first night, alone in his strangely empty bed, Dewey thought back to his favorite Starbuck’s and the monster drink he’d ordered in order to score points with the woman he loved with all his heart for the next half century and more.

Ellison was hovering over the drink and contemplating Dewey’s rejected credit card. She asked him with a crooked half smile, “Do you want a cookie with that?”

Doug Hawley and Bill Tope

(Image provided by Mr. Hawley. He is assumed to be the shorter fellow)

he-man, all-too he-man, by Geraint Jonathan

(We are blessed with another new item for this month–three actually by Geraint Jonathan. The first appears today, the second tomorrow and the third next week–Leila)

i said to her i said

unhesitating obedience is all i ask

taking what i say as gospel

hanging on to my every syllable

is all that’s required

apart from that

you’re free to do as i tell you i said

my good books are easy to be in

it’s wordy there for sure

but listen is an anagram of silent

& your silence is the best i’ve heard yet

& if you think that’s a riddle think again

that’s what i said i couldn’t’ve been clearer

but did she listen not a bit of it

so off i went

you’ve a vengeful nature she said

out of nowhere just like that

vengeful nature now is it i said

we’ll fucking see about that

Whatever happened to solidarity by Michael Bloor

(Note–Not everything this month before we go public is a rerun; and today we bring you a fresh one by our friend, Michael Bloor–LA)

Andy and Davie were on their usual walk, along the banks of the Allanwater as far as the wooden footbridge, and then back again. They were discussing Scotland’s nail-biting victory last week over the Danes, sending the Scots to the World Cup Finals for the first time since 1998. Andy was English and had little interest in football, but he’d been deeply impressed by the tremendous, spontaneous upwelling of joy across the entire Scottish nation that the game had caused. Davie was trying to explain that it wasn’t just about the result, but the circumstances – the manner of the win. Three of the four goals were truly things of beauty. The match took place at Glasgow’s Hampden Park in front of a delirious home crowd, screened live and free-to-view in every home and every pub. It followed years and years of failure to qualify – some of the present team being unborn at the time Scotland had last qualified.

Andy nodded good-humouredly, but Davie could tell that he hadn’t yet got his point across. He tried again:

‘I was ten when I first started going to the football. In ‘The Boys Enclosure’ (admission: 9 pence – 5p. in new money). It was always packed solid, but you were always among friends, you roared, you booed, you sang, and when they scored you all swept forward like a mighty wave. Like I said, I was ten, and for the first time I felt a part of a whole. That was what Scotland felt when that lovely fourth goal hit the net in the last minute of extra time: it felt that we were part of a whole. It was a feeling of solidarity.’

‘OK, yeah, I’ve got it now, Davie. Solidarity: maybe I didn’t recognise it ’til you said it. Solidarity eh? I thought that had disappeared back in 1985.’

‘1985?? Ah, you mean Polmaise?’

[Polmaise Colliery, or the remains of it, lay just nine miles away. All through the year-long miners’ strike in 1984-85, the Polmaise miners never posted pickets at the mine gates to try to deter fellow miners from returning to work: they didn’t need to. They knew that Polmaise miners were all, to a man, solidly behind the strike. Polmaise was famous: they’d previously struck for 10 whole months back in 1938; they’d already been out on strike for a fortnight in 1984, before the national miners’ strike was declared. When the national strike was broken, a whole year later, and the union voted for a return to work, Polmaise, alone, stayed out for a further week.]

‘Yeah, I mean Polmaise. That was solidarity, Davie. I was there, you know, with the whole village at the gates to applaud the lads coming off the last shift, when the Thatcher government closed the pit two years later.’

‘Good for you, Andy. I understand: that was solidarity. So, instead, what would you call our nation of leaping hearts when the ref blew the final whistle at Hampden Park the other night?’

‘Maybe Communion? A transcendent thing, shared and remembered. ‘

‘Ah, like Archie Gemmill’s solo goal against the Dutch in the World Cup Finals in Argentina in 1978?’

‘Ha, if you like.’

‘OK, I’ll settle for communion over solidarity. By the way, do you know what William McIlvanney, your favourite Scots author, did when he got the publisher’s advance for his first novel?’

‘Beats me, Davie.’

‘He jacked in his teaching job in Kilmarnock and headed off to watch Scotland and Archie Gemmill in the 1978 World Cup Finals in Argentina.’

Andy smiled, but he was absorbed in watching a Dipper fossicking in the Allanwater shallows over at the opposite bank. Part of the attraction of Dippers is that, like Puffins, they are both comical in appearance and surprisingly successful in their daily tasks. Dippers are about the same size as a thrush, but black and definitely portly in appearance, with a big white bib under their chin. They are called ‘Dippers’ because they constantly bow and nod their heads up and down, like manic Victorian butlers. Yet these clown-like birds are surprisingly swift underwater swimmers and efficient finders of caddisfly larvae on the bottoms of rivers, lochs and burns.

Davie followed Andy’s gaze. ‘That Dipper looks perfectly happy on his own over there. Maybe we don’t really need communion with others?’

‘Ah, but he’s in communion with Nature.’

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).