Cherrypicked stories

Vicky is walking through a narrow mews she has taken quite by accident. She is only a few minutes from the club but feels lost; it is as if miles from anywhere. She comes to a stop outside a shop and gazes up at a little black dress that is short, sleeveless, unassuming. Like me, she thinks. The thought whisks away as her curiosity moves from the dress to the mannequin wearing it. She has long brown hair, brown eyes and sulky lips like she's been waiting for a boyfriend and has reached the moment when she knows he's not going to show up. The mannequin's head is turned to one side and she has one leg slightly raised, as if she has better things to do than just stand there.

"But why me? I asked. I was sitting at the desk on the opposite side of The Captain. The Captain was a large corpulent man given to sudden bouts of anger. The other officers said it was best to butter him up, but I had always found him very fair, without having to slip into unfeigned sycophancy.

I've been reading Roald Dahl, and this is a tribute to his story, Lamb to the Slaughter. 1,700 words.

Day 12. Standing in the Supermarket Queue Behind April and Destiny. You know, the public really lets me down every time. I've been trying lately, of course, to open myself up. I find myself staring at parents, mothers, fathers my age, old couples, little children, babies going by in strollers and bjorns, etc. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I figure if there's something I need, I'll recognize it. I get a lot of empty smiles in return and sometimes I lock horns with the little devils and there's a moment. That happened the other day at the Jons market, standing in the line behind10 month old twins. One of them, the one blithely referred to as April, was stuffing her fat cheeks full of her stubby hands, while clinging to the bosom of her mother or her aunt I couldn't tell the two women apart. The other one - and I'm using their real names here that I overheard - Destiny, could barely hold her head up. Something was clearly wrong. Her eyes were dull and nothing grabbed her attention. She wasn't nursing or sleeping, she just hung there, suspended on the shelf of the other woman's breasts, neither smiling or crying. I looked at her caretakers, whose eyes were also dull and limned with heavy eyeliner. Each of them was very overweight, dangerously so for such young women I would think and in neither case was it child rearing fat. I listened to them speak about the prepackaged, salt laden food substitutes they were buying. Then they talked about the soap opera that afternoon while they swayed in the line like lowing cattle. I wandered into the future with them: bad health, bad habits, bad TV, bad diet, bad grammar, kids with bad porn actress names and bad boyfriends and suddenly I found myself having to hold back a tear because they were so beautiful, so stupidly unaware and beautiful, that I almost couldn't help myself.

* This is a personal diary entry I wrote last year and which I later turned into an article. I was prompted to dig it out again by Jude's discussion thread on 'Gentrification'. It's a tad self-indulgent. Definitely in 'old fart' mode here... Give us a break, though - it was a bad time!

Day 10. What Happens When the Knockout Punch Goes Wide Right I did it. I got ripped on wine and let her have it. I was rotten. I don't love you, I said. I don't even know if I want to know you in six months, let alone this. How can you go on? I even accused her of trying to get pregnant. I know you put it up there, I said, On those trips to the bathroom right after. I even caught you in bed rubbing it around down there under the sheets. I did too. I wasn't making it up. She rubbed it all right but it's hard to say where in the dark when I'm rolled off on my back trying to catch my breath. I screamed, I yelled, I cursed. I said horrible things against her person. I checked the call timer on my cell the next morning and indeed I went on for quite a while, almost an hour. I don't know how I left it either.

Day 4. This Could Be the Fourth Day of the Rest of My Active Life. ....and reappear again. Turns out a little blood is natural, part of an exchange program between the uterus and the egg. Or something like that. I guess we'll find out soon. She left a little while ago for the doctor. More than anything, I hope she's all right.

This is, without doubt, the most pretentious thing I have ever written. Also, fanfiction.

The mailbox swings shut. A neighbor slams his door. My lover rolls on his side. My coffee pot finishes its brew. A car cranks. A school bus beeps to reverse. A rifle is shot. A police car zooms by--on a mission to submission. An ambulance pulls out its gear from the back. Oxygen mask, stretcher, looking for its victim to strap. Paper ruffles, mp3 player shuffles as the disciplined man begins his morning run. A baby cries and the mother wipes at her wrinkles, only to find they haven't disappeared. A widow lays in bed, ten minutes longer than yesterday, not sure when to begin and or how to end the past that won't return.