Countdown

“Why do you have to start an argument before my cornflakes even hit the bowl?  It’s the same every day.”

“Because every day I watch you fill that bowl with cereal and go back to bed and you expect me to get my arse to work and pay for all your shit, while you spend the day wanking under a blanket.”

Sean poured cornflakes into the bowl, added milk and started leafing through the morning’s post.

“See?  You don’t even fucking bother to respond to me anymore.  We have no money Sean, none.   We’ve just got a shitload of bills and threats from shitloads of…”

“Oh my God!”  Sean’s widened eyes were unable to settle on neither the letter nor Stacey. “It’s the one I’ve been waiting for -I’m going to be on Countdown, look!”

She snatched the letter and lowered her face towards it, having to squint without her glasses on.  She read the heavily bold and underlined print: FINAL NOTICE – PAYMENT DUE IMMEDIATELY.

Before she looked up from the letter she heard the front door slam shut behind him.  Instead of chasing him down the street she swore silently that his key wouldn’t fit in the lock when he got back.

Commute

This morning’s commute started out drab as any other, until a vision of beauty floated between the failing, jolting automatic doors, calming their stuttered attempts at opening solely with her presence so that they slid smoothly open as if on a track swimming in WD40.

She illuminated the entire carriage, some commuters closed their eyes, certain that they were unworthy to gaze upon her.  Others shielded their vision for fear that their hearts would beat too hard.  I looked at my Sudoku puzzle.

She sat down opposite me, her brazen beauty igniting the air between us, causing sweat from my forehead to dribble into my eyes, half blinding me.

This was it, my opening, ask her to aid me – a man who’s blinded himself through pure bodily reaction to her loveliness.  It was perfect.

“I-I seem to have gone and blinded myself miss, could you possibly help me finish my Sudoku?”

“Do you know what the literal translation of Sudoku is?”  Her words filled the air with thickness and beauty and danced around like a chain-smoking Tinkerbell.

I shook my head in reply that I didn’t.

“Bachelor puzzle.  And there’s a reason for that.”

Through my salty eyes I watched her surly face return to her book.

With my horn rebuffed, the commute reverted to its original drab state, only a layer of embarrassment shading my cheeks to brighten the journey.

Crabs

Jim’s wife gave him crabs before she left for the last time.  When she came to pick up her things he tried to persuade her to take them too.  She ignored him, took everything else and left them.

The cream the doctor gave him ran its course, did its job.  Jim felt guilty for wiping out the blighters, the only artefact of his dead marriage.  He missed their caress, they had kept him company at night, comforted his loss.

He was lonely for long time after that, until a drunken fumble in an alleyway one night.  The nameless woman left him with a new set of crabs.  He kept them, but knew they could never take the place of his wife’s.

Safety

Look son, I don’t mind you having sex, it’s only natural for a boy of your age.  I just want to make sure that you’re playing it safe, that’s where me and your mother went wrong and ended up with you.

I’m kidding.  I got you for dirt cheap off a stork down the pub one night.  Got some cheap foreign fags off him too.

I’m kidding.  Your mother’s barren.  We stole you from a hospital in Lithuania.  We’re wanted criminals there still.

I’m kidding.  We ended up with you because your granddad couldn’t keep it in his pants when it came to young girls.  He paid me off to tell everyone I got her pregnant.

I’m kidding.  Anyway, I’ll let you pair of kids get back to it, I know I’m cramping your style, three’s a crowd and all that.

Hallucination

Gerald had spent most of his short life whacked out on various illegal substances, gleefully interacting with a multitude of imaginary creatures and then paying little thought to them after sobering up.

Now dead and finding himself reincarnated as the hallucination of someone else’s drug-addled mind, he was surprised to find that this post-death existence was a lot less interesting than he’d assumed when viewing it from the other side of the looking glass, and quickly declaring it pointless and unfulfilling.

Determined to display his dissatisfaction with the situation and with fury in his features, Gerald passionately voiced his opinion of his new found form.

However, as he was now a multicoloured fish his features were unable to display anger in a way the human mind could interpret or even notice and his words rose from his mouth as impotent, fluffy clouds.

Gerald’s Hell was a shortly experienced one though, soon afterwards his soul disappeared from existence altogether as the stoned mind he inhabited turned its attention to an entirely new scenario, as a contestant on an intergalactic game show hosted by a giant golden robot.

Retirement

I left my position as manservant to Lord Rudge over two years ago.  The day after I quit I came to work here at Cosy Pines Retirement Home; it’s the best job I’ve ever had.  Then one of the residents decided I bared a resemblance to Blakey from On The Buses and it’s been hell ever since.  All the residents have joined him – accused me of allsorts, called me every name under the sun and constantly engineered compromising situations to get me the sack.  I even tried shaving off my toothbrush moustache, but it didn’t help.  I can’t quit though, I hated being a butler.

Fist

I hadn’t been punched in ages.  The deafening crack of his massive fist collapsing my nose caught me off guard.  It was only as I stumbled backwards that I realised what he’d done.  I gasped a few short, breathy moans of elation and allowed myself to feel the blood brush past my smiling lips for a moment before I turned tale and ran out the door.  I had to leave, I couldn’t start all that nonsense again – I’d never be able to stop.  I’ve got no self-control, see.

Lap

No, she’s not my girlfriend, she’s my mum.  What?  I’m not looking at her like anything, what are you insinuating?  Listen here, she’s my mother and I’ll look at her in any which way I so please and if she wants to sit on my lap then she’ll sit on my lap.   Now, get us a bottle of the house red whilst we decide what to order, thank you.

Veil

She could be absolutely anyone under that veil.  Why does she always have to go over the top, she really could be anyone hidden under there.  She could have an elegant nose, beautifully pointed cheekbones and eyes that insinuate the mayhem to come in the bridal suite after this whole thing’s over.  We could keep the whole cruise ship awake with the lustful roars of two strangers honing a lifetime’s worth of disappointment and mediocrity and unleashing it in one sexually enraged night.

Oh, no.  It’s still just her.  Just try to look lovingly at her until the vicar prompts you to say I do.

Kettle

“Sorry to interrupt, you’re obviously enjoying this song.”

“And this sausage.  But carry on, I can chew and listen.”

“Ta, see the thing is, this lad’s singing about having no hot water for his razor, but it’s breakfast time innit?  He’s going to be having a cuppa, so why not just use water from the kettle?”

“I’d never considered that.  I’m not sure I want the rest of this now, it feels tainted somehow.”

“That’s your artistic type for you, no space in their heads for practicalities.  It’s also why they shouldn’t have radios on in caffs, always ends up ruining your breakfast.”