All stories

a boy called alex

by James

It was Susan’s first time of bringing a young man home and Eddie had been well prepared. His cricket bat was propped up in the corner of his study – his thinking bat – the plan being to idly swish the air with it as he gave this Alex his first interrogation. So you’re the chap who hangs around the school gate waiting for my daughter? You’re the long-haired guitar crooner who plays folk songs in the classroom instead of reciting an essay on the topic of slavery like all the other kids?

Alex long haired all right, down to the shoulders, but these were bare and they were skinnier than Susan’s.

Alex leaned forward, bright scarlet lips pursed to meet the soup spoon. Once again the loose front of the dungarees bloused into a deep triangle revealing depths of smooth pink chest skin. Eddie could not tear his eyes away, and this time Alex leaned a little deeper, enough to hint at darker skin…

Eddie shot back his chair and lumbered into the kitchen where his wife was at the stove. He slammed the door and leaned his back upon on it.

‘Oh God, I can’t stand it,’ Eddie said. ‘I swear it, I saw nipple that time.’

His wife banged at the saucepans. ‘That’s disgusting. And would you leave the poor girl alone – she’ll be self-conscious enough as it is.’

‘Me? Disgusting? Who wears dungarees to someone else’s house with nothing on underneath?’

His wife rolled her eyes then turned back to the stove.

‘Oh my God,’ Eddie said. ‘How am I going to tell the boys in the pub? There’s never been anything like this in our family.’

His wife clanged the soup label till he looked through his fingers. She held up a finger of her own.

‘One – you and the “boys” in the pub? What about all those videos you said they put on your laptop? Didn’t seem to bother them any.’

She raised a second finger.

‘Your Aunt Irma.’

‘What? Aunt Irma wasn’t…that.’

His wife sighed. ‘Aunt Irma who always brought her “friend” Judith to every family thing. Did you ever visit Aunt Irma when Judith wasn’t there?’

Eddie said, ‘Mum said…they lived next door to each other.’

Eddie grinned. ‘Of course, Mum!’

He raced back to the dining room and when he took his chair he was sure to nudge the table hard enough that the glasses rattled. He mother woke, peering sleepily up from the soup.

‘Mum,’ Eddie said. She stared vaguely at him.

‘Mum, Kate’s just said the silliest thing! She said that Aunt Irma and Judith were more than friends, they were two women who, uh. They were, uh…’

His mum smiled dreamingly. ‘That’s right dear, they were lovers. Not a winkle between them!’ She chuckled, top set of false teeth flopping gummily. ‘I asked them how they managed. Judith smirked and told me they did very well with something called a ten-inch gorgon.’

The soup spoons of Susan and Alex rattled into their bowls. Eddie began to coalesce into a hot ball of red hot embarrassment.

His mum continued. ‘Ten-inch? I said, ten-foot, more like, that’s what I’d need with that Judith! The face on her, like acid it was!’

Susan’s face was flaming scarlet; Alex was head bowed, face almost in the soup.

Through gritted teeth, Susan said, ‘You. Are. Horrid!’

She jumped to her feet, quick enough that her chair tipped over to the carpet. She tugged Alex’s hand from beneath the table to clasp hold. Alex was still resolutely staring into the soup.

‘I wish he didn’t have a “winkle”, just to shut you up! But he does.’

Susan smiled sweetly at her father.

‘I think I’ll take him to the park and let him show it to me. Hopefully twice!’

The sands of Tim

by Lewis

The gate didn’t look like much at first, but the more you focussed on it you realised it was shimmering, moving, a deep dark mass like a thick oil but a thousand times darker. The gate swung open with a creak as silent as a scream stuck in the throat. Tim shifted up the narrow pathway, towards the shadow of the school, edged by a row of tall dark trees. Everything had an edge here.

He hadn’t wanted to go. He had been perfectly happy just ticking along. But Mother had spoken and you always listened to Mother Earth. Of course Tim (as mum and dad called him) was different to the others. He knew he was different. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the other gods knew it too. Technically he wasn’t even a god, Everyone ‘believed’ in Tim, but nobody worshipped him. He was separate, a law unto him self, unstoppable and inexorable, but he had to begin somewhere.

He had tried hard at first. He mastered the theory quickly, he knew the answer to every question. But again and again he failed at the final hour. For some reason he just didn’t work, he didn’t flow. He was, to his hooded and hallowed father an endless disappointment. The one thing everyone said was that Time passed. But not this Time.

So here he was back again, the top school, the pantheon of deity education. Everygod who was anygod came here. You don’t just wake up knowing everything, even eternal judgement had to be learnt. Every term was the same; Tim arrives and at first he is ignored. He walks the corridors alone but always moving. The others stare indifferently or mutter as he passes them by. Eventually the ignoring turns to hate, a godly resentment at the absolute faith mankind had in Time. He didn’t need to try, no miracles to perorm, no ritual, it wasn’t fair. But Tim was nothing if not patient and eventually the gods always moved on and left. But He never did. All he wanted was to do what he was meant to do. But he couldn’t, he shifted and glitched, either to fast or too slow, he had lost his beat, his purpose.

But Then something happened. Her name was Bee and she walked like a queen. She had entered the classroom parting the crowd gathered in the doorway with a single look. Tim twitched at his desk as he looked up. She walked with a rhythm that put babies to sleep and made grown gods blush and fall quiet. Her starless black skin a flawless background for her eyes of emerald fire. Attitude flowed from every pore. A quiet hush had fallen across The room until the tutor entered and the spell was broken. She didn’t speak a word for the whole session But quietly tapped a beat with her feet that both fascinated and soothed Tim.

When the lesson finished he followed her from the classroom. He couldn’t have stopped even if he wanted to. He found himself walking more smoothly, more evenly as her feet tapped a beat with each step.

He followed her down a corridor and into a room he had never seen before. The room was empty apart from a scratched and battered guitar. She picked it up and strummed a simple chord.

Tim stood still.

Then she began to sing, a voice of velvet that wrapped him up and flowed through him. He found his heartbeat beginning to match the sound and for the first time in a long time he began to feel, not organised but somehow more together. The Music made sense to him, put him in order, shaped him. In that moment He knew, this Time was going to be different.

Brown and blue

by Super Fun Hannah

Sophie tugged at her brown collar. Looking nervously around the classroom, she wondered what the day would hold. Sitting quietly, subserviently, eyes down and posture closed inwards, like all the other brown collars in the back 3 rows.

Up front, her former friends joked and laughed, nudging each other, passing notes, chatting about the weekend just passed. Sophie wished it was still the weekend. Since she'd walked through that gate at 3:15 on Friday until 9am that morning she had been able to forget the misery of the last few weeks. She didn't have to wear the bloody thing at the weekend and though her former blue eyed pals still ignored her, her family had no idea what was going on so she could just pretend like she didn't happen to have any plans with Lucy that weekend. Her big sister Josie knew something was up, but she knew better than to badger her - so she had got her guitar out and started singing ‘you turn me on I'm a radio’, while Sophie sang along. They both loved Joni Mitchell.

Ms Elliot walked in, hushing the half of the class who still felt they had the right to enjoy life.

‘Right you blue eyes’ she said, scanning the front 3 rows. ‘What do you think you're doing there? You should be at the back of the room, considering yourselves lucky you're even allowed to share the same space as your brown eyed superiors! Get up and move out the way’

The blue eyed kids looked at each other in horror. They'd ruled the roost the last two weeks, and rightly so. They'd been taught that their blue eyes weren't just an indication of pigmentation, but intellect.

‘Ms Elliot?’ asked Robbie, ‘I thought we were better than them?’

‘Did I give you permission to speak? Do as you're told’

The children got up and shuffled to the side of the classroom.

‘Now you children at the back. Take off your collars and move to the front rows. No Jimmie, you can leave your collar there. There's been a terrible mistake. It turns out that you brown eyed children are smarter and these blue eyed ones are your inferiors. So swap places and let’s pretend none of this ever happened’

The brown eyed children took off the collars and shuffled forward, barely daring to believe their luck. A few nervous glances towards the blue eyes and their resentment and dislike was clear. They took their seats at the back of the class but with no sign of the cowed, obsequious defensiveness of their brown eyed classmates - they sat, angry, defiant, but silent, for the rest of the hour.

At breaktime Sophie approached Lucy.

‘Lu?’ She asked tentatively ‘I don't care if I'm cleverer than you are. Can we play hopscotch?’

Lucy turned her back and walked away. She joined her brown collared, blue eyed friends by the swing, and Sophie walked, alone, to the bench in the corner of the playground.

Unexpected Reaction

by Jenny

Unexpected Reaction

Geoff smoothed calamine lotion over his red, swollen face and drew a line through ‘mushrooms’ on his notepad. Another no-go.

So far Geoff had established that he wasn’t intolerant to sheep’s cheese. Unfortunately he had also uncovered a load of new intolerances he hadn’t known about, now including mushrooms. For Geoff the world was a maze of itchy rashes, beige food and, occasionally, vomit. He sighed.

Time for work. Geoff checked his rash in the mirror - it wasn’t too bad this time. Not like the time with the eggs and all the pus, he shuddered. Bit of luck and the kids wouldn’t spot it and he’d get through the session with no questions or horrified squeals. He slung his guitar resolutely across his back and set off on his bike for the school.

Geoff taught guitar at a few schools, all within cycling distance of his clean, scrupulously dust-free apartment. He didn’t share it with anyone. He’d tried dating, but dating involved food and food inevitably meant some kind of humiliating disaster for Geoff, so he stopped, happy in his world of music, bicycling and a growing collection of ‘world’s best teacher’ mugs.

At the gates Geoff spotted one of his pupils scurrying up the road with her mum.

“Hello Rosie” he called cheerfully, locking his bike to a post. Rosie’s mum looked up surprised, but smiled when she saw who it was.

“Hello Mr Roberts. Rosie’s not been well, but she didn’t want to miss your lesson, so we agreed she’d come in for the afternoon. I think she’ll be fine now that the rash has gone down a bit.”

Rosie tried to smile, but it didn’t come out right. Geoff bent down.

“Did you eat something that made you poorly?” Rosie nodded.

“So did I” he told her leaning closer, so she could see his red face. She beamed, then, and her mum smiled gratefully too.

“That’s the first time she’s smiled today. I think she’s allergic to everything - I can’t keep up.”

The three of them walked into the empty classroom together.

“Tell me about it.” Geoff said as three of them walked into the empty classroom together “I’m working my way through this list from my GP. Good news is I can now eat sheep’s cheese if I want.”

He pumped the air in mock celebration.

“Actually, you know sheep’s cheese isn’t that bad - if you eat it with tomato chutney. It’s the only dairy Rosie can have too.”

“ I’ll definitely try that. I’m ok with tomatoes.”

“I’ve made a batch for Rosie. Would you like a jar? To try?”

“Really? That’s kind.”

“I only live round the corner, I can grab it now. Perhaps we can get a coffee and I’ll go through some of the other recipes I’ve discovered - can you drink coffee?”

She laughed too loudly at this and Geoff didn’t tell her that he couldn’t. They agreed to meet at a cafe after the lesson. Rosie’s mum hurried out smiling to herself.

Geoff smiled, lost for a moment in thought then realised something, suddenly.

“Rosie - what’s your mum’s name?”