TWO SHORT SHORT STORIES

   
Recently I had two short stories in the above publication `Dreich Shorts.`  published by Hybrid Press. 

The stories:  The Man Who Fell Into His Own Head and A Short Story about....   are below.

Thanks to editor Jack Caradoc for choosing my stories.  As you can see I`m in some fine company indeed.

You can find out more about the above publication and much more that Hybrid Press  publish at this link.   https://hybriddreich.co.uk/
                          

THE MAN WHO FELL INSIDE HIS OWN HEAD    

Mark stopped at three forty three pm precisely. It was a Sunday. 

His wife Eleanor explained to the doctors. ‘I came out with his usual cup of tea and no sugar and…He was standing there… Mid push of the lawn mower.’

The doctors examined him but found nothing wrong. His heart still beat like the healthy fifty five year old he was. Blood still circulated his veins unchecked. He was a puzzle that they couldn’t solve. Like a lot of puzzles though the answer was there in plain sight.   

The synapsis in his brain fizzled like an electrical storm.

‘Like his brain was laughing unrestrained.’ One of the doctors commented. Eleanor said she couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed unrestrained.

They all gave a puzzled shrug and moved on. It did not explain why Mark had stopped when all the signs indicated he hadn’t.

Inside his brain Mark watched their puzzled looks and listened to their puzzled discussions. Falling into his own head had taken him by surprise. 

Once the initial surprise had subsided though he settled down to think about why, and to take in his new surroundings.

His brain all movement and lighted paths, some brighter than others. 

He followed one to a memory of a day at the beach; another to him staring at the moon when he should have been asleep; didn’t bother with one that led to endless discussions about pensions; of hazy pictures of TV programmes he forgot as soon as they had finished; he stood tired and sad at Eleanor look of disappointment in the man she had married.

He felt the memory of paddling in the sea and knew the why.

Enough had been enough.

A SHORT STORY ABOUT….               

A short story about…Nostalgia.

Sunshine on a school holiday day, or it might be a weekend, whatever; there’s a haze, a sepia glow covering the pale brown wheat field.  A canal runs along the edge of the field. It glistens in the sun the water still and clear and pure.  A house is perched on a slope on the other side of the canal.  It sits against a background of the bluest sky.  Flowers of every colour of the rainbow line its gravel path that leads to an open front door.  Framed in the doorway a husband and wife, a father and mother hug and smile across at the boy who watches from his side of the canal.  The field side. He sits on a broken tree which lies on its side roots stiff in the airless air…like petrified guts.

Petrified guts?  No. Try again.

A short story about…Childhood.

Sunshine on a school holiday day, or it might be the weekend, whatever, there’s a haze, a sepia glow covering the pale brown wheat field as a boy sits on the broken tree. Can we call him a child?  Yes we can. He’s only ten years old.  He bounces a football and watches it roll down the banking of the canal and float in the still and clear and pure water.  He listens to his parents laugh and smiles back as they smile across at him.  His mother shouts.  ‘ Tea in ten minutes Mark.’  He nods. He feels hungry.  He is a growing lad on the cusp of starting High School and the rocky road to adolescent.  He sits with a knife…

A knife?  Leave alone.

The boy spreads his fingers wide on the tree and brings the knife down again and again between the gaps.  Once he…

Leave alone. Let there be lambs skipping in the field and the wheat so lush and brown and…rats puncturing the football with their… Leave alone.

A short story about…a land that never was. 

The boy spreads his fingers wide on the tree and brings the knife down again and again between the gaps.  Once he…Once he breaks his concentration with a blink and the knife slices through the skin of one of his fingers but misses bone.

Blood rolls onto the tree and sinks into its damp and broken surface.  For the sun has gone down on the boy as he brings the knife down again slicing through the skin on another finger.

He cries but not with the pain of the knife but with the sound of voices echoing from his house across the canal.  The path is overgrown with weeds. The flowers hang limp.  Voices are raised but not for him gone for nearly twenty hours now.  Something crashes against the closed door. 

He sits alone and raises the knife once more…

Leave. Leave.

A short story about…

A man who sits on a broken tree touching at the scar on his little finger. His finger is bent where the knife entered but the scar has faded now.

Only he can still see and feel it.

A voice and he lets go of the scar.

‘Dad.  Look at me.’

His son walks tightrope style on half submerged rocks across the canal. His son sits beside him on the tree and stares across the canal.

‘ Where did your house go?’ He asks.

‘ They knocked it down when they were building the road.’

‘That’s sad.’ Says the son.

The father doesn’t answer only touches at the scar.