The Block
By N. M. Sirett©
THE BLOCK
When you’re due to phrase things simply for the sake of saving yourself from instant death and nothing springs to mind, you know you’re screwed.
You feel the quake in the bottom of your boots, snaking up through your calves and jellifying your knees. Tremors cracking the insides of your thighs, a furnace in your pelvis. A queasiness nipping your insides like tiny piranhas. Waves of torn flesh-tissue and severed nerves warping the space beneath the top of your ribs. A blade twisting in your sternum.
Spasms. Hammering contractions pounding your chest into mush. Oblivion. An ocean of endless space. Like a collapsing star somewhere out there in a frozen universe where nothing can survive.
The tendons in your neck spurn your larynx into spasmodic jerks – pressing you to say something, anything… Still, nothing comes.
‘Well,’ said my executioner from beneath his soot-black, cloth-mask. His thick eyelashes caking the depths of his soulless eyes. Spidering his glance. ‘Give me one good sentence that might warrant your pardon. Just one.’
And when you’re due to phrase things simply for the sake of stopping your own blood-spill, words fail. The axe falls. Unmercifully.
It was a blunt blade. As I thought of something to say, that redeeming sentence dripping intravenously into my open veins, the hacking began – and it was too late.
2 Comments
Harry April 1, 2024 Very poetic!Reply · Edit
Sarah Griffin April 2, 2024 Thanks for sharing this personal insight into your journey. We take writers for granted, read what they’ve written, appreciate it and then move onto the next read. This sheds some light on the harsh reality of a writers life. Very insightful.Reply · Edit
Illustration by N. M. Sirett – for pending novel: Bumper Sticker Bessie©
All-Night Stakeout
By N. M. Sirett©
ALL-NIGHT STAKEOUT
I’ve been keeping tabs on the Oswalds with only a family pack of peanuts and three cans of root beer. But there’s plenty of patience in my cool box. And I’ve got all the luck in the frigging universe stuffed inside a single pocket. They’ll slip up soon. And I’ll be the trailblazing ‘Demon-Catcher-of-the-Century’ when they do.
Tonight, Ziggy Forsyth, the Oswald’s neighbour, is putting out crowded bins in the adjacent driveway. It’s all unabashed trashcan clamouring and jet-streamed, rogue-litter fretwork with this chump. Whenever the wind blows, there’ll be empty egg roll cartons all over the Oswald’s front yard.
I wait it out, draining all three root beers. Nothing but an orgy of empty nutshells nestled in the corner of my ransacked snack bag. My binoculars dig into the bags beneath my night-shift-ragged eyes. My eyeballs are two pressed flowers. Dry and flat.
Something stirs. Aggravated curtains jerk surreptitiously at old Forsyth’s mess and misdemeanours. It wont be long now until one of them Oswald folk emerges from behind secret doors.
It’s a dark and lonely street, so far south of the main town. I bet them Oswalds won’t even bother with a quasi-human suit tonight – just to tidy the lawn. Or maybe they will, cos the devil don’t like shitting on his own doorstep.
They’ll come outside real soon. And I’m ready with a God-given weapon right here in this seeping, sticky pocket, full of Liquid Stars, Divinity Balls, and Dark-Matter Fusion Packs. First chance I get, I’ll use it all. Now that’s worth an all-night stake-out.
2 Comments
Harry May 1, 2024 I loved this! Quasi-human suits! Put up more!Reply · Edit
Man in the Garage
By N. M. Sirett©
MAN IN THE GARAGE
The back garden garage has white-washed walls, too bright for drizzle. It’s a dismal summer where everything drips. Bird notes plummet rather than hallow lengthened days. Grey skies, incongruous with exaggerated blooms. Roses, garish pink. Weather cheapening summer. Tawdry bouquets. Too-green leaves.
My eyes throb with fresh bruises. Collapsing ribs. Expanding again is worse. More painful. This rancid air.
There is a man in the garage. His shadow is visible behind a liquid-black rectangle. A small window in the wall. He is busy in there.
It’s not my house. It belongs to my two dads. Christopher and Patrick. They’re not my dads but get angry when I don’t pretend.
I have a fissure-view. I long for windows. To spy clearly on what Patrick is doing. Sorry: Dad. And Dad, the other one whom I must never address as Christopher, is upstairs drawing me a bath. I have many baths. There’re always dead flies floating on surface scum. The water is cold and there is no soap.
Patrick’s hand splays the windowpane. A red spider-claw. Sodden like summer rain. Someone cries. She sounds like me. Maybe she is me. How long have I been…? It’s not my home. But it’s the last stop.
The kitchen is a dead place. Planks of wood, crudely nailed into place. There are two cracks, through which I spot neatly stacked shovels, hefts of coiled rope, and monstrous husks of tarpaulin hemming the garage wall. Today, my two dads are making plans.
There are holes in the lawn. Not dug by squirrels.
Christopher calls me: ‘Sasha!’ That is not my name, but he uses it, regardless. I twist round slowly. Away from the garden and Patrick’s shadow. The sobbing. And drag my heels to the foot of the stairwell. It’s time for my bath.
5 Comments
Stuart May 16, 2024 Disturbingly good read. Really did the trick if the idea is to terrify the reader!Reply · Edit
Champagne Soiree by N. M. Sirett©
CHAMPAGNE SOIREE
‘Egbert’s expertise on tawny owl preservation is par excellence,’ said Lady Penelope Winstanton-Michael. Champagne bubbles glistened in the reflection of her ostentatious tiara, upon raising her glass. ‘To Saucy!’
‘Saucy!’ cried Egbert, toasting alongside the Tawny Owl Enthusiasts Society. Saucy tilted unsteadily like a dead thing askew on its plinth. A preamble applaud cannoned the grand drawing room. Expectant guests, eyes aglow, watched as Egbert lightly plucked a wireless remote from the table.
‘Well, I’ve already introduced you to Saucy, my latest stuffed owl.’
‘To Saucy!’ A bold ovation accompanied a multitude of raised flutes.
‘And now, slides!’
Arthur, the butler, dimmed the lights. A large whiteboard descended from the ceiling.
Slide One. Dead Owl in Plastic Bag.
The first image splattered the screen, triggering deep silence.
Slide Two: Preparing the Animal.
Preserving the bird in borax isn’t supposed to smell, but a definite irritation lingers in the nostrils – Egbert needn’t have divulged the details. He did, though.
Slide Three: Removing Skin and Feathers.
The trick is not to puncture the organs.
Slide Four. Remove Brain, Eyes, Tongue – Not Skull.
Macabre images intensified with every slide. William Thornton-Bard discreetly barfed a smidgeon of bile into his flute – giving the others an excuse to overt their eyes from the whiteboard.
‘Enough!’ Hooted Lady Penelope. Arthur turned on the lights. A well-behaved pianissimo of repulsion spiked the atmosphere. ‘Egbert, dear, forget the slides. Tonight’s soiree is in honour of your new hobby.’
‘Indeed, Penny. Forgive me,’ Egbert replied, a little chagrin. ‘Arthur, lock the doors.’ Arthur nodded. Egbert smiled, tapped a sharp knife against his champagne flute. ‘Honoured guests. Behold! My latest hobby: stuffed humans!’
Penny procured her rifle.
Shrieks of horror erupted.
Egbert lovingly covered Saucy in a plastic sheet.
Amidst the carnage, he vigorously anticipated his next slide show.
One Comment
The Time Traveller
By N. M. Sirett©
THE TIME TRAVELLER
I lean against the bus stop. He runs a finger down the string of buttons on my summer dress. Spine tremors. Deep breaths. Sunken gaze. Cat’s-got-the-cream smirk. Oozing sex.
Fumbling with phones, exchanging numbers. The bus screeches into view. Sharp breaks: nails scratching blackboard. Lingering lips. I’m gone. His waning outline a mirage in summer heat.
Bus stench. Dry sweat, bubble gum. My reflection in the window: oval face, wide eyes, high cheekbones. I’m young and pretty. He’s a catch.
‘A shark in the net,’ says my reflection. ‘Dump him.’
I stare, incredulous. My reflection moves when I don’t. Looms through glass. Older, wiser. A woman, not a child.
‘He’s a twat!’ she shrieks. I jerk. A proper nuts moment. Spasmic shock. Startled. People are looking. ‘Block him, Elizabeth. Do it.’
I quiver. The bus turns abruptly, climbing the steep hill home.
‘What?’ I whisper-hiss.
I am faced with the woman I become but never aspire to be. My youthful innocence, hammered flat against an anvil of mental abuse.
‘Narcissus loves himself, never you,’ says the older me.
The bus is immersed in leaf-canopy shadow. The window now a dark charcoal. The face sharpens. ‘I don’t have much time,’ she says. ‘Cut him out before you cut yourself.’ Bloody wrists flatten against the pane. Red trickles like sudden rain.
The bus stops at the top of the hill. Heavy breaks clawing at bright sunlight. My reflection fading like a magic drawing pad. Nothing to see but the thronging street.
My stop, next. Must act fast. I am a quivering kitten plucked from a cosy litter, as I slip my phone from a pocket.
His image scorch marks my mind. A red-hot fever dream. My insides flutter. I gaze at my phone. Miss my stop, vacillating over two simple words: BLOCK CALLER.
One Comment
Echo X
By N. M. Sirett©
ECHO X
What’s the matter now? I say in my head. Truth surfaces too easily. Must be careful. Here Comes Your Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown births from the jukebox – aptly. Crediting the Stones as great visionaries, foreseeing Cassandra’s birth with that tune. Woah, here she goes – moan, groan, always problems, another’s fault. Unsatisfied. Why can’t things be… fine?
Fine is a word Cassandra cut out the dictionary. Picking at each letter with her knitting needle until the ink bled.
I should slip something in her drink. I stare at my watch, longing for last orders as much as I long for… never mind.
She went nuts one Tuesday evening with that knitting needle. The cat got off lightly. I’ve still got one good eye. She rambles now. Lamenting to her half pint of agony-aunt nectar. Drowning words that sound like a set of impossible instructions in another language: how to reconstruct our tsunami-devastated-shanty-town-of-a-marriage. Concluding with, No Easy Fix. I beg to differ.
Rage blisters inside me. I fight the urge to tear out her lemon-blonde hair with my fist until she’s as bald as poor Beanie was, in the end – justice for my tortoiseshell.
Leah and Cassandra, the perfect couple, are we fuck.
Beanie’s in cat-heaven smirking at this farce: marriage-counsellor-date-advise to ‘make an effort’.
The Stones is followed by Where The Wild Roses Grow. Nick Cave’s eery tones snap me back to the reality of my empty glass and the vacant seat beside me.
Beanie rests beneath the rosebush. Knitting needles mark the spot. Cassandra is scrawled on them in permanent fineliner. There’s still blood on the tips. I fastened them with wire, making a crucifix. But one of the needles slipped. It’s an X now. Poetic justice, I guess. My X marks the spot.
4 Comments
blacktriangle333 May 29, 2024 Thank you lovely! Always appreciate your comments! 🙂
The Weeding
By N. M. Sirett©
THE WEEDING
The white dresser creaks under the gravity-defying weight of crockery and cheap, tasteless ornaments. Boot-fair oddities barricading surface dust. The place smells of raw kidneys and tired slippers. There’re no photographs, though, which quirks my eyebrow. No family portraits adorning the doily-lined mantle.
Ethel hands me warm, flat lemonade. The glass is washed, but it’s as though the soap missed. The rim stinks of stale cupboard. I sip about 5mls of the stuff, trying hard not to gag, and smile into her opaque eyes, concealed beneath 1940s’-swing eyelids.
I’m here to weed. That’s what school said. Compulsory Community Work Experience. Get it over with, Sam, I think, then you can go home.
I am close to the summer holidays, and the end of year ten looms. At least this gets me out of maths, today. Ethel shows me the overgrown garden and hands me a small hand trowel.
I really must start digging before she gets out the fig rolls, I think, smiling robotically.
I drop to my knees, clueless; what do weeds look like? I yank at dandelions. Are they weeds? No, flowers, right? Oh, sod it. I don’t care. I just want to go…
But there, in the soil, is that a… yes, fuck! A severed finger! And is that… oh shit-a-brick, a school tie? I dig deeper… There! Five school ties, and… oh God, I’m going to puke. Is that the skin of someone’s face? Are those… lips? I get to me feet, staggering back, ready to bolt for it. What am I weeding? Dead school kids?
I turn to run, but Ethel is in my face. A papery hand snatches the trowel. Ethel’s raddled body is surprisingly overpowering, knocking me into the fence. She spits: ‘Weeds! All you young’uns are just filthy weeds!’
3 Comments
Lesley Finlay May 28, 2024 Loved this. Great twist.Reply · Edit
Sky Quake
By N. M. Sirett©
SKY QUAKE
I glance up in time to see a discreet plane vanish, and sunshine needling through holes in the clouds. The ink-dark dragon reappears. It’s silver-sheened underbelly playing peek-a-boo up there, in cloud land.
The lights change. I accelerate across a busy junction, towards work. The dot-plane follows the estuary. I am a commuter ant. Leaving my sixteen-year-old daughter, Faye, by the school gate. GCSE-prepped.
The radio is endless noise. I mute it just as Faye’s incoming call flashes on the home screen. My thumb hits Answer on the steering wheel.
‘Mum? There’s no one here.’
‘Oh, honey, is it too early?’
‘I’m scared. There’s a dodgy man walking past. Can you come back?’
‘What, hon? Speak up. I’m driving.’
‘Can you -’
A thousand-mile-mega-sky-quake happens – a haemorrhaging Ouranos, an all-destroying god. And the sky shreds.
In replace of sky, there’s a marble face. A Greek Kouros, smiling down on the world.
‘Faye!’ I scream. But there’s no point. No signal. I need my Faye.
Every car on the road is halted. Some join the rears of others. Mine just stops. I consider a U-turn, but there is no possible way. A zigzagging throng of shrieks and mayhem hits the roads.
But that marble face just keeps on smiling and looming and being in the space that should be the sky.
All I think of is my Faye. A mile away from here. And a mile too far.
I exit my car. Sidestepping the hyper-adrenalized headless chickens and tapping in furious futility at my phone. My brand-new-obsolete-now-and-defunct-anyway phone.
The eyes on that marble face crackle with lightning. Striking earthbound mortals like gaming targets. Bodies fry and drop before my eyes. But I focus on my Faye. I must reach her. I just have to…
Comment
Sarah Griffin May 9, 2024
Eerie!! Sent chills down my spine!
Noggin’s Nosh
By N. M. Sirett©
NOGGIN’S NOSH
Every day little Guy delivered a boxed head to an old woman, just outside Milton Keynes.
He didn’t work for any of the biggies: Uber Eats and the like. But hired instead by Noggin’s Nosh, a local business.
He rode a bicycle with a thermal box. His bald head shone in the sun like a culinary beacon as he rode the streets delivering food. At 1pm, he regularly collected a steaming box from the kitchen for old Miss Price of 52 Mill Place. She’d never failed to greet him with an eager, wet-lipped grin and diamond-glint eyes.
It was Wednesday, and little Guy was habitually waiting by the half-open door of Noggin’s Nosh kitchens for the hand that extended through the door holding the order. But today, the chef’s hand was somewhat scaley. As though it’d suffered a blow skinning sea bass, or been afflicted with Ichthyosis. Shrugging insouciantly, he accepted the steaming box from the lizard-arm and headed off, riding along merrily.
But the head began to sing Herman’s Hermits’ I’m Henry VIII I Am. Well, I’m telling you, poor little Guy nearly toppled off his bike but managed to stop by the kerb. Charily, he opened the lid. The steaming head was preparing for another verse but stopped when it saw his tiny disbelieving eyes.
‘It’s alive!’ said little Guy as great plumes of steam cleansed his pores.
‘Get back on your bike!’ snapped the head.
‘Who are you?’ asked little Guy.
‘I’m Anne Boleyn, for all you need to know! Now take me to see the old woman while I’m still fresh!’
Now whether it was out of sheer fright or daily routine, we’ll never know, but little Guy did cycle on, heading up the hill towards 52 Mill Place. Singing the same song all the way.
2 Comments
Weird Toe
By N. M. Sirett©
WEIRD TOE
The three-inch toe wriggled before Martha, the shoe-shop assistant, like a quivering bald moustache. A toe for the upper lip. She tried not to look at it. Averted her eyes, pretending not to notice. After all, it belonged to a seven-year-old lad and his mother was already scrutinising her for a reaction.
‘I think it’s best to try these with socks,’ Martha advised, eyes fixed on the leather school shoes in her hands.
‘We came in on a whim,’ said the mother. ‘He’s out in sandals.’
‘Didn’t you bring any socks?’
‘Sure, I’m gonna pack a pair of random socks in my handbag,’ the mother replied, irritated.
‘It’s fine,’ Martha smiled politely, keeping her eyes on a bag rack in the entranceway. In her peripheral vision, the toe twitched like a caterpillar in a bird’s beak. ‘We have spare socks,’ she added. ‘I’ll get you some.’
‘No!’ said the boy. ‘Sean wants to see inside the shoe.’
Martha frowned. Was there another little boy hiding under Mother’s skirts?
‘Sean!’ shrieked the small blond boy. His grey eyes fizzed with devilment.
His mother sighed. ‘OK, Tommy. Sean can do whatever he wants.’
Martha’s frown deepened. ‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘I’m Sean,’ said the three-inch toe. ‘Can I see inside the left shoe, please?’
Martha’s breath caught in her throat as she looked down at the toe with a little face and moving mouth.
‘How you doing?’ it said.
And Martha dropped the shoes. Sprinted out of the shop. Unpinning her name badge, discarding it in a high-street bin.
Later, in the bath, she reflected on losing her job and meeting a talking toe. Her foot protruded through the bubble mountain in the tub. Her big toe had a face.
‘Hello again, Martha,’ said Sean.
2 Comments
Harry May 1, 2024
Did you spend most of your childhood hanging upside down? Funny and quirky! A fun read.
Magical Misery
By N. M. Sirett©
MAGICAL MISERY
Beneath my bed there’s a council of depressed magicians. I’m not sure why. I didn’t do it. I just woke up and there they were. When you live on your own there’s nobody to answer to, so I just left them under my bed, sobbing.
Nightime was worse. Such misery. I couldn’t sleep a wink. Pools of tears flooded my bedroom floor. I slept with a mop.
I tried to coax them out using cheap tricks. A toy shop on Martino Drive stocks a variety of prankish props. I purchased a large box of tricks, brimming with magical-looking accoutrements – wands, playing cards, silver rings, a top hat and toy rabbit; a pristine pair of white gloves, little glass buttons sewn nattily at the wrists. A dice-filled glass vial with a black plastic lid. The dice supposedly disappear when shaken, but I couldn’t do it, seen as the manual is in Mandarin. And I only speak it in segments.
I conjured up a wizard name in my mind, standing before the mirror, donning the freebie star-patterned cape. Held out my arms. Flamboyantly swooshing my gloved hands, brandishing the wand. Smiling at my reflection and proclaiming: ‘I am the great Drambabbiosa!’
I spied one peeping wizard. His dewy eyes glistening with fleeting curiousity. Teardrops stilled upon his jowls. The momentary silence broke suddenly by the melancholic wizards lamenting again, with demonstrable conviction.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get any shut-eye. Perhaps, in the midst of sleep deprivation, I’ll discover the magical powers these guys have ostensibly lost. At the very least, all that time lying in bed wide-awake might propel my brain into overdrive and I’ll master the toy-box tricks. And, if nothing else, I am now the proud owner of a lovely pair of pure white gloves.
One Comment
Plain Sight
By N. M. Sirett©
PLAIN SIGHT
The old man bent to peel a loose ear off the shopping-centre floor. Tucking it inside the pocket of his beige slacks. He didn’t suspect me of noticing. My observation sparked a desire to fish this fella out, this weird happening in the mall.
He shuffled to the food hall, purchased square pie, to go; toddled to the outside car park, leaned on a lamppost. I watched as he lifted the lid of the polystyrene box and heap pie into his silver-bristled mouth.
‘Old man!’ I cried.
He froze, mid-chomp, eyeballing me wearily.
‘If that’s what you are?’ I added sceptically, quirking an eyebrow.
A low rumble vibrated in his turkey throat. ‘You people,’ he groaned. Pie crust chunks dropping unforgivingly from his grey jaws.
‘What’s with the third ear?’ I persisted in a glow of audacious confrontation. I’d always wanted to discover something supernatural.
‘It’s for listening.’ He smirked. Dropped the pie. Pastry snowflaking tawny loafers. Extracted the flaccid ear wagging in his pocket. Dangled it between finger and thumb.
Who was the unabashed challenger now? Not me. No siree!
A sound like a distressed swan with a knot in its neck blitzed the air like a burst eardrum. He projected, over the din like a thespian, his monologue: ‘Bluewater shoppers and retail assistants, lend me your ears! I come to shop with thee. Not to live among you! I am an honourable man! My heart is in the confines of my ship, and I wait here for its return.’
And with that the ear glowed bright purple. Giving the appearance of an aubergine (dip-dyed in a hazardous tub of radioactive waste).
I stood among the growing crowd, gaping at the spaceship-darkening sky. His descending ride – ear-shaped.
Nobody lent him an ear. Well, he already had three.
3 Comments
Paul John Ward April 13, 2024 GreatReply · Edit
Goddess
By N. M. Sirett©
GODDESS
‘I worship you!’ said Ethan. Blond curtains like sharp spears across creased-up eyes. The sweet scent of perfumed tea and sunshine on raindrops on his in-breath. She smelled so… oh, the touch of her.
A slender hand stroked his cheek. He gazed, entranced. She leaned forwards, kissing his pale blue eyes, forcing them shut.
‘Hush, lover,’ she whispered, nipping his earlobe with her pearly teeth. ‘Keep your eyes closed, feel your way.’
Ethan melted at the sound of her voice. A mellifluous cadence. So utterly feminine with a hint of chocolate velvet as smooth as her skin. He did what she asked, running his hand into the curves of her waist and then over the swelling of her breast. A pert nipple teasing his fingers.
The temptation to open his eyes again was too much. He was a visual guy, liked to see as well as feel. But when they locked eyes, he instantly regretted it and suddenly had the urge to pull away even though it was too late.
‘Oh,’ she cried in a falling pitch. ‘Over so soon?’
Ethan shook his head. Confused. It was not over. He was still… you know.
Those eyes… like diamond light. All flickering, obliterating their surroundings. Two magnets attracting him closer.
Her navel collapsed like quicksand, and he went with her. The whispering down on the insides of her expanding thighs caressed his face and neck, outflanking him in a sudden smothering of lamb’s-wool softness.
She stretched as wide as an ocean. He drowned. Swallowed whole like whale’s-mouth plankton. Ethan was gone.
Down he went, into the depths of the goddess. Where he ventured next is still a mystery to all living lovers. They cannot know. Not until she preys again. No one can.
2 Comments
The Thought That Counts
By N. M. Sirett©
THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS
Sure, it was generous, I admit, gifting the circus with the world’s largest elephant. But I wanted to do something big. You might say, something ‘elephantine’. So giving up Daisy was a cinch. Her tusks weighed over eighty kilograms each, if only to balance out the size of her arse which was over two tons and felt like more if she sat on you. Not that you’d want Daisy sitting on you. Not this Nelly, mate!
So it wasn’t my fault that Eric the clown got under my, er hum, I mean, her feet.
It wasn’t my doing that he had a faulty water-squirting flower that annoyed Daisy. Nor was it anything to do with me that Eric’s clown make-up reminded Daisy of a monstrous mouse. How was I to know that Eric found it difficult to move fast in those big old clown shoes; that his braces would catch easily on the elephant’s tail?
I mean, it’s not as though I hadn’t warned the circus that Daisy was freakishly large. It was one of the reasons they wanted her. One of the reasons… And, I’m pretty sure, none of the reasons for having Daisy join the circus included squashing Eric.
After all, that clown only ever pissed me off once. Just once. That was all.
3 Comments
Thumbs Down
By N. M. Sirett©
THUMBS DOWN
‘What I like,’ said Jaynie, ‘is when the first day of the month begins on Mondays.’ She picked a red nail. ‘But last days shouldn’t land on Sundays. Endings should be non-linear.’ She rocked on something pliable, a foamy sponge under the arches of her bare feet. ‘Endings should be fucked up.’
Outside, fire lit the air. Something stirred among the tombstones in the church graveyard.
‘I like red,’ she continued, then sang gently to the tune of All Things Bright and Beautiful: ‘All things soft and malleable, all creatures fated cruel, all things weak and breakable, Jaynie doth love them all.’
Sound embers rose from the carpet. Jaynie ignored the groans, wriggled her feet deeper into the pulsating goo squelching between her toes. She tingled as a wave of ecstasy turbo-gushed her insides.
‘I like -’ she said, smearing her face red, dragging both hands forcibly downwards to rive her pale cheeks, ‘this…’
Jaynie leapt off the knifed torso, releasing pressure. Blood gushed. Lifting heel to hip, balancing on one leg like a yoga expert, Jaynie dabbed at her liquid-red toes. Then sniffed her fingers.
‘Ah, the blood of the righteous,’ she smiled and wrote 666 on the alter with a sticky finger.
Jaynie tossed back her mane of red curls, her black eyes reflecting stained-glass light. And grinned with a wicked mouth.
‘I don’t like losing.’ She gave a bloody thumbs down. ‘That’s my dragon outside. And the dead are rising.’
She twisted over the holy man with mock sympathy. ‘I’m sending you to your Maker with a message,’ she hissed. ‘It’s time for the final battle.’
2 Comments
THE PRIZE
By N. M. Sirett©
THE PRIZE
A SHORT, DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO EGG HUNTS
- One: no following rules. Rules are for sheep. Contrary to popular belief, sheep are not Eastery.
- Two: don’t place chocolate eggs in plastic buckets. Wicker baskets only.
- Three: Bobtails must be brushed beforehand. Only the best-groomed bunnies win THE PRIZE.
Stephan read the slip of paper in his hand with amusement, glancing up as Mama blew a pink plastic whistle. His younger siblings raced off downhill, their best friends in tow.
It was a warm spring afternoon and there had been cake with buttercream. Always a winner. He already felt like he’d won a prize, eating that! But now, he supposed, he would have to play along. Being older was a chore. The eight-year-olds moved with alacrity. Climbing trees and searching ravenously under sundials and Papa’s favourite garden statues.
Eggs decorated with ribbons and brightly coloured foil laced the garden in secret sugar-coated splendour. His parents had really tried, decorating the garden with wreaths made from seasonal herbs and flowers, painted eggs, nest charms, and by scattering the lawn with snap dragon seeds.
But oh, how he wished he didn’t have to partake. After all, he was almost eleven and far too mature for such antics. So Stephan unrolled all his clues at once, thinking he was being clever. But when he read them, he realised that they all said the same thing:
‘Ostara has spoken: You are a bunny.’
Stephan’s nose twitched. He scratched at his new whiskers. Mama and Papa gasped. The children screamed, then thumped their furry little forefeet.
Ostara hopped out from behind the apple tree and spoke. ‘Congratulations,’ she said. You’ve won THE PRIZE.
2 Comments
ELECTROCUTE
By N. M. Sirett©
ELECTROCUTE
‘Dalia… did we just – die?’ asked a bewildered Edward.
‘I, er…’ Dalia’s voice tapered, mouth agape, eyeballing the part-dream, part-home scrabbling for visual prominence. Part-dream was a blanched blur, cottonwool-smeared edges, the middle being a fat dollop of creamy endlessness. Part-home faded in and out of focus – a foundering memory kinking reality. Kitchen. Not-kitchen. Hallway. Not-hallway. Ed stood there, reading glasses askew, smiling, then vanishing, then pixelating back again.
‘I. Was ask-ing for. A. Safe-teeteety… pin,’ he said intermittently. Silver-polished glottal studs punctuated his unsteady cadence. A once-upon-a-time voice box. ‘Faulty wiring.’
‘To reset the WIFI, I know.’ Dalia’s own voice jagged in the part-dream. ‘I was blending bananas and ice cream, Ed. I was fixing you a shake for lunch.’
Just then, Judy ploughed through the front door in scruffy school uniform – face all radish pink. A police trail blackened the doorway. Paramedics shutter-dragged their way into the lounge. Scooping through those transparent parental spooks like spoons in trifle.
Post-mortem letters steamed the kitchen tiles. Formed by hot, grief-spiked tears.
Electro – Elect… Fizz and spark. Elec – sizzling chaos – tro – fault in the line – cute.
Two bodies laid out side by side. A heaped teenager beetled over them in shovel-whacked grey shadow. Eye-water cascading like mortuary lace. Her skin, a muted green. It was the final time. Dalia and Ed’s vision of her was a washout. Judy crumbled like falling ash.
Part-dream is now whole-dream. And the mist eventually cleared.
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Flyer Girl
By N. M. Sirett©
FLYER GIRL
The Flyer Girl had come to town. Fuzzy peach hair masking a ragged, pocked face. Wild-bracken tousles, faded dye, split ends, dandruff roots. Clay-dry eyes followed a paved route. Matilda Gardens, 1 – 75 Redbridge Avenue, Crowe Street, Finsbury Close, Sirena Crescent, and all the rest. Stuffing letterboxes. Ignoring signs. Beware of the Dog. No Junk Mail.
Every welcome mat ruined on impact by those… feet. Each path mud-spackled with her steps.
On her back was a limp rucksack, like roadkill on a dirt track. She ignored yappy dogs and cats with attitude. At one point, a pigeon flew into her, but she just carried on, head down, despondent, stuffing doors with paper crap.
Inside her legs, soil shifted. Moving granules beneath damp skin and stone-cold bones. Great fertiliser-arms. A blob of mud undulated beneath her tracksuit like jelly packed in the pot. Compressed moving filth. The Flyer Girl. Never looking up. Never acknowledging Tom, the local postman, who tried not to stare, giving her a wide berth – because she reeked of bog.
The last house had a broken step. She tripped. Put out a hand to steady herself. It smacked against the glass door. Slid down the pane, leaving a chocolate smear. Her mark. Curse of the unwashed. Grit tightened between her teeth. Grubby mouth drawn tight as a fist. A grime-encrusted line across her half-concealed face.
Onwards, she trudged, the Flyer Girl, leaving the town to its junk mail. An echo of flapping leaflets on every street. Wagging paper tongues in letterbox-mouths. Print-besmeared with fetid ink. The onset of subsidence. Lost properties. Brick graves.
For the Flyer Girl had come to town. And the days of every abode in that place were numbered. Except for that last house with the broken step. Where she’d left her mark.
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Writer’s Lament – a poem
Grass Monkey – Flash Fiction
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J June 8, 2024 Never disappoints 🙌Reply · Edit
Grass Monkey
By N. M. Sirett©
GRASS MONKEY
There it is, over there, in the tall grass!
You see it?
That face… that monkey. Mouth like a stretched earlobe piercing. Emptiness between it’s jaws. Broad green leaves in the background sway like lighters in the air at a music festival. Its drooling mouth is a window-view to the rough meadow grass stretching out endlessly into the blur of the sun.
You see it? That monkeeee… thing. That ‘creature’ – sitting there, picking its fangs with its flat black nails. Eyes live-wired at me like I’m the only one who can see it.
Why don’t you see it? It’s literally right there! Can you get it? Swat it with a tennis bat or something? Can you get it? Why can’t you get it?
What do you mean, you can’t see it?
That monkey in the grass. It’s looking at me. But I don’t know how, seen as its eyes are just two great fuck-off holes. Peeling away like burnt photographs. Dissolving into sepia hair, course and scruffy. Tangled jowls and those… fangs. A grimacing, bare-toothed display.
Don’t be fooled by this… monkey-monster. By its lip smacking. Look at it. Rocking back and forth like that. Ridding itself of fleas while slumped in its own faeces. Can you see through it, too? Through those not-there-eyes and that ghastly mouth? Three gaping holes. And the rustle of the grass behind it.
It’s coming at me – fast. Hairy. Swinging limbs. Lopsided waddle. Cover your ears. The screeching is too much… get it off me now! Now! That’s right. Tranquilise the fuck out of it. Something to…
Calm… it… down...
Straps – tight. Belts and buckles. Ah, injections.
Drowsy now – no more monkey.
.
All is fine. Here in my white room. With this kind nurse.
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Flyer Girl – Flash Fiction
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Potato
By N. M. Sirett©
POTATO
Today little white sprouts spring from my hands. I notice while I wash the dishes. At first I thought they were tiny pieces of food off the dinner plates, but that’s ridiculous because I always rinse them first. In the other room the TV brags old jokes from a recording made by an outmoded generation. The quips a product of their day and not flattering to my ears. Jokes about some woman’s size made by an unattractive fat man. It gets a laugh anyway.
He’s been sitting there watching that show since dinner. Soon he’ll go to sleep and then to work. I won’t see him again until this time tomorrow. I miss him. (And not only when he’s at work.) I miss him. Us. The people we were before I…
After cleaning up the dinner things, I go to the bathroom. Weigh myself on the scales. The verdict: mortifying. It makes my toes curl. Perhaps tomorrow, I should skip dinner. Just cook his and be done with it. I’m reaching an age where nothing comes off easily: weight, charm, opinions… underwear. As I step off the scales I think of my recent attempts to strike up conversation and how I am typically met with a glassy response. Tonight, when he absconds to the bedroom, he’ll barely say goodnight. Look through me with glazed eyes. Eyes that are somewhere else and never present. I am a boring shadow of a woman he once called ‘goddess’. Worshiped me until…
I shinny my naked body into the shower. Hang there, in that cold-tiled space like a generous dollop of steaming mash potato. A fountain of hot water spilling over the body that no longer intrigues him. And one I don’t recognise any more. More of those white sprouts split-open my flesh. Looking like noodles through a sieve. I turn off the water, sweep a towel about this ovaloid husk that is now me. Quickly covering myself so I don’t have to see the sprouting eyes as I get dry. I look up and unwittingly catch a glimpse of my shrinking image in the bathroom mirror. Same old face. No wrinkles but older, somehow. Muted good looks that were once as vibrant as June roses. And, at present, this face is dimple-soft, squishy, dappled. I am nothing more than the fallen petals of a withering rose, a greying onslaught of decay marred by an unforgiving autumn.
Tomorrow I shall quietly slip away. My voice bores him. There’s no point in saying anything about where I am going. He thinks I have nothing interesting to say and doesn’t listen when I try. So… I shall pack a few things – I won’t need much – and go stand in line with all the other taters. They are round, dusted in brown soil, sprouting eyes, and as bumpy as sacks filled with golf balls. Queuing for the ground and the mud and the silent nothing. Ready to return to the land. To the sepia earth. Along the wayside. Where distinguished gents cruise past in their shiny cars on bonny Sunday outings. Racing along – failing to notice the bulging dirt-ruts flanking the road – towards sunny destinations where the roses are fresh – ah! – those attractive blooms.
Big Baby
By N. M. Sirett©
BIG BABY
I come out of the bathroom habitually combing my damp, towel-dried hair and turn to go down the stairs. That is when I see him and realise I’m not alone in the house. I thought I was. That I would have the morning, at least, to wash my hair. But there he is. The stranger with the sharp knife. One of mine from the drawer in the kitchen. He’s about halfway up. Poised with knife in hand, so naturally, it’s as though he’s meant to be here. In my home.
‘No need for fear,’ he says. His voice is soft. The tone as weak as a limp handshake. The voice matches the face: pudgy and wet, either with sweat or oily skin. A thin moustache, neatly trimmed, lines his upper lip. His chin wears a petite goatee. His eyes are dark and small like onyx chips. And his hair is a dark oil-slick, puddling his crown. When his lips move, so does the cranium indent that really shouldn’t be there. Like he’s some misshapen, overgrown baby whose fontanelle has not yet hardened. And his cheeks undulate like someone kneading a dough ball. An oily dough ball that has been dropped several times and has grit in it. That’s him. The intruder. Telling me not to fear him.
‘Did you hear me, missy? No need for fear.’
‘OK,’ I say calmly.
‘You didn’t shut your front door,’ he continues. ‘You shouldn’t do that. You should always check that. The handle wasn’t up… it was level, the handle. Not up. And the door was left to… I think the rug caught on the threshold.’ His voice is as weak as old-lady tea. The tone growing increasingly vapid. His eyes empty out the remnants of his soul with each blink. He takes two steps up the stairwell. ‘You should lock it. You’re only asking for trouble by not shutting your front door, missy. Someone should teach you a lesson.’
‘I guess so,’ I say. ‘You do have a point. Pardon the pun.’
‘You mocking me, missy?’
‘Heaven forbid it.’
‘You sound calm, missy. Are you calm?’
I shrug, ‘Yeah, I suppose I am.’
‘You know I’m going to do something really bad to you, missy. It’s going to be really bad. Are you sure you’re calm? Are you sure you aren’t regretting not locking your door?’
‘Meh…’ I say. ‘You win some, you lose some.’
‘But you’re going to lose, missy.’
‘We can’t all be winners.’
‘And you are no winner, missy. Are you OK with that?’ He takes another two steps towards me. And I smile. Grin. Then belly laugh.
‘What’s so funny, missy?’
‘You’re so… don’t take this the wrong way.’
‘Go on. Spit it out.’
‘You remind me of a big baby.’ I burst. Laughter trilling through my lips. I do a little pig snort too.
‘Is that so?’ The sunken soft spot gently flaps on each word he utters and it tickles me. I can’t help but laugh.
‘You are, aren’t you? Just a big baby?’
He lunges visciously. No longer does he look like an overgrown baby; no longer am I laughing. No longer am I… I am air. I am dust motes. I am stardust. The knife slides through empty space on the stairs. For a moment the intruder is confused.
‘Wait, missy, where did you go?’ He falls to his knees on the top step in a frisson of annoyance. Runs the knife down the wall, tearing the wallpaper with the blade and cursing. ‘Where are you?’
I find this funny and laugh so hard it echoes on the landing and the stairwell and inside his own weird baby-man head. I get inside him. I get in his brain. And he can’t kick me out of there, because I’ve got into the cracks like a bug. Like a worm in a corpse’s eye, I’m in – and I laugh like a boom box blasting. He drops the knife and covers his ears. But that’s pointless because my laughter is on the inside as well as the outside and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. It will stop when I want it to. This is my house and I can’t leave it. No matter who lives here now.
The estate agent forgot to lock my house. It’s been vacant a while. Squatters came and went. I think it will be rented soon. I don’t know. But whoever comes will need to lock the doors. For I cannot warn them of the strange baby-man who intrudes then runs in fear. Stumbles down the stairs and out the front door. Screaming as I roar: ‘No need to fear, big baby!’ As my hell-frost wind blows ferociously at his back on the way out. As my energy forces the door to slam shut. As my laughter roils in his brain like a whipped-up storm as he runs down the street. A scared little big baby. And my mocking face will haunt his dreams.
No. I cannot warn whoever moves in here. For the intruder, to date, is the only one to see or hear me – since I passed.
I cannot leave this house. I don’t know why. And even if I cannot warn the new occupier, I can at least guard these bricks. I don’t think the big baby will return now. I think he’s too afraid. But just in case, I shall learn how to lift objects. And practice first with the kitchen knives.
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While sitting at lights, a strange man abruptly invades my car. He opens the rear passenger door and climbs on to my back seat. The lights change and I move on, instinctively – what a stupid thing to do. I look in the mirror and see the threat: a limp, lean, long male, mid-twenties, transparent skin, and scraggy dishwater hair. Wearing khaki waterproofs over a faded black hoodie. And there’s something that might possibly be a gun pointing my way, discreetly concealed beneath the raincoat. He reeks of pot.
‘Go! Seymour Close!’ he says imperatively.
I feel myself putting my foot down and going at least fifty in a thirty zone. I glance again at his face partly sheafed by his hood. His eyes are bulbous, drawn to dark places inside the trappings of his own thoughts. Bloodshot. And two black bags hang like a rhino’s arse beneath the sockets. Illustrated in lines of fluorescent green veins.
Beneath the raincoat, a hand (holding something black and thin) shakes. He taps a foot in the well and mumbles to himself. I keep on driving. Don’t say anything at all. I don’t know whether that is better or worse. Where is Seymour Close? I don’t know. I want to ask but I don’t want to.
‘Can’t you go any faster?’ He bites his lip when he speaks. A trickle of blood leaks from his bottom lip. It too quivers like his gun-hand.
I press my foot down and do sixty-five. Perhaps if I get up to eighty, I’ll attract the police. Is that a good idea? What’s the sign for help? A silent, single-handed gesture. I knew it. I know it. I just can’t… my brain isn’t working. It’s functioning enough to drive fast but that’s all.
‘This isn’t the way!’ he screams. ‘This isn’t meant to happen. I’d never have…’ his voice tapers and his head smacks hard into my headrest. First I wonder if the sudden impact is the result of someone going into the back of us. But no. He has started headbanging the back of my seat like a nutcase. The adrenalin running through me is an ice-cold frisson of panic and alarm. He’s schizo! He’s going to shoot me in my own car!
‘Sharp left, now! Do it!’
For a second there, I’m a stunt driver, high skiing a hair-pin bend and into a close that I didn’t even know was down this road. And there it is, a cul-de-sac, the one he wants: Seymour Close.
I slam hard on the breaks and the tail end of the car skids to the right, hits a lamppost. The man bashes his teeth on the headrest and blood flows like he’s some low-budget vampire movie star. He fumbles beneath the coat and I think, This is it. I’m a gonna!
He pulls out the concealed weapon, raising it to head level, where I see it is just a phone. A sleek, black phone. Not a mobile. Not really a phone. Something like a phone but not exactly that. And it distorts in the palm of his hand as though it might not be solid. But not liquid. Just something else. And the substance is utterly alien to my eyes.
It glows black, which is absurd, I know. For how can black glow?
A date erupts on the screen – March 5th 3065 – the time 5pm.
‘Thanks for the ride, Ancestor. I wouldn’t have forced you, but it’s an emergency. I can pay you for your trouble.’
‘That would be…’ I don’t know what to say. Just those three words alone possess a quavering cadence intoning my irrecoverable state of shock.
The blackness sparks brightly. Then he is gone. His long limbs drawn into the black glow like loose hair sucked down a drain. On the rear passenger seat is a brown paper bag full of weed and one single diamond. To cover the cost of the ride, I guess, plus the untimely dent in my car.
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Clare Ward September 14, 2024 I didn’t want this to end! As always in awe of your amazing imagination, I was gripped from start to finish 😁Reply · Edit
We got on the bus. It took us some of the way. It was empty. The ride quiet. There was no driver. It must have been one of those autonomous machines. But perfectly safe. The bus was white on the outside and white on the inside and we drove through clouds.
I struggle to recall anything from before the time spent waiting at the stop, staring blithely at an empty canvas. White and white beyond that. The bus shelter: white. The bench: white. You waited there too, and it is like you always stood there, with me, waiting.
Now we are off the bus and it looks no different to where we were before, only there is no bus shelter and the whiteness is blurred at the edges as if something behind it pulsates. Like eyes fixed on our souls – studying all that we are, all we have been, and, maybe, all we are yet to be…
Do we walk the rest of the way? I don’t know where I’m heading next. What will come for us? A taxi? A boat? A hot air balloon? A rocket ship? No? Just someone, or something, gliding towards us on a hand-glider? What? They can’t be. Wings, you say? Well, bless my stars and unicorns, wings… did you ever?
Clinging to arms that stretched towards us, we flew the rest of the way. We travelled far to the fields of gold. Light and laugher, passing time in a golden haze of peace.
The trip was long. I’d speak of all the places we visited but I’m not supposed to. Perhaps another time, then. It’s a secret route. Not known until it’s time to know. And, I guess, we all take this journey, eventually.
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The Pool Guy takes down the parasol; stands in his three-quarter-length beige shorts. Socks and trainers. Baseball cap on the right way round. Hotel logo stitched beneath the collar of his pristine shirt. No name badge. He’s just Pool Guy. Collecting up roving plastic cups and unwanted ice cream wrappers.
‘For sef-en-tee…’ he says. His smooth features are straight and long, like waxwork; they harbour an unwanted smile which leaks through rheumy eyes instead. ‘Sef-en-tee, yes?’ He cinches the cord tight to prove his point.
Still, overcast Ouranos toasts clouds on the sun like marshmallows on a barbeque grill.
‘Sef-en-tee.’ Pool Guy’s Greek accent is strong. Seventy? That can’t be what he says.
His veiled smile judders beneath a stretched-canvas complexion. He feels soft and unexpected, like water damage.
He leaves, so I undo the string and push the brolly back up, dragging my sunbed beneath it. I might burn still, in the shade.
But Pool Guy’s trainers twist round, followed by a spiralling torso, and finally his head. ‘Safety, madam.’ His words clear and fresh. I understand him. And I shrug. Laugh a little.
But here is Pool Guy, sweeping me into his blustering arms. Westward ho we go now, propelled by a virgin wind. Through a gap in the lilac paper flowers climbing a nearby pergola. Spirited away – Zephyrus and I…
His shorts flap in the sudden gusts before he morphs into a diaphanous shape. Damp like rain on washing.
Below, my sodden outline, fleetingly stamped upon the sunbed. A short whiff of chlorine. All that is left of me.
The Pool Guy was never more than a mere susurration about the walls of the nearby bar. A whisper on the hilltops. A coastal sigh.
Helios tugs at the sun. The wind dies.
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Beach House
By N. M. Sirett©
BEACH HOUSE
Is it my fate in life to entertain such fools? After all, it’s not a crime to levitate in the privacy of the beach house. And not my problem if the ubiquitous time-share rep lets himself in with a spare key.
The question now, while he stands gaping with every star-spiralling fibre of his being in O-shaped incredulity, is how do I get rid of him?
Nobody can know. It’s always been my thing. I don’t share.
‘Mrs Peavesham?’ he says as though naming me is questionable. Oh crap, why did he intrude? This is not good. ‘I, er… was hoping to discuss extending the contract for another year, but you seem… busy.’
He takes one step back over the threshold as I deliberately lower myself onto the coffee table like a wasp landing on a bottle rim.
‘I’ll c-c-ome b-back at a more convenient time,’ he jibbers. Rivulets of sweat streaking his temples. The site of me cheese-grates his affrighted eyes.
‘Why don’t you stay?’ I insist, stepping on to the carpet and unbuttoning the top two buttons of my blouse. ‘I’m here all alone. I’d be only too happy to revisit that little old contract of yours, Mr…?’
‘Tom. Just Tom. Jeez, it’s hot in here.’
Something shifts between us. Tom, the time-share rep relaxes his body, stiffens in one place only as I undo another button.
‘Sit down,’ I instruct, dominatrix-style. ‘Want a cold beer?’
‘That would be…’ No more words spill from his undeserving mouth.
Levitation is my secret. Never to be exposed.
My stilettos pierce his throat. And, hovering there, I think, that’s a bugger of a stain.
