I’d like to thank Leah Holbrook Sackett for her flash fiction submission “What The Looking Glass Reflects”, a melodramatic tale with an intriguing atmosphere. Reflective and relatable, yet fantastical and surreptitious.
Leah is an adjunct lecturer in the English department at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. This is also where she earned her M.F.A. Her short stories explore journeys toward autonomy and the boundaries placed on the individual by society, family, and self. Leah’s debut book of short stories “Swimming Middle River” was recently released by REaDLips Press.
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Carol liked to stand in corners when she was anxious. It calmed her down to tighten her focus on a dried drip of paint, the seam in wallpaper, or a crack in the wall of the visiting Professor’s house. Her husband was a professor of History at Sweetgum University. The booming emptiness of the house, like a quarry, played on Carol’s nerves. It reminded her of the children she could not have to fill the large house. Her body was not agreeable to the arrangement of keeping a tenant for more than 3 months. This, too, made her anxious. If she were to dwell on the idea of a baby too long, it required a Xanax and a corner to calm her down.
Staring into the back of William’s head while watching a loud Sunday football game was also a trigger. Around 4:30 in the afternoon, each day, that was a trigger. The upside was she had tried many corners in the house and had a rating system based on her sense of urgency. The corner in the small dark dining room with light filtering through the blinds was one of her favorites. She liked this one because she could look askance out the window as if cheating at some game. She also liked the lovely wisteria color paint that deepened and lightened based on the time of day. The corners became her friends, and she talked to them. Softly, of course, lest Will catches her again.
The first time Will caught Carol standing in a corner was in the bedroom with the blue scrollwork wallpaper. It was just outdated long enough to be trendy with that shabby chic look. She liked to trace the scrollwork with her fingertips. Caught-up in a particular favorite curly-que, she did not hear Will coming. Carol stopped her whispering and froze. She could feel Will staring at her back. With a great effort that made her eyes sting, she turned to him and said, “It is just the most lovely design.” Will agreed and ushered her from the room. The next morning the corner was filled with a large, gilded full-length mirror made from Sweetgum. She must have spent one too many times in the corner. She wondered how Will got it into the room while she slept, her head hammered from that one glass of wine. The mirror was enormous with a giltwood frame from floor to ceiling. It was carved with five-point star leaves. Her anger with Will for filling her corner was ebbing.
Perhaps a mirror makes a better coping mechanism. This mirror may be just the therapy Carol needed. Sure, it was just another crutch, but you need a crutch sometimes. She climbed out of bed and followed the details of the carvings. She smiled, a little smile though it was, at herself with the glow of her face in the flattering daylight. With the heat of the day on her face, Carol climbed back into bed and was soon napping. She woke from lilting, little giggles. Of course, no one was there, but a single gold stud earring and her wooden knitting needles were resting on the bedclothes. It was as if someone had gone about snatching her things just to return them as gifts.
As late afternoon set in, Carol sat in bed with a book and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream. She must have dozed off because she woke with her hand in a puddle of melted ice cream and the pint on the floor. It was growing dark. Moonlight was on the heels of the fading day. It filtered through the window, creating little dancing lights upon the looking glass. It was almost as if there was movement inside. Quietly, she tiptoed to the mirror. It was swimming like water, and a small chubby face and arm reached out of the glass beckoning Carol to enter. Carol froze in awe at the visage of a cherub, a baby in the looking-glass. Inviting her into an orchard of Sweetgums. Abruptly, she heard Will enter with the dull thud of the front door. When Carol turned back to the mirror, it was solid. “NO,” she cried and slammed the palm of her hand against the mirror. There was a heart-breaking crack that ran through the mirror and disappeared in ripples of reflection. With bloody palm and bare feet, Carol entered the looking glass. Will ran up the stairs to his wife’s cry of “NO.” The room was empty. No one was home.
Thank you for reading this blog. You can read more stories HERE and if you’d like to submit a story for consideration to be published, please visit our submissions page.
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The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave many of us feeling like a person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our day-to-day incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time.
With this ebook you will learn to approach your days in another way, reducing stress and getting results through prioritizing, leveraging and focus!
I’d like to thank Lindsay Bamfield of Australia for her short story submission “Chocolate in Summer”, a touching story about the complex relationship between a woman and her mother-in-law. It was originally published in a small anthology in the UK called Greenacre Writers Anthology Vol 2.
Lindsay Bamfield relocated from UK to Australia in 2019. Her mother was Australian and she has always been in touch with this aspect of her heritage. Lindsay is a mother and is now grandmother to an Australian. She has written a number of short stories and flash fiction and non-fiction articles. She has been published in Hysteria 6 Anthology, Stories for Homes 2, Reflex Fiction, Greenacre Writers Anthology, Mslexia, Writers’ News and Writing Magazine as well as on a number of literary websites.
This page contains affiliate links which may earn me a small commission (at no extra charge to you) should you click through and make a purchase. Affiliate links are how I keep this blog running, thank you.
Seated at the grand piano, Margot became the woman she might have been rather than the one she was. Gone was the carping woman craving her headache pills; in her place was a maestro.
‘Oh, how wonderful. You’ll have some help,’ people cooed when I muttered through clenched teeth that my mother-in-law was coming to stay. How they thought it was helpful to be driving over a hundred and fifty miles to the airport, with a two-month old breastfeeding baby in tow, I couldn’t imagine.
She spent the entire six weeks moaning. The bedroom was too hot, too cold, the baby cried, my cooking was terrible, I didn’t iron Patrick’s shirts properly.
‘She’s asking for Gentleman’s Relish,’ I said to Patrick. ‘What the hell is that? I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Oh yes, she used to love it on toast,’ he said, frowning over our bank statement. ‘She used to put a little jar of it in my school tuck box every term. I’d sell it to one of the older boys because I hated it, and bought sweets from the tuck shop with the money. She never packed sweets. You can probably get it at Fortnum’s.’
‘Are you insane? Do you really expect me to high-tail it to London to get a jar of something for her bloody toast?’
But make the journey I did, for Margot must be appeased, although nothing would ever make me good enough for her son.
‘Have you put Toby’s name down for Patrick’s prep school yet?’ she asked one Sunday lunchtime while I was clearing the table.
‘Margot, he’s barely three months old,’ I said. ‘Rather premature, don’t you think?’
‘These good schools are subscribed years in advance,’ she said curtly.
‘Besides which,’ I said, ‘I do not intend for my son to be sent away to school, even if we could afford it, which we can’t.’
‘Patrick, surely you can’t want your son educated in a state school?’
‘I rather think I do, Mother,’ he replied. ‘I have no wish to put Toby through what I endured.’
I didn’t hear the end of that conversation because Toby began to wail, much to my relief. I hurried off to placate my son who would not be sent away at the tender age of eight when, I hoped, he would still be wanting a story, a teddy snuggled into his bed and a goodnight kiss.
Each year, two months of summer were utter misery. As he grew older, even Toby began to dread the visit from Grandma: her headaches that demanded his utter silence; the outings that were curtailed because she felt unwell; the meals that must be just so.
‘Give me a hand,’ Patrick yelled down the stairs one Saturday before the impending visit. ‘I need you to hold the ladder. It’s wobbling.’ I switched off the iron, glad to have respite from squirting steam over the curtains from the spare room, Margot’s room, and plodded up the stairs, pushing my damp hair behind my ears.
I held the ladder while Patrick inexpertly painted the room in his mother’s favourite colour.
‘She’ll like this,’ he said as he rolled the paint on. ‘She found the greens too bright.’ He was being tactful; ‘nauseous’ was the word she’d used. My carefully chosen two-tone green room disappeared under a coat of magnolia-meets-mushroom. The curtains would look quite wrong now but at least they would be dust and crease-free.
A month later, I heaved Margot’s luggage up to the room. She was already lying on the bed in the delicate pose of a dying martyr.
‘Pull the curtains,’ she ordered. ‘There’s too much sun. Where are my pills, I think a headache is coming on.’
‘Do you like the new colour?’ I asked as I slid the curtains closed, banishing the few rays of sun to have graced our summer that year.
‘It’ll do.’
‘I’ve made your favourite cake so pop down for tea when you’re ready.’
‘I couldn’t possibly eat cake. My digestion. Some cucumber sandwiches, I think.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t have any cucumber. How about tomato?’
‘Tomato? With my delicate stomach? Good gracious girl, you should know this by now. Just run out and fetch a cucumber. It’s hardly too much to ask.’
It was when we visited my new neighbour who had invited us for coffee, that the ground shifted. Standing in their airy living room was a grand piano. Enormous, shiny and proud, it took up most of the space. Margot drifted towards it and trailed her fingers on the keys.
‘Do try it, if you’d like to,’ trilled the neighbour.
To my astonishment, Margot seated herself on the padded stool and began to play. Music rippled from beneath her fingers as effortlessly as breeze on water.
That was the day I first saw her smile.
‘I’ve bought Mother a piano. She’ll like that,’ said Patrick a couple of weeks before the visit the following year. ‘It’s only an upright, because the living room won’t take a grand.’
Nor would our fragile bank account. I said nothing for I knew he would trot out his mantra: ‘don’t be too hard on her, she had a difficult time bringing me up on her own…’ and I would have to refrain from reminding him that he spent term-time at boarding school and many of his holidays at his aunt’s house.
I picked Margot up at the airport and drove the weary miles home. Toby sat meekly in the back, listening to her interminable moaning. The car was stifling and hot because the fan no longer worked. Her damn piano had taken the last of our spare cash, so the fan would stay broken. I opened the window but she complained about the draught. We sweltered in silence.
‘Did you bring me a present?’ asked Toby when we reached home.
‘Little boys who ask, don’t get,’ was her reply. His face crumpled. Later, she relented and handed him a package. His excitement was palpable only to disappear on looking at the gift.
‘What is it, Grandma?’
‘It belonged to your grandfather. Now let your mother put it away safely until you grow up. It’s an heirloom and very valuable so you must treasure it.’
‘She gave him a tie-pin,’ I hissed at Patrick, when we were in bed. ‘Who gives a six- year-old a tie-pin?’
‘She means well, don’t be hard on her,’ was all he would say. I turned away from him dreading the next six weeks.
But that summer Margot played her piano, and I saw a different woman. She taught Toby a few simple tunes and to her delight, he showed aptitude for her talent which had evidently skipped a generation. Their heads bent over the keys, she demonstrated a patience I could never have guessed at. The music allowed the time to pass more quickly and sometimes she smiled. Her pills remained unopened.
‘Toby is shaping up nicely,’ she said at dinner on the last evening of her visit. ‘You must arrange professional lessons for him.’
Thinking of the red figure on our latest bank statement, my lips tightened, but I said nothing.
‘This casserole is very good,’ she went on. ‘Is it from the recipe book I gave you?’
‘No, it’s based on one from my mother.’
‘Oh. Well, even so, it’s very nice. You’re learning.’
When Patrick died in a car crash, she came immediately I contacted her.
‘I’ll make my own way from the airport, you don’t need…’ she left the sentence unfinished.
As we met on the doorstep neither of us spoke but we understood that for the first time we shared Patrick without being rivals.
‘It was an accident, wasn’t it?’ she said the evening after the funeral when everybody had left.
‘Yes, of course, I explained–’
‘What I mean is,’ she interrupted, ‘it wasn’t like his father? An accident that wasn’t quite as accidental as it appeared.’ Her voice was quiet.
For a moment I wondered if she was trying to tell me that she had pulled the trigger when Robert died in a shooting accident.
‘It was recorded as an accident,’ she said, ‘but Robert knew guns inside out. He’d been using them since he was a teenager on the estate. They had these shoots, pheasant, grouse, the glorious twelfth. That was common in those days. Robert was dogged by black depressions. Patrick didn’t know about them, being away at school. I tried to prevent him seeing that. I’d send him to my sister if they came on during his holidays. It was when he was away that it happened. Was Patrick ever…’
‘No, Margot, I never saw Patrick depressed. Sad, worried and angry sometimes, but never depressed.’
‘Thank God. I couldn’t tell Patrick the truth. I think some of our friends may have wondered but it remained unspoken.’
And then Margot wept and for the first time I felt not resentment but compassion.
She stayed with Toby and me while I sorted through Patrick’s financial affairs and adjusted to a new life just as she had done so many years before. But unlike her, I had no secrets to stifle. My grief was her grief and hers mine, and there was a perceptible thaw between us.
She told Toby about his father as a little boy, and then told us both her own story.
‘I was talented enough to be a concert pianist but I needed professional training,’ she explained. ‘I was to go to the Royal College, but then the war broke out and I worked for the war office.’
‘What about after the war?’ I asked.
‘We no longer had money for my training. My brothers had been killed and I had to help in the family business until I got married. Then my hands were full. You couldn’t harp on with fantasies in those days, not once you were married and had a child to look after.’
‘It sounds hard to have lost your dreams.’ I said.
‘Dreams are like chocolate in summer,’ she said shortly. ‘They melt. Besides, I still had my piano and I played at home.’
‘Yes, Patrick told me how you played, and that you tried to teach him.’
‘He didn’t have the ear,’ she said. ‘Or the patience.’
Toby took to the piano that summer and played non-stop. After Margot returned home, he continued playing and made up compositions. One he called Chocolate in Summer. ‘Because our dreams have melted too, haven’t they, Mummy?’ he said.
Margot sent me the money to pay for his lessons.
***
Toby’s daughter is playing with his old boxes of Lego that I brought down from the loft. I have just finished decorating her cake with ‘Happy Birthday Sasha’ piped in pink icing and six pink candles. Her mother pours a glass of wine for me. Sasha’s big presents are waiting for when Toby joins us after work so he can watch her unwrap them.
He arrives on the dot of six o’clock and swoops his daughter up into his arms, giving her a twirl, then he sits at the piano and plays ‘Happy Birthday.’
‘Again, Daddy!’ she laughs.
He pays a slow, dreamy version and then a fast, silly one, delighting the birthday girl.
I look at him, so like his father in appearance, and wonder if he would have realized his talent without his grandmother’s tutelage that terrible year.
My heart still bursts with pride as I recall his first concert as a soloist, and wish so much that they had both lived to see it. Only Toby and I knew that beneath his jacket he wore a gold tie-pin that had belonged to the grandfather neither of us had known.
We eat the birthday tea as Sasha tears open her presents with the enthusiasm of a happy little girl. Not an heirloom in sight.
Afterwards, Toby sits at the piano again and plays, just as Margot had, whatever comes into his mind, as the mood takes him. He is playing ‘Chocolate in Summer.’
Thank you for reading this blog, if you’d like to submit a story for consideration to be published, please visit our submissions page.
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Well it’s been a while since I posted any story of my own let alone a chapter of my book. I must confess I’ve missed writing my own adventures and dramas and am eager to get back to it. I wrote this third chapter a little while back (ok it was almost a year ago) and it’s as far as I’ve gotten with the novel. I’m hoping that sharing this latest chapter with you will produce the inspiration and motivation I need to keep going with it. Feel free to comment below and let me know what you think.
If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you can do so by clicking on a chapter below.
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Krysta opened her heavy eyes and glanced at the clock to her right. The bright red numbers did little to warm her heart as they read 5.45am, which meant she’d had just 5 hours of sleep, AGAIN. She could have closed her eyes and slept all day if it hadn’t been for the little size fives in ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ socks, just 3 inches from her face, and the chubby little index finger poking her in the ribs.
Drowsily, she propped herself up on both elbows. She spotted Davey to the left, asleep face down with his head hanging off the edge of the bed like a sloth on a tree branch. Dylan was perched atop both her legs, grinning from ear to ear at his accomplishment of waking up Mummy. Becky grinned back, acknowledging his achievement but not condoning his inconsiderate act. She didn’t want it to become a habit after all.
“It’s not time for wakies yet Dylan, the sun’s still sleeping!” she said in a tone much sweeter than her mood.
“Up” he chirped. His youthful exuberance made Krysta feel just a little sick in the stomach. Memories of her own energy where vague at best, perhaps it wasn’t even a reality but a long-ago dream. Exhaustion had become her everyday constitution. “Up, up, up” Dylan chanted, bouncing up and down on her legs as though they were nothing but lifeless twigs he was trying to snap with his bony little bottom.
He was completely oblivious to Krysta’s zombie-like state or more than likely didn’t care, and why should he? He was 2 years old and the world was his to command how he pleased. Krysta felt envious of the care-free life her children lived. Their quest was all about exploring, playing, learning, adventuring and mischief making, while their every need was catered for by the great co-ordinator known as Mummy. Mummy however, had gone from being able to organise grandiose weddings with ease, to barely managing to co-ordinate breakfast for her 4 fussy offspring. Hence she often wondered if she was truly qualified for this job.
Every part of her wanted to lay back down and drift blissfully back into unconsciousness but it took only seconds before that old familiar sense of responsibility kicked in once more and she conceded. “Ok, let’s go have some brekkie.”
Dylan squealed and chuckled with delight, falling sideways as Krysta tickled him under the arms. His laughter was quickly followed by a screech of displeasure at an equally high pitch as he realised mummy could now escape his clutches and leave the bed without him, not to mention the bitter-sweet tickling would come to an abrupt end.
Krysta swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat for a moment contemplating the task ahead. It was Wednesday, and that meant Ladies Bible stud. It also meant a 4-hour tactical mission to get herself and her 4 kids cleaned, dressed, fed, 1 child dropped off to school, a quick run to the grocery store to grab something to share for morning tea and a 20-minute drive to the church. It might sound simple and straight forward but with 4 kids nothing was ever simple or straight forward.
Peter had left for the airport late the night before. The magazine he worked for had sent him to a writer’s conference, so Krysta was on her own for the next three days. A daunting prospect but probably a blessing in disguise in some ways. They’d spent a day in silence after her rant about the joys of domestic servanthood and motherly dilemmas but made up moments before he headed out the door to the awaiting taxi.
Once upon a time they would have spent hours in respectful conversation and marital negotiations before coming to a mutually satisfying conclusion with both parties making apologies for their role in the argument before “making up” for hours (sometimes all night) in the seclusion of the bedroom. These days they were lucky if the argument was even addressed let-alone reconciled and “making up” often consisted of an agreed upon cease-fire and an all-too-often rain-checked quickie in the bathroom, as it was the only room in the house with a lock on the door.
Krysta hoped that the old saying was true, that absence really did make the heart grow fonder and that the time apart would reinforce their affections for one another. She tried to ignore the emotional boxing match raging inside her, heading into its 100th round with romantic longing on one side and resentment on the other. She wanted to miss him, to forge bravely into the next few days as a warrior mum, diligently doing her duty without a single complaint, but jealousy hung over her head like a dark storm cloud ready to pour out it’s deluge at the first thunderclap.
She hadn’t slept through a single night or had one solitary day to herself in 4 years. In fact, the only so-called “me time” she received was the 20 minutes a day she spent in the shower, and she had to get up half an hour before everyone else to get that. It looked like today would be a ‘dry-shampoo, and ten tonnes of deodorant’ kind of day.
Peter spent all day most days sitting at a desk, doing what he loved and every Saturday he spent 5 hours playing basketball and hanging out with the guys at the bar afterward, and now, he would be getting 3 whole days away from the chaos that was their family, doing what he loved, and three whole nights alone to be his own person. Krysta felt like everything always went his way, like he managed to find that perfect balance of work, play and family life and it was beyond unfair. Why was it that having kids changed her life so much more dramatically than it changed his?
Aiming to be at the church 20 minutes early, Krysta congratulated herself as she pulled into the car park just 5 minutes late. It was her personal best, so far. Granted, she’d only been attending for a few months, but it irked her that she always lost a good ten minutes or more of sanity time every week because she couldn’t quite manage to get there on time, no matter how hard she endeavoured.
Krysta glanced at the packet of Tim Tams resting on the passenger seat beside her. She wondered if they’d be an acceptable contribution. She always intended to try and find time the day before to create some decadent, delicious and elaborately decorated sugar-filled treat that would impress even the fussiest of stay-at-home chefs, but so far she’d never managed to fit it into her hectic schedule.
Five minutes later, Krysta had managed to masterfully assemble the double seated pram and secure two squirming toddlers into its confines. She grabbed the nappy bag and Tim Tams from the front of the car, placing them both in the basket beneath the pram seats and reached out for Chloe’s hand.
“Chloe” she called out in concern as her hand met only the air. She looked toward the building to see Chloe running toward it across the full carpark, her straight dark locks bouncing in time with her hurried steps. “Chloe, stop” she shouted. Chloe halted right in the middle of the carpark, spinning around to look at Krysta innocently, her hand to her mouth as she realised her error. She knew she wasn’t to run off on her own, Krysta always insisted that she hold her hand or hold onto the pram when they were out and about, for safety.
Krysta turned her head as she heard the sound of tyres over gravel and observed a 4WD heading their way. With fear giving rise to her Mumma bear instincts she took off with stealth like speed, pushing the pram over to where Chloe stood motionless. She grabbed her tiny hand and pulled her toward the main entrance of the building where she parked the pram, flicking on the break.
Bending down so her face was level with her daughters she very sternly reprimanded her. “Don’t you ever run off like that again, do you hear me?”
“Yes mummy” Chloe responded quietly, a quiver on her bottom lip and tears forming in her teddy bear brown eyes.
“How many times have I told you not to run across a road or carpark?” Krysta’s voice grew louder as she thought about what could have happened and frustration mounted as she recalled how many time’s they’d been through this.
“I…I’m sorryyyyyy” Chloe stuttered and began to wail, tears cascading down her chubby little cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut.
Krysta’s tone softened as her anger defused like cold water thrown on a flame “you could have been hit by that car and then we’d have lost you. I don’t want to lose you Chloe.” Her heart overflowed with empathy and remorse as her daughter threw her tiny arms around her waist and sobbed into her torso, her warm tears soaking through her pale pink cotton shirt onto the wrinkly tiger-striped skin of her overstretched stomach.
Krysta squeezed Chloe tight in empathy and gently unwrapped her arms from around her middle. She took a tissue from the nappy bag and wiped the wetness from her tear-stained face. “Just remember next time ok?” Krysta smiled forgivingly as Chloe’s sobs subsided and she swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. Why was it that she always ended up feeling like a villain when she had to scold her child? Wasn’t it what mothers were supposed to do? How could her child learn what was acceptable behaviour if all she ever did was speak softly but assertively like all those ‘positive parenting’ courses dictated? Krysta knew she needed to teach her child to be obedient, but the pain she sensed in her child’s reaction always forced her to hate the person she’d just been, the person who caused that pain in her child.
Krysta took a deep breath and mentally prepared herself to move forward. “Come on, let’s get you to the playroom so you can have fun with the other kids.” Krysta unlocked the pram and skilfully held open the tinted glass door as she pushed the pram through with her free hand, Chloe following close at her heels. They were met by a sea of faces that had turned in their seats to look at them as they noisily entered. Krysta felt her face flush with embarrassment as she realized she’d forgotten that the front entrance led directly into the main auditorium where the welcome portion of the bible study had just come to a close.
She swallowed in regret at the revelation they had more than likely heard the whole incident, given there was a mere glass panel between the room and the outside of the building. Davey gave a loud moan in protest of being indoors again, which echoed around the high-ceilinged room and forced everyone to turn and glare once more. Krysta could feel a hundred eyes piercing her back as she awkwardly tried to manoeuvre the pram through the narrow door into the foyer that separated the kitchen and café area from the playroom. The back wheel caught on the door frame and Krysta had to back it up and push forward twice before it finally went through.
She heard the worship music start up as the door swung shut behind her with a thud, rattling the windowed wall encasing it. She didn’t even dare look back to see the reaction her clumsy exit had incited. Ignorance would work better to rescue her quickly fading resolve to enjoy what was left of her child-free time. She signed them in at the little table outside the playroom and waved goodbye to two excited children as each bolted toward their toy of choice. Dylan had to be pried off her neck by the volunteers who assured Krysta that he would be fine and would for-sure stop howling the minute she left the room. Krysta had little faith in that, but ordered herself to drop the guilt as she rushed out the door with a dozen “sorry Dylan”s.
She took a deep breath, relaxing on the exhale and closed her eyes for a moment, contemplating how heavenly it would be to find a quiet corner to curl up and take a nap in. The thought was soon dashed however as her practical mindset took charge of her wandering ideas and chastised her for even thinking about skipping the study and taking advantage of the church’s hospitality.
“This is not a day care centre Krysta” she berated herself “these people volunteer their time so you can enhance your spiritual life not so you can shirk your responsibilities.” She rolled her eyes at her own harshness and walked casually and quietly back through the glass doors to the main auditorium, slipping casually into a seat in the back row as the last song came to an end.
Thanks
Thank you for reading this blog. You can read more stories HERE and if you’d like to submit a story for consideration to be published, please visit our submissions page.
If you’d like to keep up to date with all the latest stories, news, promos (including writing competitions and giveaways) plus receive a FREE Ebook, sign up to our mailing list here or fill in the form below.
Get your FREE Ebook
The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave many of us feeling like a person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our day-to-day incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time.
With this ebook you will learn to approach your days in another way, reducing stress and getting results through prioritizing, leveraging and focus!
I’d like to thank Alex Grey of the UK for her second submission “Betsy’s Bungalow Bazaar”, a charming, nostalgic micro story .
After a lifetime of writing technical non-fiction, Alex Grey is fulfilling her dream of writing poems and stories that engage the reader’s emotions. Her poems and short stories have been published by a number of ezines including Siren’s Call, Raconteur, Toasted Cheese and Little Old Lady Comedy. One of her comic poems is also available via a worldwide network of public fiction dispensers managed by publisher Short Edition. Alex’s ingredients for contentment are narrowboating, greyhounds, singing and chocolate – it’s a sweet life.
You can read more of Alex’s stories on her blog HERE or read her first story submission to MLS “Knitting for Leo”.
This page contains affiliate links which may earn me a small commission (at no extra charge to you) should you click through and make a purchase. Affiliate links are how I keep this blog running, thank you.
The air was thick with dust as Betsy’s neighbours rummaged through the clutter in the fusty bungalow. They ignored the dreary sandwiches and orange squash on the kitchen table.
Donna sat in her late mother’s armchair.
Betsy had taken in the town’s cast-offs for decades, tutting at the excessive amount of stuff that people wasted. People flocked to leave things with her. Betty diligently sorted it – clothes, china, cutlery, books…some items were donated to charity; others recycled, but far too many stayed.
“It all got a bit much for her.” said Great-auntie Grace.
Donna nodded again; Grace’s mastery of understatement was astounding.
Every surface was covered with piles of bric-a-brac – a thousand thoughtless gifts dumped on Betsy’s doorstep – cross-eyed love bears, silvered plates etched with sentimental clichés, celebrity memoirs, unread and useless. Each item became a treasure in Betsy’s bazaar, acquiring a mythical value as she evaluated which causes might deserve a donation from her hoard.
Betsy had resisted her daughter’s efforts to clear the house; the forced disposal of even the tiniest gewgaw caused her immense distress. Donna gave up, helpless to save her mother from succumbing to the disordered squalor.
Donna found it hard to accept the shambles that her mother had lived in, recalling how hard Betsy had worked to clear her mum’s house. Nana Edith had memorably hoarded bags of sugar, bars of Sunlight soap and ten thousand pounds, the old bank notes curled into chipped teapots on the dresser. Donna was terrified that she would inherit the hoarding gene and ruin her own uncluttered home.
The day after her mum died, Donna decided to break with tradition. Instead of hiring the village hall, she would hold her mother’s wake in the littered bungalow. She posted invitations in the town’s shop windows – “To celebrate Betty’s life, a wake for all the neighbours who sustained her. Please take a trinket to remember her by.”
Hundreds had come, some greedy, offering desultory condolences while eyeing up the goods; others grieved and shared stories about the knick-knacks that they had chosen. Donna spoke of the amber-stoppered hatpin that she had chosen as her solitary memento. She recounted how, every December, she and her mother would sit by a roaring fire, savouring an exotic treat – a pomegranate. They had taken turns to pick out the seeds using the hatpin – the light of the flames making the translucent seeds glow like rubies.
Donna looked up – a scuffle had broken out. Great-auntie Grace emerged triumphant with a dented biscuit tin in her hands.
“Here, this is yours.”
Donna opened the tin to reveal hundreds of buttons; on the top was a gold silk button that she recognised from her own wedding dress.
“Why?”
“This was her memory box.” said Grace, “Your great-grandmother kept a button from every fancy bit of clothing the family ever wore, from christening gowns to army uniforms to funeral suits. Your grandma and your mum did the same. This is your legacy.”
Donna ran her fingers through the buttons; they were warm and comforting. The pearl, nacre, and plastic caught the light like jewels. She imagined the rusty tin in her ultra-modern house – there might be a good spot for it…
Thank you for reading this blog, if you’d like to submit a story for consideration to be published, please visit our submissions page.
If you’d like to keep up to date with all the latest stories, news, promos (including writing competitions and giveaways) plus receive a FREE Ebook, sign up to our mailing list here or fill in the form below.
I would like to thank Paula Andrews from the UK for her short story submission ‘Water’. A relatable fictional story, based on true events, reflecting the inner world of a mother suffering from mental health issues.
Around the world it’s World Mental Health Day today (or yesterday for us Aussies!) and where I live in QLD, it’s mental health week. I believe depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions are a a bigger part of many people’s lives than we know or can even fathom. Motherhood in particular can be an emotionally draining rollercoaster at times and many of us can suffer in silence for years, believing that no-one understands or could ever help us out of the dark abyss that threatens to steal every moment that was meant for joy.
But there are people who understand, those who have been there, those who are still there and those who may be there in the future. There’s no easy cure for mental illness but there is help. If you suffer from depression, anxiety or any other mental illnesses, please seek help through your local helpline. If your in Australia, Lifeline is a great resource if you’d like someone to talk to. Their number is 13 11 14.
Don’t suffer alone. From someone who has been there ‘there is a light at the end of the tunnel.’
Paula Andrews was born in Yorkshire (origin: England) and has lived in Scotland for 29 years. She is married to a Glaswegian and has two grown-up children (21 and 19 years) both born in Glasgow. She worked as a midwife for twenty-two years; having owned her own craft business, has taught arts and crafts to blind people and has been writing seriously for around eight years. She published her debut novel for teenagers (and adults) early this year, just before lockdown commenced! It is a time-travel ghost story called Oranges and Lemons, crossing modern day with the 1860s.
This page contains affiliate links which may earn me a small commission (at no extra charge to you) should you click through and make a purchase. Affiliate links are how I keep this blog running, thank you.
She hangs the small pink mac on its peg; she knows it’s the right one from the picture card on the wall, displaying a solitary polar bear. Ellie runs away from her. Excited. She’s running towards her favourite thing at the crèche: the water tray. She’ll pour and splash for as long as they’ll let her. A water baby. Like her. Solitary. Like her, too. They’ve identified this as being problematic, on several occasions, in reproachful tones, which annoys her.
“She needs to play with the other children. And share. Can you work on this at home?”
Suzie sees her daughter skip through the swing doors without looking back and feels a stab of sadness in the bottom of her chest. Little Ellie is happy yet surprisingly tuned in to her mother’s mood. Suzie knows Ellie doesn’t believe her when she says:
“I’m fine, Ellie.”
Because Ellie asks. Often.
“Are you sad, Mummy?”
“No, I’m not sad, baby.” Usually, those five words are all she can manage. It feels to Suzie, the less she speaks, the less she lies.
Sam is at school. Two years Ellie’s senior. They say he’s an old man in a wee boy’s body. My fault, Suzie thinks. She sees it as a negative trait. Another solitary child. How could they be anything else when she’s that way? She should’ve taken him to more classes; art, gymnastics, Little Nature Lovers, everything time would allow, maybe. Well, money wasn’t really an issue. But money hadn’t magically cloaked him with an aura of cordiality at toddler group twice a week. She’d felt bemused when she’d watched him choose his play space: always a couple of metres away from the other children. He’d selected his toy and carried it off, looking back at the group; seeming to measure with his footsteps as he walked. Content with his chosen spot, he’d settled and played with that one toy for the entire session.
Nevertheless, school seems to be changing him. She feels a detached satisfaction when she watches him run up to his friend, Leo, in the playground each morning.
On this morning, she drives home, barely observing the traffic, not using her mirrors. Staring ahead, feeling still but heavy; calm but sad. Sadder than she can even think about. There is no sound inside the car. Her senses seem flattened. Squashed between two heavy mattresses.
At home, she fumbles with the house keys. For a minute she can’t remember which is the right one. It annoys her. She sighs and lets her arms drop by her sides. She sighs again and a wave of melancholy washes up from her tummy to her scalp and she’s glad of it. A feeling, however bad. Something that makes her real; not some automaton stumbling through this interminable cycle of life: feeding children; a spousal ‘have a good day’ on John’s way out the door each morning; school run; tidying up; washing pots; laundry; two pocket-money hours in the village bookshop every day; and sleeping, but never properly. The keys drop from her limp hand and when she bends to pick them up her knees are wobbling and she nearly keels over.
She gets inside and sees so many obstacles. Slippers, a bouncy ball, John’s trainers, the tools he fixed the waggly door handle with last night; Ellie’s teddy lies forlornly on the stairs. She relates to the teddy: bedraggled, her clothes slightly askew like its ribbon, her hair and nails a bit grubby like its fur. She could lie beside it at an angle on the stairs and she wouldn’t care. She’d lie there all day. She’d stay there when the phone rang. She’d listen to the message on the answerphone:
“Mrs Peters, Ellie’s here, waiting to be picked up. Can you call the crèche as soon as you get this message?”
She wouldn’t move. Not during the message. Not after the message. Perhaps the teddy would turn and look at her, accusingly. Perhaps he’d growl and say:
“Aren’t you going to answer that? That’s my Ellie you’re neglecting.”
But instead of lying beside the teddy, she opens the kitchen door. In here, it’s clean and tidy. She filled the dishwasher and wiped the surfaces before the school run. She walks to the sink and turns on the cold tap. The sound of water settles her; it makes her feel clean and refreshed. She runs a bowlful and presses her hands to the bottom. She feels scratch lines radiating across the grey plastic. The dripping tap plinks as she examines her fingernails which are not grubby after all; she just feels that they are. It is so difficult to keep anything clean: the children, the house, herself. Everything feels messy, cluttered, disorganised; her thoughts, muddled; her sleep, disjointed and broken. A miniature bubble forms on the back of one hand then dashes to the surface and pops. I’m going to do that, she thinks. Rise up, all of a sudden and…burst. Unless…unless…
Her nose prickles and a tear forms in the corner of her right eye and swells rapidly, building into something monstrous like a tsunami. It’s still there, threatening to spill over. The left eye is starting too. Funny how tears form in one eye first. She looks out of the window into the garden but everything is dull and blurry. Like her sense of place. She can’t distil her purpose into anything meaningful. She can’t see the way forward to the bright future of fulfilment. She can’t battle herway out of the black mire she’s trying to wade through.
John will know what to do. John, ever loving, ever kind, ever thoughtful, ever, ever, ever, so much it suffocates her sometimes.
Please phone, John. Tell me what to do.
But John will ask if she’s taking her medicine and she’ll have to lie. Because the medicine makes her sooo tired.
John is busy; always in meetings. Please phone, John, she urges. She needs to hear his voice but the phone doesn’t ring and Suzie doesn’t move. Her hands are getting chilled; the ache is rising to her wrists. She looks at the ugly blue pipe of a vein with its jagged junctions. She lifts her hands out of the water and lets them drip on the floor. She looks around the kitchen. It’s a good kitchen. The children’s drawings are stuck neatly in a grid pattern on one wall and she hears Ellie’s voice:
“Mummy, I’ve painted the sea for you. Because you love the sea, don’t you, Mummy?”
The painting didn’t really look like the sea. It was a dark mass of flaking black, navy and grey with a swish of ultramarine at the edges where the colours hadn’t merged.
When the phone did ring, it wasn’t John. It was the school, with their usual opening message.
“It’s Carol Brown from the school office. Don’t worry, Mrs Peters, there’s nothing the matter with Sam. I’m just calling to check if you have Ellie’s birth certificate. We don’t seem to have received it when you brought her for enrolment. Do you think you could bring it in and we’ll copy it?”
“Yes, yes, okay, I can do that,” Suzie mumbles, dabbing her eyes. Her voice sounds stilted. She clears her throat with a cough then puts the phone down.
Did she say birth certificate? Or baptismal certificate? Birth, baptism, both connected with water and the flow of liquid.
“Water. I need water,” she says. This time her voice is clear and Suzie thinks it sounds loud and intrusive in the house. She tries it again. Just one word.
“Water.” She remembers she hasn’t spoken out loud for some time. Breakfast this morning had been hurried, the children both chattering and clattering. John had been in a hurry too.
“Early meeting,” he’d said, kissing her on the cheek and striding, carelessly, obliviously, thoughtlessly to the door. “See you tonight, honey. Bye, kids.”
The sound of her voice seems to spur Suzie into action. She looks at the clock. Nine-thirty. If she leaves right away, she’ll have time to get back.
She has purpose now and it feels good. Everything here reminds her how crowded her life is. On the stairs, Mum’s gloves, left by mistake. On the spare bed, a tote containing John’s sister’s birthday present. Ellie’s room, stuffed full with bags; Ellie loves bags. She is always playing weird, solitary games which involve going on a trip and her bags contain random objects. Suzie picks one up. Green sparkly backpack, covered in sequins which are always littering the house, turning up in the strangest places: in John’s socks, trapped between the dinner plates, stuck on the outside of a jam jar in the fridge. Inside the bag are a wooden train (pilfered from Sam), a fabric flower, scrunched paper, a toy banana and a single stripy sock stuffed with plastic animals. God knows what flight of imagination this cornucopia of Ellie’s means. Only Ellie knows that.
She moves to Sam’s room. His is more orderly: space books stacked on his chest of drawers; a picture he’s doing of a comic-book hero; his pencils; an Edinburgh Castle ornament that Mum bought him. His dressing gown is a big lump like some strange creature on the carpet. Suzie leaves it there.
In her own room, John’s running kit makes a similar heap: he’d been out before work this morning. His jeans sprawl across the chair. On his bedside table are a collection of small toys waiting to be mended. From her own side of the bed, a mental health magazine lectures, soundlessly. He’d bought it for her. She doesn’t want it; its just being there makes her feel awful.
People want to intrude in her life all the time.
“I’m only trying to help, Suzie,” Mum said, impatiently, last week. “Because I love you. I think you should go and see Someone.”
Suzie isn’t sure who Someone is but she doesn’t want to see them, whatever flavour of psychologist, psychiatrist or counsellor they are.
She thinks of her brother, saying:
“Come to mine for a couple of days, Suzie. We’ll go out. Have a laugh. You can kip on my settee.”
The thought of going to Dublin is intolerable even though it’s kind of him to offer. Suzie can’t imagine anything worse for someone who already feels hemmed in. A few years ago, she’d have jumped at the idea. But now, it’s impossible. She’d suffocate.
She tries to swallow then she forces her voice through the lump in her throat.
“I need space. Don’t they understand? More space than they can give me. I’m a solitary person and I need to be alone. At least for a while until I can think and concentrate. I need to be away from here, away from all the noise and the mess and the confusion and all those voices and demands and opinions.” Her throat aches.
She leaves her phone on the kitchen table. When she starts the car, she isn’t sure where she’ll go. First, she’ll drive. Then she’ll keep driving. She needs to get far away.
At four o’clock, she reaches a suitable place and she sits on the beach and listens to the sea. She’s free. She feels light. The freezing wind blows through her hair and her thoughts become clear. I’m solitary and free, like a polar bear. She thinks of Ellie’s peg at the crèche.
Ellie, she thinks. Ellie and Sam. Someone’s children.
She takes off her shoes and socks and leaves them on the beach. She needs to feel the water, bathe her toes. It’s cold. It’s good. It’s strong. It isn’t enough. She lifts her feet, one, then the other. They suck out of their sandy sockets. She wades forwards. A water baby. Like Ellie. Solitary too. Just like Ellie.
Thank you for reading this blog, if you’d like to submit a story for consideration to be published, please visit our submissions page.
If you’d like to keep up to date with all the latest stories, news, promos (including writing competitions and giveaways) plus receive a FREE Ebook, sign up to our mailing list here or fill in the form below.
I’d like to thank Jennifer Blanke of the US for her micro story submission ‘The Beauty of Hands’. A touching true story about the symbiotic relationship between hands and the life we lead.
Jennifer Blanke has a BS in Elementary Education and is a mother, teacher, and writer in St. Louis, Missouri. She is currently working on her Master of Fine Arts in Writing degree at Lindenwood University and is an editorial assistant for The Lindenwood Review.
This will be her first published piece, so it’s an honour to have it on my little blog!
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My dying grandmother’s delicate hands lay in mine, her fingers curled in the fetal position, like a chipmunk nestled snugly, taking cover from the frigid night.
I’ve never liked my hands. They’re not elegant, or feminine, or what any girl would wish her hands to be. Palming a basketball wasn’t that amazing when it didn’t transfer to the agile footwork needed to keep me off the bench. I’ve squeezed my big-boned hand through a bracelet, only to panic when I couldn’t remove it. As I comforted my grandmother in her final hours, I glanced down at my large, clunky, masculine hands holding her dainty ones. Visible veins tiring of pumping blood showed through her gossamer skin. My eyes traced the vessels that had carried ninety-six years of life and I was transported to the davenport in the front room of the two-story on Locust Avenue.
We sat side-by-side at the metal tray tables eating snacks from little bowls, each with a deck of cards in hand, playing solitaire. We worked crosswords and word searches for hours while watching a marathon of game shows. Puzzles were next and I smiled as her hand passed me the final piece to complete the beautiful countryside landscape. Her hands gave.
Descending the cellar stairs together to get cans from storage, she’d walk ahead of me, her hand smothering mine to the railing, while saying, Now, Jenny, hold on. As if I could let go under her grip. She’d reach for the dusty pull string of the single bulb and leave a gray streak as her fingers gently brushed her black trousers. As the light cast a ghostly glow on the dirt floor, I’d run up the stairs, leaving her to defend herself against the shadow monsters. Her hands protected.
When Morris the cat appeared on her back porch, she filled the Cool Whip container with water and the Country Crock with kibble every morning and night. When he brought friends, her hands coaxed them closer with food in one palm and stroked soft fur with the other. She made a blanket bed for Morris and the females. I think she was hoping for a litter so she would always have a feline friend. Her hands cared.
When her epileptic son passed away long before his time and hers, the hands that spent a lifetime preparing food, folding clothes, cleaning house, and providing companionship, knew not what to do. Every moment of every day was spent taking care of his needs. Her family was her life and she would have to find something to fill her days. Her hands loved.
When Alzheimer’s consumed my granddad’s body and she could no longer take care of him, her hands signed the forms admitting him into the assisted care facility. She visited daily, bringing him the paper and his favorite candy. She remained by his side until he passed even after he forgot the voices of his children, the faces of his grandkids, and her name. Her hands grieved.
The static hum of the fluorescent lights and the scent of antiseptic and death assailed my senses pulling me away from the flow of memories. The wrinkled hands that I held mirrored an entire lifetime. Her gracious hands saw the best and the worst and they were ready to finally rest. I blinked away the stream of tears and saw my hands reflected in hers. They looked so lovely in her light. My gentle hands stroked my tiny newborn’s brow as she nursed. They carried my strong-willed toddler to the time-out chair. My hands stirred cumin into my family’s favorite chili. They held my love’s hands, tucked safely in his strength. I saw my own devoted hands paying the bills, handing over the car keys, comforting my disappointed daughter, and welcoming my oldest home after a difficult first year of college.
Giving, protecting, caring, loving, grieving. It was then that I saw: my hands were just like hers.
Thank you for reading this blog, if you’d like to submit a story for consideration to be published, please visit our submissions page.
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