It is Christmas time and Joss Becket with her beloved husband Ben, the co-owners of The Fair Maid and Falcon, one of the busiest pubs in the south of England, take their twin daughters on a walking Nativity…

Of course there was still a certain amount of work attached to the production of what seemed to have grown from a village event into something with rather more ‘reach’, but at least I was spared the organisational details. By mid-December the village had grown used to the presence of a camera crew and even a little blasé about the whole affair. For myself, I kept my head below the parapet as much as possible, only emerging to discuss such matters as ticketed suppers, hot mulled cider, and commemorative mugs. As to the actual event I was carefully incurious, feeling that if I wasn’t prepared to get fully involved the best thing I could do was keep my nose right out.
Then the big day came. It was the Sunday before Christmas. We were right in the middle of the countdown to the big day itself, and the weather was bloody freezing although that didn’t seem to be acting as a deterrent to the hundreds of people who poured into the village to,see the spectacle.
The play was to begin with the Announciation which would be enacted in the church, and then Mary and Joseph would progress through the streets, stopping to be turned away at door after door until they reached the Fair Maid where they would be directed to the barn for the climax of the story.
After a tea of soup and sandwiches I dressed the twins in their warmest clothing and the whole family, plus our head chef and his family, went along to see the fun.
There were crowds of people gathered outside the church, where two huge screens would relay the action from inside. As the crowd waited the speakers beside the screens played Christmas Carols into the cold air. We were among those select few admitted to the church where we were guided to our places by dark clad figures bearing torches. Promptly at six o’clock the church fell dark and a single bell tolled the hour. As the last bong sounded a light seeming to come from nowhere illuminated a young girl at a spinning wheel. She seemed unaware of our presence, singing a little song as the thread grew between her fingers. Then the light grew dazzling and a great voice filled the church. The angel dropped out of the sky on invisible wires and the oldest story of all begun to unfold. I will say it was brilliantly done and the villagers had been coached in their parts very well. So well, in fact, that it was hard to recognise them as anything other than Mary, Joseph, and assorted angels etcetera.
The crowd that followed ‘Mary and Joseph’ was surprisingly silent and even though it was many hundreds strong it somehow failed to impinge on the magic of this cold starlit night. When we arrived at the pub, most of the crowd was kept in the car park where more huge screens had appeared as if by magic.
In the yard fronting the huge barn where our Winnebago normally lives, we found there were straw bales to sit on as the sky clouded over and snow began to sift down onto our heads. As the first flakes fell the barn doors opened and we saw Mary and Joseph and the baby, and the patient donkey, and a few early lambs, and a couple of pygmy goats. It was beautifully staged, and we all awaited the shepherds and the magi with bated breath. Suddenly we could smell the smells of upland meadows and hear the melodious chime of cow bells as the humble shepherds came from the west. Mary looked at them and smiled, but instead of the ‘actors’ speaking the air was suddenly full of music.
Where Danilo had come by a gospel choir I knew not, but they were the real deal, and their voices told of the visitors and how they brought gifts to the infant king far better than speech could ever have done. Even I so far forgot my cynicism as to lean forward and listen enchanted. All too soon, it seemed to me, the barn doors rolled closed and it was over.
For a moment the lights dimmed to darkness and I could hear a rustling in the straw around me which I dearly hoped wasn’t mice. Then the lights came on – slowly getting brighter and brighter until it was almost daylight. All around me I could hear children’s voices and I looked at Roz and Ali each of whom had a tissue paper wrapped parcel in her lap. Lifting my eyes from their happy wonderment I looked about me to see every child in the yard had a gift and every child wore an identical expression of bemused delight.
Roz turned a face of binding joy to me. “Look Mummy,” she said, “a Christmas miracle.”

©️Jane Jago

They called it the monument when they bothered to speak of it. It had been in the city forever, and sometimes the young stopped to look at it  and wonder that it had neither purpose nor meaning.

Were the strange round things halfway down its mighty bulk eyes? Did it breathe through the holes in the strange beaky thing between them?

But it wasn’t of sufficient importance to occupy them for long and they soon scuttled off about the jobs they were allocated as soon as they dropped from their chrysalis.

Humans were yesterday and insects aren’t given to introspection.

©️jj 2020

It was all the vicar’s fault. She went on a pilgrimage to Oberammergau and came back fired with almost missionary zeal. And now Joss Beckett co-owner of The Fair Maid and Falcon, one of the busiest pubs in the south of England, is committed to organising a walking Nativity…

I picked up my phone and called Danilo Lovell. Danilo is a paranormal investigator and medium, who just happens to own his own tv production company and who owes me a number of favours. Of course he said no. So I called his grandmother, his wife, and his head of security – all of whom are friends of mine. Then I sat back and waited. It didn’t take long. Danilo called back.
“Bitch,” he said entirely without heat. “Why are you making me waste time and money on a bloody Nativity play?”
“But Danilo, it’s a walking Nativity play. And it’s currently a clusterfuck.”
He laughed. “So it needs sorting out. But why me?”
“I was rather thinking a documentary. If done right it could even net you yet another BAFTA nomination.”
I could have sworn that I heard the wheels turn as he thought that one through. When he spoke it was in an entirely different voice. Now he was all business.
“When can we meet with the clusterfuck steering committee?”
“They’ll be here on Thursday morning at eleven, thinking they are going to have to crawl to me for help.”
Danilo chuckled. “Meaning their gratitude to me would know no bounds. Better and better. I’ll be there. With Paula, and possibly Grandmother, in tow. Until then…”
He hung up and I leaned back in my chair, luxuriating in the feeling of a job well done. After a couple of minutes of self-congratulation I got down to payroll duties and consigned the whole Nativity play thing to the back burner.
It was nearly five o’clock when there came a tap on my office door. Recognising the small noise as being likely to be small people, I got up and went to open the door. My three-year-old twin daughters stood outside hand in hand, looking more than a little apprehensive. I crouched down to their level and wrinkled my nose at them.
“Is Daddy Beckett hiding behind you, my loves.”
They nodded their heads energetically. Ali spoke first “Yes he is. And he’s very frightened.” She stopped speaking and Roz took over. “He says,”she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “that he has been a stupid man, and you might be cross with him.”
I laughed and drew my darlings into my arms. After I had kissed their rosy cheeks and smoothed their shining blonde curls I raised my voice.
“Benedict Beckett, get in here and stop being such a wuss.”
He stuck his head around the corner and I could feel him all but tasting the atmosphere. When he found it calm and friendly he came all the way into the room and sat his bottom on the corner of my desk.
“Sorry Joss,” he said in a voice of real contrition. “I should know you have more than enough to do with a business to run and three kids to manage.”
Ali pulled firmly on my sleeve. “Auntie Stella did call Daddy a plonker,” she whispered in tones of deep shock.
I couldn’t keep my face straight any longer and I grinned at my little family. “I expect she did, because he did a silly. But it’s all right now because I sorted it out.”
“How do you mean sorted it out?” Ben sounded worried.
“It’s okay love, I haven’t thrown you to the wolves. I called in a favour and now the walking Nativity is Danilo’s problem.”
For a moment he looked at me as if I had grown an extra head, then the simple beauty of my plan dawned on him. “Oh, wonderful. He has all the resources and the expertise to make it something special. But how did you make him agree?”
“I sicced Grandmother and Bethan on to him.”
“That’d work. But will he do his best in those circumstances. I mean he don’t do anything for nothing, so what’s in it for him?”
“Another BAFTA nomination maybe for the documentary they are going to shoot.”
Ben’s grin spread from one ear to the other and he leaned between the twins to kiss me full on the mouth with much noisy enthusiasm. Roz waited until he lifted his head before pursing her pink rosebud of a mouth and patting his arm.
“See,” she said comfortingly, “me and Ali protected you.”
Ben picked the girls up in his big arms, kissing and tickling them until they were a giggly mess. “You did indeed protect me. Now shall we ask Mummy if she has finished work so we can go home for tea?”

To be concluded tomorrow…

©️Jane Jago

Pa grinned.

“You reckon to sell us a droid we can’t afford?”

“Easy terms if you sign up today.”

“Out’s thataway.”

“Don’t blame me when your outdated droid goes feral and kills your kids.”

“We got so blamed many he’d be welcome to one or two.” Pa put a booted foot up the salesman’s fat arse.

As he drove off Jimmy slid in from the back kitchen. Grinning.

“Had a nearly new XH150 in the trunk. Looks like ole George here is gonna get them knees and elbows what he needs. Plus a brand new pair of baby blue eyes.” 

©️jj 2020

The Fair Maid and Falcon is one of the busiest pubs in the south of England, and quite enough for one woman to run without the complication of a husband who finds it impossible to say no…

It was all the vicar’s fault. She went on a pilgrimage to Oberammergau and came back fired with almost missionary zeal. The parish should, she declared, put on a walking Nativity play. I regarded the whole idea with mild scepticism and tactfully removed my susceptible spouse from her orbit so he shouldn’t be infected with enthusiasm for this madcap scheme.
But I was too late, he had already caught the bug. He came home from a meeting that was ostensibly to discuss maintenance of the churchyard with the sort of spring in his step that I knew had nothing to do with mowing between gravestones.
As soon as lunch service was over, I beckoned him into my office.
“Okay Benny, what you got the wind up your tail about?”
He shuffled his feet a bit and looked shamefaced. It was all I could do not to laugh, but I kept my own face straight and waited.
“Umm…”
“I’m waiting, Ben.”
He came and sat on the corner of the desk.
“How come I can never get anything past you?”
I laughed up at him. “Could it not be just because I love you?”
“No. It’s witchery. And where are the gruesome twosome.”
“Your daughters are at nursery as you know perfectly well. Now stop trying to distract me and fess up.”
“It’s the walking Nativity thing. I might have said that they can finish the story in the barn here.”
“Might have said?” By now I was having extreme difficulty not giggling out loud, but I was determined not to let him off the hook quite yet.
He spread his hands. “It’s your own fault, you never came and protected me. And the vicar and the W.I. ladies ganged up on me.”
That tore it and I laughed until I was breathless. I calmed down to find Ben watching me with the kind of exaggerated patience I normally only get from our German Shepherds.
“Sorry Benny, it’s just that crafty old theologian having the nous to set Mrs Partridge on you.”
He sighed. “Why am I so scared of the chair of the W.I.?”
“I dunno, babe. Maybe it’s the blue hair.”
He thought about that for a moment then shook his head. “No. I reckon it’s the half glasses, and buttressed bosom, and the cardigans. My infant teacher was like that and we were all scared shitless of Miss Weeks.”
I patted him consolingly. “Never mind. Just tell me what you agreed to.”
He actually hung his head. “I ain’t agreed to anything. Except… A meeting here Thursday morning at eleven. Jack Ellis is of the opinion you are going to kill me.”
I sighed. “Tempting though it is to put period to your miserable existence, I couldn’t do without you. But why, specifically am I about to wring your handsome neck for you right now?”
“Because the whole fucking thing is a shambles, and if somebody with superior organisational skills don’t take it in hand…”
He took one look at my face and fled.
When I had stopped swearing and kicking furniture I had a bit of a think. The idea, when it occurred to me was so beautiful in its simplicity that I could feel a smile replacing my frown.

To be continued tomorrow…

©️Jane Jago

   

   

   

 

   

   

   

   

   

Being minuscule is a crock of shit, all the little bots were agreed on that even if they agreed on nothing else.

The bloodbots thought they had the worst job – scraping fatty cells out of the humans’ bodily canals. 

The virusbots poo-pooed that notion – at least, they said, fatty deposits don’t fight back.

The cancerbots maintained that overactive cells were the most difficult to defeat…

This argument had been going on for decades until the scientists discovered almost all illnesses could first be detected in faeces.

The shitbots moved immediately to most disgusting status.

An honour they still hold. 

©️jj 2020

Fatswhistle and Buchtooth by Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV is seminal work of science fantasy sets the benchmark by which all others are judged. Where quest meets tragedy, and comedy meets despair. Critics are calling it ‘the best ever cure for insomnia’ and ‘the book that finally persuaded me I hate science fantasy’.

A tiny weeny extract in which we explore the tender relationship between our hero and his trusty female companion.

They came out of the desert into the fertile valley of the big river, just as the sun was dropping. Buchtooth kicked her camel until it knelt and leapt off the saddle throwing her clothing off as she ran towards the water.
“Come on Fatswhistle you ugly bastard, get off your frigging camel and get into this water. You smell worse than him.”
Fatswhistle followed his companion in a much more leisurely fashion. He was just removing his cracked leather boots when she threw herself into the water. Her back was broad and freckled and as she dived, the white globes of her arse were displayed to Fatswhistle’s suddenly interested gaze. He removed his clothing at a rather accelerated pace and hurried after her into the brown water.
She was singing tunelessly and washing her long carrot-orange curls when he waded over to her and sat down. The river mud felt like silk under his buttocks and he picked up one of his own feet and looked between his toes. He watched his companion from under his eyelids finding her heavy breasts surprisingly exciting as they dipped in and out of the water. He scooted closer and put out a tentative hand. She snorted and wrung the water out of her hair. Emboldened, he touched the freckled skin on her shoulder. She jumped and swore, dunking him under the water until he saw stars…
“Gerrof.”

Fatswhistle and Buchtooth is currently out of print as one engages in secret talks pertaining to the future of that piece of one’s very soul. Instead, here is a smidgin of impeccable verse

Within the inglenook of creeping night
I steal Calliope’s wings steeped with flame
And an homunculus enters my sight
Bearing aloft a banner with my name.
I stalk to rocky kloofs of distant height
To claim the fabled phoenix for my own
And by the wounding pens terrible might
I slay the fierce chimera all alone.
Those Labyrinthine paths conquered by right
So now upon my head Theseus crown
Marks my soliloquy of posey bright
As in Morpheus arms I softly drown.
From forth my dreams thus comes triumphs of rhyme
For of the Muses choice, I am the prime.

A Bite of… Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

Question 1: Who is your greatest literary influence? And why?

Dame Barbara Cartland is in one’s humble opinion a writer in the presence of whose excellence we should all bow our heads. And if you cannot see why then one washes one’s hands of you forthwith

Question 2: What is your guilty pleasure?

One must confess to a partiality for that very out-of-fashion but delectable cocktail the snowball. And to being wholly unable to resist white chocolate in any form.

Question 3: Would you rather be a hero or a villain.

On first glance one could only say hero. But closer thought made one discern that one’s hero is always heading for heartbreak whilst one’s villain had no such feelings to injure. Ergo one would be a hero with the moral compass of a villain.

About Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

The only offspring of a doomed union between the daughter of an English Country Gentleman and the unsatisfactory son of an American stomach pills magnate, Moonbeam resides with his maternal parent in leafy suburbia. His ruling passion is writing, and as he is fortunate enough to be in possession of a small private income he is able to write with only literary excellence in mind, being able to ignore the demands of mammon that may force his lesser colleagues into prostituting their art for a few pieces of silver.
Fatswhistle and Buchtooth was a whole decade in its gestation, and you may expect the next magnum opus to take even longer as Moonbeam hones his craft to ever more delicate points.

In the meantime, one’s his fans may catch more of one’s his highly distinctive wit and wisdom in a slim volume facilitated by the rather boring women who run this blog assisted by one’s his maternal parent – How to Start Writing a Book: The Wit and Wisdom of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV.

It’s a little known fact that humans who do physical labour in zero gravity and with heavy breathing apparatus don’t last long. Given that those who died were the scum of our species, we didn’t expect there to be an outcry. But there was. 

Fortunately, self-determining machines could mine just as effectively. 

In a relatively short space of time the moon’s face became as full of holes as a Swiss cheese, and littered with broken machinery.

Still we mined, until the machines stole our satellite out of the sky and we awoke to find it gone.

Woe notides us….

©️jj 2020

Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below…

Dog was half drunk and wondering if he should have accepted the invitation to join his best friend in the dive bar on thirty-three. Teram was the kind who liked to go slumming — said it kept him grounded. He ran the family salvage company and was the hands-on type who liked to do the work at the sharp end. His idea of a good night out was to go drinking with his hard-core salvage crews.
“They are good people, Dog — and they would be made up to meet you.”
“No. They would be made up to meet Sub-Commander Arlan Stude, not Hengast ‘Dog’ Gethick, jobbing actor.”
Teram did not deny it, just rolled his shoulders as they took the glides down.
“They won’t recognise you anyway without that uniform and the sexy half-mask,” he confided. “But you got to know what you are to these boys. They won’t miss an episode. You are like their hero.”
Dog shook his head and altered course to avoid his towering bulk blocking the way for a couple with a baby.
“It’s all crap. Just kids’ stories in grown-up words. None of it real. Not like it’ll ever happen. I don’t see the real Strands ever funding a space exploration mission. They’d not see profit in it.”
Teram glanced up at him.
“You don’t get it do you, Dog? It’s not that it’ll never happen — everyone knows it’ll never happen. It’s that it shows something bigger than this.” He gestured to the buzz of humanity around them. “These are people penned into the cage this city’s become — you, your show, it opens the doors of that cage for a while. Opens the doors and lets in hope. More than hope. Real belief in a future that can be more than this.”
That was too much, and Dog shook his head.
“I’m an actor, not a fucking messiah.”

The bar was not as bad as Dog had thought it would be. It was well ventilated and the people who were vaping whatever noxious substances sat in a side room where an androgyne gyrated naked on a podium. Teram’s crew sat together by the one window which offered not so much a panorama of the cityscape of the kind Dog had at home, but more like a murky glimpse into the bowels of the world — dark and lit by sudden flares.
“So, what you do, Dog?”
Someone had to ask, and lulled by the strong spirits and the rough but good-natured bonhomie, Dog almost forgot himself.
“I’m an actor.” He remembered in time and quickly added, “Used to do that commercial for Eatin’ Quix delivery?”
That met with a few nods of recall and the topic moved on. But it was too much to expect Teram would let it lie for long.
“So, what did you guys make of the latest SP? You think they will find those Kyruku?” His eyes slid to Dog and he winked. “Makes you think. Aliens and all.”
Dog said nothing as the men around him speculated.
“Ain’t no fucking aliens. If there were, we’d have met ’em by now. Stands to reason.”
“Yeah. But The Golden Strand is headed ’cross the fucking galaxy, not just round the block and home; it’s different.”
“Different? You see that view screen they get to see stuff on? Huge thing. Dream of that for our ship. What you say, boss — when we getting that kind of tech?”
There was laughter, and Teram laughed loudest of all.
“What if it was for real, though?” someone said. Dog had not picked up the names; he’d tried, but the faces were too similar — worn, weary and bleak. He recalled an odd conversation he’d had with Heila a couple of days before: she’d been going on about her fans, her people. Well, he guessed these were his people. Gnarled by life before they hit thirty, running on dreams and stardust and the false hope held out by the allure of each episode of Starways Pathfinders.
“What if? You kidding? I’d sign up in a second.”
“Yeah. Think of it. The freedom of the stars. Going where no other fucker’s ever been.”
“Be like, you’d be alive. You’d matter. You’d be doing something — something good.”
Heads nodded and someone called another round of drinks. Dog stared out of the window at the inky sludge that coated it, dulling the grim sights it would otherwise expose.

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 0100.

The lights of Christmas guide us
Though the mists of time may hide us
They awaken long lost memory
Of how our Christmas used to be
Of stockings filled and wrapping bright
Of sleigh bells and enchanted nights
Of family and Christmas cheer
Of looking forward without fear
Though older now, we turn our face
Towards that far enchanted place
When looking back we are beguiled
By life through the eyes of a smiling child

©️Jane Jago 2020