This, Carla realised, was what was meant by ‘tea and sympathy’. Only, in this case, it was coffee and sympathy – well latte to be exact – and some comfort-eating chocolate cake.
“So it’s over this time?” Her cup, broad and deep, clicked back on its saucer. “Really? Truly?”
Emmy gave a sad smile. Over the last hour and the chocolate cake, she had burdened Carla’s soul with a gory, forensic dissection of the breakdown of her relationship. Cut by painful cut, from the first misconstrued comment to the final brutal insult.
“Oh it’s over. Dead. Buried. Jake knows it, I know it.”
“You’re sure? Last time – ”
“Last time I was still half in love.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m not.”
“So what about Chris?”
Emmy’s blue eyes blinked once, stating clearly that the name was not relevant in her love life and never would be. “I heard from Miranda the other day. Sienna is starting school. Isn’t that incredible? It only seems like last week the three of us were sitting in these very chairs discussing baby names.”
“Emmy – you can’t pretend forever.”
The blue eyes clouded. Emmy grabbed her coffee cup from its brightly coloured saucer and hid behind it. The words ‘I Love Cappuccino’ danced around the rim in bold, red letters.
“Chris won’t just go away,” Carla spoke to the cup.
Emmy lowered the coffee, her face tightly resentful.
“Chris is not involved with this.” Then, suddenly appealing: “Let’s not go there today, Carla hun, please.”
Not for the first time, Carla felt herself being torn between loyalties. Emmy’s baby-blue eyes, pleading, and Chris – dependable Chris – bleeding from a dozen wounds he had never known were being inflicted. Carla shook her head slowly, as the waters of the Rubicon flowed away beneath her feet.
“He’s your husband, not a meal ticket. You have to – ”
Instantly Emmy was by the door, the cup still in her hand.
“I don’t ‘have to’ anything! Don’t you understand? I don’t care!”
The coffee cup arced across the room heading for shattering impact and landed at the moment the door slammed. It bounced on the carpet, with a little spray of coffee and rolled, until it stopped on its handle by Carla’s feet, still safe and in one piece.
Carla bent to pick it up, the words facing her read: ‘I Love…’. For a moment she clutched it close, then she placed it with extra care on its own saucer, where it belonged.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

The melee had reached its peak. The moment of truth when one side would snatch victory with bloodstained gauntlets from the broken bodies of their enemies. The clash of steel on steel, the shrieks of the wounded and dying, the stench of smoke, sweat and death.
It was silent.
Preternaturally so.
A distant cough echoing on marble-faced walls, loud as a gunshot and the squeak of a leather sole on polished granite floor tiles, shockingly sharp.
The battle scene canvas filled the whole wall at one end of the gallery and Hugh stood before it captivated by the frozen chaos.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Ponies and Progeny or the graceless art of equine management as envisaged by the pen of Jane Jago and inspired by the genius of Norman Thelwell (1923-2004)

Today we consider the role of ambition…

***** ***** *****

I’m not afraid of dying
I do not fear the day
Nor do I fear the nightfall
Though I would choose the way
Not by the inch, as tumours
Eat my breath away
No. Let me go like springtime snow
That ends with no delay

©️jj 2024

Sometimes we walk the edges of reality…

CHAPTER FOUR: ANNIS

Inwardly cursing the arrogance and stupidity of the vampire, Annis grabbed Jessica by the wrist as the ground opened up under the human woman’s feet. Fortunately the cats caught her urgency and grabbed pieces of clothing in their teeth. Between them they managed to drag Jess away from the chasm just as it started belching fire. 
Annis turned a snarling face to where the vampire had been standing, only to find he had run away as fast as his legs would carry him. She pulled on Jessica’s wrist.
“Get up. Must run.”
They ran under the rollercoaster to the bottom of a red-painted ladder.
“Up.”
“I can’t.”
“Can. Will. Before Old One comes.”
A day ago, she might have argued, but now the stench of decaying flesh acted as a goad to Jessica who began climbing with more speed than care. As she followed the labouring woman, Annis was glad it was only a short climb up a caged ladder. At the top of the ladder she ushered Jess through the door into the relative sanity of home.
“How? I mean why? This isn’t where it was before? And where did the fire come from?”
She was clearly right on the edge of panic and Annis gently compelled her to sit.
“I tell. You listen. Have not word. Is long before I talk human. Wait…”
She collected her thoughts.
“Home is always same place. Fairground moves. Other things I show.”
Annis groped in her mind to find words to explain what was going on, but it was so difficult to find the human sounds to explain the difficult concepts she needed to get across to Jessica. One of the Panthers came over and placed his forehead against her, reminding her how she had learned to speak cat. She smiled and purred at him.
“Jessica trust Annis?”
Jess nodded and Annis put her forehead against the older woman’s silently absorbing language. Jessica grinned and giggled.
“Tickles don’t it?” Annis grinned back. “Now I can better,” she grimaced apologetically “have words but not…” 
She suddenly grinned in triumph. “Grammar!”
Jess punched the air in a gesture of solidarity. 
Annis continued. “I tell you story then show some things. In 1974 rollercoaster is closed for paint. Painters use blowtorches to take off old paint. Is believed that torch lights gas from landfill site under fairground. Whole fairground goes on fire. One hundred people die. Many more injured or maimed. But fire also wake the Old Ones, who enjoy fire and fear and pain. So they make it happen time and time again. Every time, I watch, and I suffer the screams of the dying. Is bad.”
She stopped speaking and swallowed a huge lump in her throat. Jessica held out a hand and she grasped it hard. 
“Then vampire brings you here. And now I have hope.”
“Why?”
“Because you are old soul. Vampire recognises and wants.”
“Why does he want me?”
“In his mind he knew you long time and he sees you with wind in hair, and bare here,” she touched her own small chest.
“Oh. My dream. I see. But how do I give you hope?” 
“Is difficult. May sound as if I make use of you.”
“But you don’t. Do you?”
“No I would not.”
“Besides which,” Jessica said wryly “I don’t think it would be possible for me to just walk away.”
“Think not. But we can try if you would like.”
“No. I know in my bones that I can’t. Tell me what I have to do.”
“Can’t. Not yet. Must show you things first.”

Part 11 of Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook will be here next week…

Things that make us go poop…

Granny and the ‘ladies’ darts team of The Dog and Trumpet alphabetically collate their collective contempt for the inhabitants of the twenty-first century.

Okay, let’s get this right out in the open before we begin. Whatever this heap of steaming ordure is it is NOT reality. It is no more real than the soap opera you won’t admit to watching. It’s contrived and packaged to get you to believe in it.

• What is real about putting a bunch of semi-famous people in the jungle and only feeding them beans? Although imagining the aroma is vaguely amusing.
• What is real about shoving a load of attention seekers in a house and force-feeding them booze? This is purely for those who want to watch cut-price porn.
• What is real about getting together a group of the nastiest human beings you can find and offering a job to the last one standing? It would be marginally less boring if they were actually allowed to kill each other.
• What is real about encouraging assorted no-hopers onto a stage and laughing at their lack of talent? This is mostly just so cruel that it can only be watched with beer goggles on.
• What is real about watching over-privileged tossers attempting to get laid? This just makes me wonder precisely how inbred the little bastards are.

I could go on…

And breathe, Gran, you are hyperventilating now. *lights a ciggy and decides that drinking Southern Comfort from the bottle is sometimes necessary*

Having reached the conclusion that it’s all pretty much shite there is one question hanging in the air. Why is it on night after night? Because this shite is popular, and people who begin their ‘careers’ on reality tv are becoming mainstream ‘stars’. Why? Are we so devoid of talent as to make a cult of being a bit dim?

Being genuinely goshswoggled by the amount of airtime devoted to this regurgitation of humanity at its least appealing I took myself to the Dog and Trumpet where me and the rest of the Ladies Darts team conducted a straw pole.

When we sat down together for a ploughman’s to discuss the findings, what we discovered was beyond depressing. People who are really old enough to know better watch this dross for the following reasons:

• I like to get to understand people in real situations. (Where would that be then?)
• I really like the presenter. (Can one like an oleaginous bastard?)
• It’s an interesting social experiment. (See, even the middle classes get drawn in.)
• It’s lovely to see the children on it. (That’ll be the talent show element.)
• And finally (probably the only honest one). I watch for the tits.

To recap. Reality TV serves only one purpose – to bring forward even more people who are famous for being famous. Oh and maybe to fill the schedules cheaply.
There is only one reason for watching any of it and that’s the vain hope that somebody, somewhere, someday will up and twat one of the presenters…

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Jane Jago

Jennie sewed herself a man. Two winters it took, piecing together the leather patches with painstakingly neat stitches. She made him beautiful because she was not, and with every stitch she poured her frustrated and misunderstood love into the undertaking.

The old women spoke of stitched men as they sat around the Walpurgisnacht fire. They said if you wanted your muppet to live you had to prick your finger and blood his lips by the light of a gibbous moon. And then, they said, you had to bind him to your will lest he find a more attractive mate.

Mostly unbelieving, Jennie smeared the blood anyway. She thought herself dreaming when her love began to breathe.

“Did you create me?” His voice was deep and slow.

Jennie nodded.

“And am I bound to your will, mistress?”

Jennie shook her head. It came to her that if you love truly you cannot bind the other half of your soul. You can only hope. 

“No. I would not bind you. You are free. Be happy.”

He looked down at her for what seemed to be a very long time. So long that she could see her stitches fading as life itself sprung into every fibre of the man who stood before her.

By the time he was ready to speak, Jennie was sure she had lost him and felt the beginning of tears clotting her throat.

It felt like nothing she had known before when he put his big hands against her cheeks.

“Freedom is overrated.”

Then he bent and touched his mouth to hers.

Jane Jago

You can listen to this on YouTube

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

Five years before Agatha had sat in that chair and made a decision that affected the rest of her life.
“It would be to our mutual advantage,” he had said. “Your contacts, my capital. What’s not to like?”
And on paper he was right. It was just she could not dismiss that odd nagging sensation deep inside – an irrational unease. But it was indeed irrational, so she had brushed it aside and signed the deal.
Today she sat in the same chair and finished filling in the forms that would cripple her life for years to come through bankruptcy proceedings.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Ponies and Progeny or the graceless art of equine management as envisaged by the pen of Jane Jago and inspired by the genius of Norman Thelwell (1923-2004)

Today we consider the need for ingenuity…

***** ***** *****