Agnes had been the Easter Bunny for so many years now that even the teeth didn’t bother her. Way she looked at it one day of frantic egg hiding beat three hundred plus in any other job.

Okay, maybe the belly and the ears weren’t exactly attractive. But hey, she coulda been a flower fairy condemned to droop around dressed in bits of colour and freezing cold for most of her life. Or, even worse, the tooth fairy. The very thought made her gag. Picking up rotten bits of children’s mouths every night. 

No. All in all chocolate was best….

Jane Jago

Sometimes we walk the edges of reality…

A scream went up which penetrated soul-deep, the sound shaking the very foundations of the underworld and the roof of the cavern began to fall. Stones, dropping around her and the low rumble that presaged its final collapse. Then Annis was there, gripping her wrist..
“How did you know?”
Something was gone from her, as if a horror had passed and she looked more child again than feral being. Jessica pulled her close into an embrace, as if her own weak flesh could protect the child from the collapsing cavern. Eyes closed they clung together.
“It’s alright,” Annis was saying, her voice almost happy.
The rumble faded like summer thunder and Jessica became aware of a slight breeze on her face. She was standing with Annis and the two huge cats in an empty field, under the fading stars as dawn was breaking. Her car was pulled up nearby, beside an open gate. Jessica’s phone played a few bars from Dvorak’s ‘New World’ and she reached to answer it without thinking.
“Jess, I’ve been worried about you.” Uncle David’s voice sounded as if it belonged to another life, in another galaxy. 
“It’s – it’s alright. I’m alright,” 
“Your Aunt was sure you were in trouble, you know how she is. Ever since that Roald didn’t show up for dinner.”
“Yes, Look, I’m coming home. I had engine trouble. I’ll be back soon.”
“Long as you’re alright, lass.”
She put the phone away and looked back at Annis. The girl was bending down, grabbing at something gleaming in the grass.
“I think you should keep this,” she said, holding out the necklace of silver ammonites.
Jessica took it and for a moment she had the fleeting sense of Hild, smiling and she realised she felt whole again at last, more fully herself than she had done for a long, long time. She undid the catch and slipped the necklace around her neck to lie on her breasts, Then she turned her attention back to Annis, her indomitable young friend.
“Thank you, I don’t know how you got us out of there.”
Annis shook her head.
“You not understand, we not there. Never. It never happen. You – unmade it.” She reached out and kissed Jessica quickly on the cheek.
“I thank you. You take demon from me – free me. Make it never happen.”
“I – I am not sure I understand,” Jessica said, but then she was not sure she understood any of it. “What happens to you now?”
Annis smiled and it was the saddest thing Jessica had ever seen,
“Nothing happens to us Jess. We died before we were born. Only we never knew we was dead…I am just a dream of hope in the darkness.”
As Jessica watched, Annis and her cats grew more and more insubstantial until she could see them no longer. She thought she felt small fingers and a rough tongue on her cheek until the morning breeze blew even that away.

Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is available from Amazon.

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.

Right, before we go any further the obligatory sensitivity warning –  this is about sex. You know the activity – where some version of Tab A being shoved into Slot B occurs. That having been said I make no effort to pretty up the subject. So those of a virginal, celibate, or easily offended nature, or those under the age of consent, should stop reading now and go away. You Will Be Offended if you read on.

And now to consider the pros and cons of rude things under the sky….

Given that most people between the ages of sixteen and, say, sixty will harbour a secret desire for alfresco nookie, I feel it is incumbent on me to dispel a few myths.

Romance – It always sounds kind of romantic when some country singer is mooing on about making love in the moonlight. And I guess it may be okay in the Ozarks – they have plenty of room. In Clapham it’s less delicate delight and more amateur dogging.

Sensation – Dirt between the cheeks of your arse is abrasive. Stinging nettles sting. (As a female I can attest to the fact you have never laughed until you have seen a naked man prancing about a moonlit field clutching his knob and screaming for a dockleaf. But I digress.) And whatever kind of a prick does it for you, thistles up your nethers won’t help. 

Oh and. On no account allow yourself to be tempted onto a moonlit beach. If dirt is abrasive just think what sand can do. Sand forced into your delicate places by something resembling a piston wrapped in glass paper. Ouch. (Apparently A&E departments in seaside areas have special fanny douching nurses.)

Temperature – Unless you are lucky enough to live in some balmy tropical paradise it will be cold. Cold enough to ensure that the male half of the equation will have to be about his work quickly before Mr Willy decides its cold enough so he needs to go home.

Privacy – That secluded forest glade. How secluded is it? Will you be making love in the tender grass watched over only by the moon? Or. And this is the most likely scenario. Will you open your eyes to see you have collected: two joggers, three Boy Scouts, one man with a bicycle and a head torch, one man in a greasy macintosh whose hands are suspiciously hidden, and your brother and four of his mates? You are never going to live that one down.

In conclusion alfresco hide-the-sausage is most definitely not what it is cracked up to be. Besides which, if you are a yummy mummy to be, how the feck will you explain calling the fruit of your loins ‘Dogging Area to the Rear of Sainsbury’s Car Park’. It doesn’t quite have the ring of Brooklyn does it?

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

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

Jane Jago

Mum and Dad have been taking in traumatised kids for as long as I can remember. When they couldn’t have any more children after me and my sister, they decided not to moan about it. Instead, they put their energies into helping the less fortunate. We got used to little ones who had been beaten, or starved, or treated worse than dogs. But when Billy came along it was hard not to cry because of what the poor little blighter had been through.

I remember asking Dad how anybody could treat a little kid like that. He looked at me soberly.
“Honestly? I don’t know. All I know is that we have to do our best to mend him.”
And so we did.

We all knew the drill well enough to ignore his peculiarities, and not push him or impose ourselves. At first, it seemed like each tiny step was agonisingly slow, and I sometimes caught a look of almost despair on Mum’s face. But then Billy seemed to start understanding that he really was safe. He began sleeping in his bed instead of crouched in the corner. He started to eat proper food instead of baby milk from a bottle. He even smiled every once in a while.

The one thing Billy didn’t do was talk. Come to think of it he hardly made a noise at all. He never cried or laughed, and if he sneezed or burped he looked so frightened that we soon learned to pretend not to hear.

It was Mum’s birthday, and she wanted to go to the aquarium. So we all went. It’s a funny place, full of soft blue light, and while most of the kids ran around from window to window Billy stood watching a tank full of jellyfish, touching the glass with gentle fingers. My sister went and stood behind him, and he actually leaned back against her.
“Look, Billy,” she said gently, “custard fish”.
Billy made a funny rusty little noise, and it came to me that he was laughing. Mum grabbed Dad’s hand and held on real tight. My sister put a gentle hand on Billy’s head.
“Whipped cream fish?”
He turned to look at her, and in a tiny, creaky, rusty little whisper, he explained where she was going wrong.
“Jellyfish.”
Then he hid his face in her sweatshirt while she stroked his hair.

And that’s how a Portuguese Man of War gave Billy back his voice.

© jane jago

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

In leaving it, the earth was lost to me.
My heart twisted back and forth, between anguish and hope, anxiety and excitement. Yes, I was abandoning friends and family forever, but that was in order to embark on the greatest adventure humanity had ever undertaken.
The thrusting acceleration marked the moment I departed the womb of humankind and became isolated, cut off. Drifting in infinity, regrets and doubts whispering their woe to my innermost being.
Then the screens filled with images of the world we were heading to, beautiful beyond belief, and I fell in love with my new home.

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 good communication between rider and mount…

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

If I should trip and fall from grace
Be blind to what is true
If I should see a perfect face
And turn away from you
If my fool feet should leave the path
My heart give way to fear
Your voice will lift my soul at last
And I shall persevere

©️jj 2024

Sometimes we walk the edges of reality…

Annis stood, still holding the gun, her young face puzzled, shaking her head.
“No. No, You must stop it. Jessica. You must.”
The Old Ones moved to a single command, an ancient voice from primordial times. The voice that had once summoned humanity to leave the ways of the gatherer and hunt for flesh. Dark and potent, it summoned now the myriad aspects of itself, the feasters on fear and the eaters of blood, drawing them back to the place where it would Be once more.
“No!” Annis cried aloud, her body being pulled out of shape as if by an unseen pressure.Her face changing, as if under the distorting brush of an artist.
“No,” Jessica heard her own voice, but it was not her own. It was more than a cry of desperation, it was a cold assertion of denial and as she spoke the single syllable, the world seemed to slow. Someone stepped out of her and then turned to face her, kirtle, belted at the waist and long hair braided. A mirror image. She picked up the ugly knife that lay on the stone and in her hand it gleamed silver, catching and reflecting the light above the throne and casting it into the shadows. Then she held it out on an open palm.
“I can’t do this, Jessica, it has to be you.”
The eyes, so familiar, held nothing but expectation.
Jessica reached out and took the blade.
In a single movement the other, had stepped back and lifted the sprawling body of Roald into her arms, her touch transforming him again from monster to man. His eyes flickered open and widened.
“Hild?”
The woman shushed him as she might an infant, then looked back to Jessica.
“This is not my time, it is yours. Do what you must.”
Then both were gone and time reprised. It was like a dream within a dream was over and Jessica was plunged back into the nightmare, but this time alone. Annis screaming, the Old Ones creeping back to become once more the single malevolent, life-destroying, malice that they had been, which grew in strength and power with each moment as it flexed its presence and reached out, turning its focus upon the figure that stood at the confluence of every point of its progression.
JESSICA!
The name shivered through the underworld like a curse.
Alone and vulnerable, defenceless. Feeling again the hard blows, the brutal, pounding body, the shrill and silent scream of panic, as bound and gagged, she was hurled from the car to roll on the rocks.
That is who you are. That broken, beaten and weak creature, Stand aside and I will spare what remains of you. Resist and you will relive that for eternity. I can trap you as I have trapped the others, locked in your own private nightmare, playing it through, forever.
The knife in her hand gleamed, it’s obsidian blade as sharp as any metal, carved from the congealed blood of the earth itself. Jessica stared at it, images of blood and fear and agony, twisting her thoughts. She could refuse and know that in neverending darkness, or shed her own blood and bind herself to oppose it. 
And then she knew.
“No,” she said quietly, her voice simply determined.
She gripped the stone knife and raised her hand, then with a single blow she struck the blood-drenched stone and it shattered as if hit by a pile-driver.

Part 16 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.

As a woman of a certain age, I had kind of hoped that I’d seen humankind at its worst. But then along came the internet.
Home of mildly amusing memes, pictures of pets, jolly banter. And vicious bastards.
I’m not going to call them trolls. That trivialises the damage they do. They are unprincipled assholes, probably with very small penises, most of whom hide behind assumed names and pretend faces to drip their evil on the world.
In my youth if you disagreed with someone you mostly sorted it out in the pub – possibly with fisticuffs.
Or, if you were a middle-class twat, you wrote to the Times.
Today, though, you can sit behind a keyboard and fire salvos of ill-informed downright nastiness at anybody who it takes your fancy to abuse.
I’ve had a few attempting to get under my skin. They really don’t like it when I just ignore them. Life is too short to engage with any asshole who combines extreme political views, with misogyny and a side order of complete f*g stupidity.
However, I’m not fragile, and I don’t give a shit. But.
When I read some the uninformed opinions of some utter wanktard who calls himself something like ‘Mister Macho’ or ‘The Moral Major’, or ‘The Voice of the People’, I find myself offended.
I don’t know whether the media personality they are all slagging off was suicidal or not.
But what I do know is it ain’t up to me to decide.
I don’t know which of two warring ‘celebrities’ is right.
But I do know it ain’t up to me to decide.
And it’s not up to the court of the internet neither.
All I have to say is if you want to drip vitriol at least do it in your own name, with your own face and accept that someone might want to punch your head…