Becca offered a silent prayer as the engine failed to catch then did. The car was too old but she couldn’t manage without it. Today, her day off, she had been temping as a receptionist. Tomorrow it was back to an early start as a home carer. But now she had to collect the kids from her mother’s. A neighbour’s daughter would babysit for her evening shift waitressing. 

On the radio, a slimy politician sucking on his silver spoon was saying that poor people should get a job.

She wondered how many jobs she needed not to be poor anymore.

E.M. Swift-Hook

It’s cold here, cold as the hiss of an angered angel. Cold as the breast of a barren woman. But we are not made to mind the cold, I and my trillion brethren. We float gently down to blanket the stable where a baby cries and a man stares uncomprehendingly as his virgin bride presents him with an unexpected son.

It’s cold and we band together to hold in what little heat the beasts generate with their breath.

My brothers are glad to be of use to him they are calling the king, but I am afraid. I have seen stars where there should be none. I have heard strange voices singing. I have watched sheepherders bring presents of food and woollen blankets. I have seen camels from the painted lands of the east bring old men bearing unsuitable gifts.

They say snowflakes are individual. That no two of us are the same. But they say a lot of things. I look around me to see million upon million of my siblings locking arms and settling. I am the only one who does not fit.

I am a sad snowflake because I know that tomorrow will bring a warm wind from the south and we will all die…

©️ Jane Jago

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks – with free optional snark…

When the poor and unloved f-bombs died
I’ll admit that I lay down and sighed
For the poor orphaned f**k
That ran out of luck
I looked into my beer and I cried

© jane jago

…. or ‘How To Speak Typo’ by Jane Jago

anythign (adjective) – of or pertaining to thighs

bluche (verb) – to walk as if constipated

celebreate (noun) – a celibate who has weekends off

dup of tes (noun geographic) – a group of islands in the south seas notable for bad dentistry and useless morality tales

effiencent (adjective) – of beer, bubbly but clouded and very yeasty

eriting (verb) – the peculiar practice of placing a peanut up one nostril and whistling Dixie

graet (verb) of authors to proclaim one’s own small talent a lot louder than it deserves

nekkis (adjective) – wearing oddly mismatched clothing at least two sizes too small

nlog (noun) – particularly hard fecal matter of an unfeasibly large circumference

overwhenling (adverb) – of locomotion unbearably slow and accompanied by rusty creaks

pricry (verb) – to sob uncontrollably when you can not afford something

siempunk (noun ) – tramp with good hair

usignt eh (noun) – a genus of small mammals famous for their short memories and large ears

wetaher (noun) – lachrymose woman

wodner (noun) one who is perpetually half sexually aroused. Hence the phrase ‘to walk like a wodner’

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

It was his grandmother’s final wish, formalised in her will:

And to Mungo, I bequeath the contents of my safety deposit box, provided he keeps his word to me and marries within the year.

Mungo, the eldest son of a duke and in his thirties, hadn’t shown interest in marriage, although often seen with various celebrity women but now speculation mounted.

A year after his grandmother’s funeral, at a private ceremony, Mungo married his secret commoner lover of many years. The ring, his grandmother’s, had been in the lockbox.

Mungo proudly introduced his new husband to the family soon after.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Midwinter Miracle by E.M. Swift-Hook is a Fortune’s Fools short story.

The frost had frozen the blood onto the surface of the snow almost as soon as it landed, stark red against the white. In the cold illumination of the flashlight, it seemed crystalline and jewelled.
“She’ll have lost too much,” the bearded man muttered grimly. Gernie nodded. He was no expert but even he could see what this trail meant. They followed it out past the courtyard wall and on towards the edge of the settlement.
“If we had been a bit faster or you’d just hit that – “
“We had no bloody choice,” the other man cut across him. “It’s how things are here, lad, you can’t bloody change it.”
“The bastard shot her,” Gernie protested.
“And in his full legal right to do so. She is his property – or was, most likely. She ran away and that means she knew she was in for death if she got caught.”
“So you and Micha have to make nice to him? Man, that’s -” Gernie realised for the first time just how alien this world really was.
“We had to play it that way. That’s the way it bloody is around here, Tavi. Maybe if you work on it you can make a difference one day, but you can’t go shooting down local notables – nor even beating them up. Not if you are planning to stay here and I take it you are?”
For a moment, Gernie wanted to say no. Wanted to say he was not going to stay anywhere a teenage girl could be murdered, legally, in front of an entire tavern full of people. But even as he opened his mouth to say as much, he found his mind filled with the memory of an oval face with golden skin, framed by dark-copper ringlets and wearing an expression of appalled compassion. Something inside him moved.
“I’m taking the job,” he said, “if that’s what you are asking. It’s why I came here after all. The pay is crap, this place is like a nightmare. But someone has to run the spaceport so crazy people like you can come and trade here. I’ll stick it a year or two then head back to civilisation.”
The bearded man grinned briefly.
“I think Micha will be pleased.”
Gernie said nothing to that, it was still too new, too startling. He shone the flashlight back on the snow and followed the trail.
The blood seemed to vanish near the small block building that backed onto the first of the spaceport domes. As if the ground had opened and swallowed the girl.

A Midwinter Miracle is available on Audible,  as an ebook and paperback and can be purchased from Amazon, Kobo, iTunes and Googleplay. This special edition has typographic art and cover design by Zora Marie.

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks – with free optional snark…

On Mondays it’s good, as a rule
Not to take too much crap from old fools
To be kindly but firm
And just watch them squirm
While you’ve treated them gently but cruel

© jane jago

Sam Nero PI is the creation of Jane Jago and a denizen of The Last City. A place where the past and the future come face to face as a prohibition-style private eye walks the mean streets of a dying world 

Welcome to his life…

When a dame whose everyday walk is as smooth and studiedly sexy as a big jungle cat, and whose make-up is as immaculate as a well-pressed designer suit, arrives in your office at a shambling run with her face all over tears and snot it’s a safe bet that something pretty bad is wrong.
I was lost in thought, with my feet propped on my desk and my hat tipped way down over my eyes, when my office door was thrown open in a dramatic fashion. I barely had long enough to wonder why in the hell my holographic door was now making an eldritch shriek, when Katie Scarlett O’Halleran and her exceptional bosom landed almost in my lap. She was crying, and her face was a mess.
She grabbed me by the lapels and tried to shake me.
“Sam. Sam. You have to come. Somebody has taken Daddy.”
I sat bolt upright and squared my shoulders. Anybody brave enough to mess with Mister Aitch was certainly a big fish, and I guessed I was about to go shark fishing. I grasped the sobbing girl by her slender shoulders.
“Calm down Katie Scarlett, and tell me what happened.”
“I already told you,” she all but screamed, “somebody has taken Daddy.”
“Details Katie, details.”
I gently compelled her to sit down, and held onto her until her chest stopped heaving and she took two steadying breaths. Then I got the bottle out of my drawer and poured her a stiff one. Her teeth chattered against the side of the glass, but the act of drinking calmed her almost as much as the bourbon.
“Daddy’s personal alarm sounded about an hour back. Me and the twins ran, but his office door was locked. When we broke the door down he was gone, and there was blood all over.”
“Okay,” I said, although I didn’t think anything was okay. “Where are the twins now?”
“Flirting with your holographic floozie. We set droids to watch on the office and came straight here.”

A bite of… Jane Jago

Question one: How did a classic American private eye come to find himself sharing an asteroid with the last remnants of mankind?

Well it’s not simple. Sam is no more precisely what he seems to be than are any of the other occupants of The Last City. The human race is hurtling towards extinction and those who know that choose to live lives of hectic pleasure seeking. Those with less options are a different matter.

Question two: Given the dystopian nature of this situation how come the stories are so upbeat?

It’s my contention that humans will always wring whatever pleasure they can from even the most distressing of situations.

Question three: Every story has a heart. What is the heart of Sam Nero’s story?

Ah. Yes. The heart. The heart of Sam’s story is love. Love which can never be consummated. Sam and his lady love can never physically touch….

Jane Jago lives in the beautiful west country with her big, silly dog and her big sensible husband. She spent the first half of her working life cooking and the second half editing other people’s manuscripts. Now she has the time to write down the stories that have been disturbing her sleep for as long as she can remember.

You can follow her on Goodreads, Facebook and Twitter.

Dying as a Druid is a seasonal Dai and Julia Mystery by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago. 

It is Saturnalia, but the celebrations in the Llewellyn household are curtailed by a double murder and a personal accusation against Dai, which strikes at the very heart of his marriage to Julia.

December MDCCLXXVII

It was the longest night and the fires in the sacred grove turned the oiled muscles of the naked young men to liquid fire. The old men watched from under their wrinkled eyelids as the goddess made flesh walked among them. She was beautiful and in the firelight something more than mere beauty with her red-gold hair cloaking her nakedness and the stag horns that seemed to grow from her forehead. She touched each young man with a delicate forefinger and whenever one pleased her they lay down in the loam together as the goddess and the god. The young men not deemed fit to serve watched in envy, save for the one who filmed covertly smiling to himself as he did so…

I

In another place, not far away geographically, but a million miles from the rites of the Druids in terms of intent, Julia Llewellyn was also naked in the the firelight. She was lying in her husband’s arms, noticing how her own mediterranean olive complexion looked golden in the warming glow and tracing the pink patterns the flames made on her man’s white Celtic skin.
“How does anybody even get to be so pale? You look like one of the marble statues in the forum. Just stick a helmet on your head and you’d be a dead ringer for any of the minor gods or messengers.”
Dai moved swiftly, pinning his giggling wife under him and tickling her ribs.
“Minor god, is it?”
“Is,” she said firmly, “the likes of Jupiter and Vulcan are always depicted as old men with big beards.”
He laughed down at her and she wriggled out from under him pushing against his broad chest with one small hand. He rolled on his back and she straddled him, grinning cheekily. 
“You look a bit happier now. So? Are you going to tell me what chapped your arse today?”
“How come you always know?”
“I have eyes, lovely boy. Now spill.”
Dai sat up, so that his wife straddled his lap and rested his chin on the top of her head.  Julia, being Julia, couldn’t resist a naughty wriggle. He pulled her closer and sighed.
“Smooshing my nose Llewelyn. And I really do need to know what upset you.” 
“It’s that moecha Cariad. It’s been playing on my mind all day. I think she’s up to something.”
“And that’s surprising because?”
He snuffled out a reluctant half-laugh.
“It’s not. What is surprising though is that I find I mind on behalf of Caudinus. He’s actually a decent man. Not just decent for a Roman Magistratus, just plain decent. And he obviously loves her, blindly and absolutely. But she is equally obviously bored and discontented.” He gave Julia a brief, twisted smile. “When we were there for dinner and gift giving the other day, she was walking a thin line. First there were those pointed comments over dinner, then we had the Game of Truth. Everyone else was being light and flippant, but it was as if she was trying to dig out the most excruciatingly inappropriate incidents she could think of. Asking you where – and when – you lost your virginity. Making me confess the embarrassing donation I made in the name of science during my academy days, though she knows how much I hate being reminded of that. Dragging out the personal humiliation of poor Caudinus when he was falsely accused of sleeping with his boss’s wife. And then lying in her teeth about her own dalliances. Manufacturing a blush.” His voice shifted to mimic Cariad’s sultry tone. “‘One before my dear husband…’”
Julia quirked an eyebrow.
“I know of at least a dozen” Dai said wryly.” She was and possibly still is, as randy as a mare on heat. But that isn’t my worry. I’m afraid she’s getting fed up with him. She was so mean to him about his Saturnalia gift to her and he tries so hard. I keep seeing the hurt in his eyes.”
Julia took his face between her palms.
“Dai bach, from where I was standing it was obvious that she was fed up with him on the day of their nuptials.”
He gaped at her and she couldn’t help loving him for his naïveté along with his more potent charms.
“So why did she marry him?”
“I’m guessing the lure of being queen of Viriconium was too strong to be resisted.”
Julia felt the sigh her husband heaved and put her arms around him, kissing his chest as that was the nearest bit of him.
“Promise you won’t ever get fed up with me, Julia fach.”
“I think you are pretty safe there, lovely boy. Aren’t you the other half of my soul?”
She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him rather seriously.

Later, as they lay in bed under the goose down comforter, Dai pulled Julia so she lay across his chest.
“What do I have to wear at this gods-forsaken function tomorrow? I’m dreading it, the annual temple turn out for the birthday of the Divine Diocletian I mean. Outside? December? Toga?”
Julia smiled down at him. 
“No. Tunic and trews and a good warm cloak. You have new trews and tunic in fine cashmere wool. You’ll be fine. You should rather have pity on me, as women are not allowed to wear trousers in the temple precinct. But I do have some thick woollen stockings that make my legs look really fat.”
He laughed and they drifted off to sleep in happy intimacy.

The next morning they had to be up well before dawn. Julia had just got in the bath and Dai was shaving when there came an urgent trill from Dai’s wristphone which he had left beside the bed. Dai wrapped a towel around his waist and went to see what was afoot, carefully closing the bathroom door behind him. Julia had a bad feeling about someone calling before it was properly light so she jumped out of the warm water and towelled herself briskly. Before she had finished dressing Dai was back. With his work face on.
“Sorry love, looks like I get to miss the ceremonials. Message from the landlord of the Dragon and Leek on the Ynys Mon road. A bit garbled, because the place is deep in a valley in the woods and the comms are merda, but something about a fine lady gone missing and two dead Roman outriders. I’ve roused Bryn and the posse.”

You can keep reading Dying as a Druid for free until 18 December.

Glossary
Academy – university
Bacn/Fach – (m/f.) literally small/little, term of endearment, dearie may be closest
Magistratus – senior official with legal jurisdiction over an area
Moecha – literally ‘adulteress’ metaphorically: ‘slut’ or ‘tart’
Saturnalia – a Roman festival lasting from 19-23 December
Toga – male formal wear
Viriconium – we would call it Wroxeter
Ynys Mon –  or the Isle of Anglesey

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. If you missed previous episodes you can start reading from the beginning.

Julia came half-conscious, to the realisation she was most definitely not floating in water any more. She seemed to be being carried  quite roughly over the shoulder of a medium-sized man. She also seemed to be encased in some sort of bag. Faex, she thought; I’ve gone and got myself abducted. She forced her woolly brain into some sort of order and came to the conclusion that there was only thing she could profitably do. She carefully urinated very slowly and grimaced as the warm fluid ran down her bare leg. It took some moments before the man carrying her became aware of the wetness.
“Moecha pudita,” he said bitterly, “she’s only gone and pissed herself.”
“Golden showers? Happens. Some ‘ud pay for that,” another rough voice crowed. “You insisted on carrying her. Give her here and wring your tunic out if it’s that bad.”
“Naa it’s just a trickle.”
They rounded a sharp corner and Julia’s head rapped smartly against a stone coyn.


Perhaps, left to himself, Dai might have not informed the Tribune immediately and would have taken more opportunity to try and start the investigation unhampered. But the presence of the two praetorians left him with no choice. It was either he did it, or they would – if they had not already. Which was why he found himself in the very unfunny position of standing in as close an approximation to attention as he had ever achieved, with Tribune Decimus Lucius Didero in a towering rage less than an arm’s reach away.

 The Tribune did anger cold and his face was a mask that scarcely shifted even as he spoke. It seemed this was something that could get beneath the facade of his expected gravitas. But then perhaps, Dai realised, it was too close to reliving the nightmare of Julia’s previous abduction.
“So I trust you with my foster-sister and you let her get kidnapped?”
“She was in the women’s bath, I -”
The Tribune’s head lifted sharply and his eyes bored into Dai from above his finely chiselled aquiline nose.
“I promise you Llewellyn, if anything happens to her you will be the one I hold personally responsible. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, dominus.”
“I have checks on all exists and my men combing the city from here out, they are not going to be gentle. If I have to rip this dungheap city apart building by building to find Julia, I will do so. Whoever took her will not have got far.”
“Dominus, Please, this is my city. Let me -’
“I think you have done enough, don’t you? You are deprived of rank and under arrest, Llewellyn and be glad I am not laying any accusation of complicity in this crime at your door – yet.”
Dai felt a sick moment of helplessness, then his own anger flared.
“It just might be I could find her, dominus. Are you willing to pass up that chance, no matter how slim in your view it might be?”
For a moment, he thought the Tribune was going to strike him and his muscles tensed reflexively. Then the other man seemed to consciously relax and after a moment he gave a slight upwards nod.
“Find her, Llewellyn. Find her before my men do or make sure you get yourself very lost.”

Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook