The Space Between by Nikki Blakely, chamomile tea,

 Georgia lies in bed, eyes closed, curled into a ball, listening to the soft tick-tick-tick from the clock in the living room as it counts down the minutes until morning. The minutes tick into hours, and the hours creep past midnight, past one, past three, and still, sleep does not come.

The bed is too big, too empty, the nook behind her knees, too cold. Even though she’s rolled up an extra blanket and tucked it into the empty space—a placebo is what she’d have called it back in her nursing days—it doesn’t help. 

It’s only been three days, she tells herself. You’ll get used to it. 

Three days since she’d found Boris, her mixed-breed rescue mutt, unresponsive on the kitchen floor. He was fifteen years old; it was just his time to go, Dr. Doherty had told her. Now Boris resides in the small silver box on the mantle, next to the black marble urn that contains Raymond. 

You’ll get used to it. 

No. She won’t.

The bed is too empty, too big—yet still too full, too small. She lies near the edge of the left side, just as she has for the past forty-three years. The right side - Raymond’s side - is vacant. But still, she reaches for him every night, only to remember, he’s not there.

She would never get used to it. 

She kicks off the thick quilt, and lifts herself out of bed, her old bones protesting with the sudden movement, and she wonders why, when everyone she has ever loved is gone, is she still here?

Why? Why? Why?

And then, a thought blooms dark and comforting.

She doesn’t have to be. 

Wrapping her robe around herself, she slides on her slippers and shuffles to the kitchen. Through the small window above the sink a slice of moon glints white in the starless sky, and from the clock in the living room the minutes tick on, and on, and on. As Georgia waits for the kettle to boil, she pulls a mug from the cupboard and, after searching through a myriad of prescription bottles, finds the one she’s looking for. 

When the kettle sings, she pours a cup of chamomile, and because it is a special night, she adds a tablespoon of honey. Two tablespoons. Then she pulls a white capsule from the bottle and empties the contents of it into her tea. Then another, and another. She knows the exact amount necessary to bring on the sweet nothingness she so desperately desires.

In the living room, she sinks into her favorite chair, reaches up and twists the knob on the lamp, casting a weak glow throughout the darkened room. The dark recess of the fireplace gapes at her like an open mouth, and from the mantle, small silver boxes glint like sparkling eyes—Boris, and Charlie, and Moose and Buckles, and Ginger, and Monty and Cinder. And, in the tall black urn between them, standing like a sentinel at the gate—Raymond.

She cups the hot mug in both hands, and her eyes fall to the side table under the lamp, to the small silver bowl resting on a white doily, the intricate patterned lacework reflected on the shiny surface. A wedding gift from whom she can’t remember. It surprises her that such a fragile thing had lasted so many years without getting broken.

Doris Mulvany, from book club, has a similar bowl. Georgia has seen it at her house and commented on it. Doris’s bowl contained caramels wrapped in cellophane—the grandkids just love ‘em, Doris had said and asked what Georgia kept in hers.

Dog treats, Georgia had told her. I bake them myself.  

Oh, I’m sorry, Doris had said, and Georgia had to clarify, as she often did, no apology was necessary. She and Raymond had been childless, and thus grandchild-less by choice. Their fur-babies had been enough.

But now she wonders - had they, really?

Georgia brings the mug to her nose, smelling the bittersweet aroma, and closes her eyes. She thinks of a quote then, something she’d read, but can’t remember where.

The space between life and death is shadowy at best.

Who was it who’d said that?

‘Edgar Allen Poe,’ says a familiar voice, and Georgia jumps, tea sloshing from her mug onto her lap.

There, sitting in his favorite chair, gray-bearded and blue eyes sparkling, is Raymond. And nestled in his lap, tail wagging, is Boris.

Georgia knows they are figments, delusions, a fantasy her feeble mind has concocted to deal with the grief.

And yet, dear god, how she has missed that smile!

‘I see you made yourself a special cup of tea.’ Raymond nods towards the mug. ‘Are you sure?’

Georgia shrugs. ‘Not particularly.’

‘Good, ‘cause neither am I. You know, if you’re thinking there’s no one left for you to love, and no one left to love you, maybe you’re looking in the wrong places.’

Boris barks in agreement, and she gets the gist.

‘Raymond, I need to know. Do you have any regrets?’

‘Not a one,’ Raymond answers. ‘And neither should you.’

‘Not even… well…children?’

‘Nope. We were enough.’

Georgia nods. He’s right, she knows. She guesses she just needed to hear him say it.

‘Your tea’s gone cold,’ Raymond says. ‘I think you should go pour it down the drain and make another.’

‘Yes,’ Georgia agrees. ‘I think I will.’

But she makes no move to rise from the chair, doesn’t want this illusion to end, doesn’t want to lose the moment.

‘Well,’ says Raymond finally, and stands, Boris snuggled in the crook of his arm. ‘I guess we’ll see you when you get there.’ And before she can say anything else, he is fading, a chimera dissolving into mist, and seconds later, they are gone.

Georgia stands, pulls her robe tighter around her shoulders, and shuffles to the kitchen. The shelter opens in two hours. There’s just enough time to do some baking.  

About the author  

Nikki Blakely lives in the SF Bay Area, and enjoys writing stories that evoke smiles, tears, laughter, the occasional eye roll, and sometimes even a scream. Her work has appeared in Uncharted, Sundial Magazine, Bright Flash Literary, Luna Station Quarterly and others. You can read more at www.nikkiblakely.com 

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Mammyhood Today by Sharon Keely, cappuccino

 She moved through the fair with the song in her head but she felt nothing like that sunlit beauty and no one could at this fair. Puck Fair 2023.

It was too hot for the goat to stay atop his scaffold pillar and preside over the revelry below in 2022, so this year the committee ran a contest for a human replacement. Three humans to do the work of one goat; the third prize winner would sit atop the pillar from 10:00 AM till 1:00 PM, the second from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM and first place got the 4:00 PM till 7:00 PM shift. She'd been on the committee that came up with this genius idea and voted against it. The only other woman on the committee, Ethel O’Dwyer, was enthusiastically for it. She was enthusiastically for any position Raymond O'Donoghue adopted, in or out of committee, on account of he was a cousin to the county's T.D. Realy-Hay and could get her broadband, a new road, a new sewer… next she'd be asking for Gaeltacht status for her bloody Reek, then the place would have access to every grant going.

Ethel’s sons were cute hoors too, no chance of them making fools of themselves attempting to be a goat for three days. But her own son…. not even having to get his hair cut, like the goats did, put him off. It didn't bear thinking about. Though it was hard not to, knowing he was up there now smirking down at her and the whole fair thinking that gave them the right to squeeze her shoulder and say ‘Gas man,’ ‘Great sport.’ One even had the audacity to say, ‘Chip off the ould block.’ He was anything but, unless the fella meant his long-gone father. She wouldn't mind at all if Johnny did a runner too, especially after this. He'd been such a cute baby. But that was the trouble. She’d doted on him too much, indulged his every whim, paid money she didn't have for all his arty farty classes; he didn't stick with one of them.

A roar from the crowd and all heads turned to look up. He was dancing away - stomping and jumping, more like it - on top of the pole and now the whole crowd was jumping with him. The roughest surged towards the barricade around the pillar, shoving and pushing. She’d said they should get those concrete filled yokes they put around the outdoor dining in the COVID. But oh no, too expensive they said, though Ethel had murmured ‘good idea’ before Raymond vetoed it, no doubt thinking she could stick them outside her tax dodge of a café afterwards to make it look as if visitors really did eat there.

The two Bean Gardai who'd been standing back in the doorway of a boarded-up shop came forward now, weighing up whether to sidle off on a break or wade in. Catching her glare decided them. “Would you get the DJ to turn the music off Mrs. Lenahan?” one said. She felt like she was in one of Johnny’s Hieronymus Bosch paintings, skirting skirmishes and trying not to step on body parts of the already comatose as she navigated the five yards to the DJ. He declined to stop the music despite the bottles sailing over the heads of the crowd, which looked like an Aran cable of jumping and punching. She literally pulled the plug from his rig, but the thumping and roaring went on a bit longer, enough for the Bean Gardai to feel the need to cosh all around them. The pillar started to wobble with the crowd surging into it.

“Get down you amadán, you useless, good-for-nothing feckin’ eejit! I rue the day you were born! You are a gobshite even as a goat!” she roared, not that he could hear her. He just stood there like Daniel O'Connell, fist in the air.

In under two minutes she was all over Twitter, and the video was on the RTE News that night. ‘The State of Mammyhood Today’ was the headline in the Examiner. She was gratified to see a handful of mammies commenting she had every right, they would have done the same, but most commented that it was her ilk that were driving the youth to drugs – ha! - sapping their confidence and giving them all kinds of complexes.

There was no more shoulder squeezing, she was given a wide berth. ‘Single-handedly brought disgrace to Kerry,’ she heard, though there wasn’t one in the county that hadn’t said exactly the same words to their sons and daughters, and for far less. She resigned from the committee rather than give Raymond the joy of telling her to go. Ethel’s café was finally on the map – dark tourism, it was called. Meanwhile, on the strength of the cheekbones revealed by his goat’s haircut, and his new fame airing his mother’s dirty laundry on moronic talk shows, Johnny got a modelling assignment in Dublin and stayed there. It really was an ill wind that blew no good.

 

About the author 

Sharon Keely looks first for the used bookstores in every new place she visits, and immediately feels at home if she spots an Irish or U.K. writer's work on the shelf. Some day she hopes to see her own there. @sharonkeely.bsky.social 

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Ball Boy by Rob Molan, a pint of bitter

 Each ball boy had their patch at City’s stadium and mine was behind the bye line at the home end. The floodlights were beaming down on the sodden pitch and our supporters were roaring the team on, undaunted by the rain lashing down on the terrace. I watched Colin Macey – Rovers’ centre forward – pick up the ball about twenty yards from goal and let fly. His shot went wide and hit me like a cannonball on the forehead, knocking me flat on my back.
 

As I lay stunned in the mud, I heard the referee blow the whistle for half time.  Out of nowhere, Terry appeared and dropped onto his haunches beside me, his straggly hair falling to his shoulders.
 

‘That was a sore one you took there, son. I see that sod Macey hasn’t bothered to apologise. Let’s get you up and over to the dressing room. Our trainer will bring you round with his magic sponge.’
 

He helped me to my feet and escorted me across the pitch to the applause of the fans. It was unreal. The mercurial Terry Burton, the man with the magic feet, who I’d idolised for years taking care of me! I’d lost count of the number of times I’d seen his athletic figure cut in from the right wing onto his favoured left foot, bamboozling defenders, and rifling in goals for City.
 

Terry guided me down the tunnel and into the crowded dressing room which smelled strongly of liniment, and took me over to an older guy wearing a flat cap.
 

‘This one needs a little TLC.’
 

‘Come here, lad.’
 

The trainer took the sponge out of his bucket and applied it to my forehead. The ice-cold water quickly brought me round and I gazed in awe at my football heroes sitting around the room.
 

‘You’d better get back out there, otherwise the gaffer will get annoyed,’ said Terry.
 

I tried to thank him but couldn’t get the words out before running off.
 

This happened over forty years ago but the memory comes back every time I cross the doorstep of 

Terry’s house.

 

He is sitting in his favourite armchair when I enter the sitting room.
 

‘Who’s he?’ he barks.
 

‘There’s no need to raise your voice. It’s your carer, Ray,’ Anne replies. The dark circles under her eyes are getting worse.
 

‘He can’t be a carer with those hands.’ His face flushes.
 

‘Don’t’ worry, Dad, he’s nice,’ she says gently.
 

She’s wearing the same green top she had on a few days ago.
 

I give him a few moments before speaking.
 

‘How are you today, Terry?’
 

He looks at me blankly initially but then his face brightens.
 

‘Do you know I used to be a footballer?’
 

‘Yes, I saw you play many times.’
 

‘I was good. Other players used to try and kick me but I was usually too quick for them.’ He laughs. 

‘Sometimes when they caught me, I dished out a left hook and got an early bath for my troubles.’
 

‘I’m going upstairs to lie down,’ says Anne. My twice weekly visits give her a brief respite from looking after her father.
 

‘Let’s get you washed,’ I say.
 

Terry’s unsteady on his feet so I help him up, take his arm, and guide him to the wet room. I assist him undressing and steer him under the shower where he grasps the wall grip and, after turning on the water, I soap up the sponge and start cleaning his back. He seems to get thinner each time I see him.
 

‘There’s nothing like the magic sponge to get me going,’ he chortles. ‘This reminds me of being in the showers at City, all the lads starkers, singing away if we’d won.’ He starts humming the club’s anthem.
Afterwards, I dry him, help him dress and tidy his short white hair with a comb, and help him back to his chair.
 

‘Am I having breakfast now?’
 

‘No, Anne gave it to you earlier.’
 

‘I don’t remember that. What’s for lunch?’
 

‘Baked potato with cheese and beans.’
 

‘OK. I’ll give it a try.’ He says pulling a long face.
 

He has this dish every Tuesday and enjoys it.
 

I switch on the television and Terry watches it while I prepare his medication. After taking it, he turns the sound down with the remote and looks at me with a twinkle in his eye, signalling we’re off down memory lane. I’ve heard most of his football tales before but I never tire of listening to them. He reminisces happily for over an hour before his voice suddenly drops to a whisper.
 

‘I never made much money,’ he says.
 

‘Why was that?’
 

‘Gambling. Loved going to the dogs and casinos but Lady Luck wasn’t kind to me.’
 

‘That maybe so but you gave a lot of pleasure to thousands of people.’
He smiles and pats his tummy.
 

‘I’m feeling hungry now.’
 

I go into the kitchen to prepare his meal. When he’s tucking into it, Anne comes downstairs and enters the room yawning.
 

‘It’s nearly time for Ray to go, Dad.’
 

‘That’s a pity. Hope to see you again.’ He gives me the thumbs up.
 

I’ve never asked him if he remembers rescuing a distressed ball boy as I’ve been taught that asking people with his condition questions can agitate them or cause anxiety. Anyway, why should he recall such a trivial incident from his illustrious career?

 

An unfamiliar face opens the door to me.
 

‘Hi, you must be Ray. Anne told me you’d be calling round about this time.’ She’s a stout lady with short grey hair. ‘I’m a neighbour. She’s got a GP appointment and she asked me to be here until you came.’
 

‘Nice to meet you,’ I say, stepping inside. ‘Has he had breakfast?’
 

‘He hardly touched his cereal but downed his tea.’
 

She leaves and I go in to see him. He looks up and frowns.
 

‘What? Another flaming stranger?’
 

‘I’m Ray, the carer. Shall we watch a bit of telly together before your shower?’
He nods.
 

I switch on the set and select channel 12 which is showing ‘The Big Match Revisited.’ The featured game happens to be one between City and Rovers from the late seventies.
Terry studies the screen for a minute and then his eyes light up and he leans forward.
 

‘That’s me,’ he yells.
 

His younger self is standing over the ball with a wall of players standing ten yards away from him. He steps forward, shoots and hits the crossbar with a thunderous shot.
 

‘That should have gone in. But listen to that crowd. They used to chant my name.’
The camera zooms in on the spectators on the packed terrace swaying behind the goal. I remember standing there before I became a ball boy, terrified I would get crushed by the adults.
We are both spellbound by the action which follows. It was a close game and the score was two each going in the last minute, and then up popped Colin Macey to head the winner.
Terry groans.
 

‘That so and so had a habit of scoring against us. He used to climb on our defenders’ shoulders to head the ball and the referees let him get away with it.’
He goes quiet and slumps into his chair.
 

‘Turn that off,’ he says in a quiet voice. I do as he asks.
 

His eyes start to dart around the room.
 

‘When is Anne coming back? I’ve not seen her for ages.’
 

He starts sobbing and I walk over and squeeze his shoulder.
 

‘She’ll be back soon,’ I assure him.
 

‘I hope so. She’s ever so nice,’ he says clutching my arm.

 

‘Dad’s got a visitor this morning,” Anne tells me on my arrival. “I’ll leave you to them. I’m going upstairs for my kip.’ She looks as white as a sheet.
 

‘Enjoy your lie down.” I tell her.
 

I get a bit of a shock when I enter the sitting room and see Colin Macey sitting beside Terry. I’d assumed they hated each other’s guts. Colin has hardly changed over the years. He still looks trim, his face is lean, and his dyed brown hair is long.
 

‘Looks like you’ve got another visitor,’ Colin says.
 

‘Don’t know him from Adam. Have you got the right house mate?’ Terry glares at me.
 

‘I’m Ray Thompson from the agency.’
 

He shrugs his shoulders
 

‘Nobody tells me anything. This is Colin. He was my best pal off the pitch when I was a footballer.’
 

‘Pleased to meet you.’ I never thought I’d hear myself say that.
 

Colin holds out his hand and I shake it.
 

‘Terry’s been trying to tell me City beat us regularly when we were playing them. Fat chance of that!’
 

‘Nothing wrong with my memory,’ says Terry. ‘I’ve also been reminding him about taking me out boozing during the week. The gaffer wasn’t happy when I turned up for training smelling like a brewery and I got fined a few times.’  
 

‘You never needed much encouragement and I usually ended up paying as you were skint.’ Colin chuckles and turns to me. ‘By the way, Terry has promised me a slap-up lunch.’
 

‘If you count a corned beef sandwich and a fig roll as a treat, you won’t be disappointed,’ I tell him with a chuckle.
 

‘Terry always was a cheapskate.’
 

They both start to laugh their socks off and I make an exit to the kitchen.

 

I’m still trying to get over the fact that Terry is no longer with us. It was a heart attack that got him in the end. I’m glad City did him proud by opening a book of remembrance at the stadium, placing a film on their website with clips of his goals, and arranging a round of applause at a home game. And the memorial service was lovely and Colin was one of the speakers.
 

I’m intrigued why Anne has asked me to pop round to her house. When I arrive, she greets me with a hug. She has got some colour back in her cheeks since I last saw her and is wearing a nice floral dress.
 

She invites me into the sitting room and it feels strange to see Terry’s armchair lying empty.
 

We sit down and, after exchanging a few pleasantries, she gets to the point.
 

‘I didn’t know you’d met Dad when you were a lad.’
 

‘It’s true we had a fleeting encounter. That’s all.’ I don’t know where this is going
 

I was going through his football memorabilia and found some newspaper clippings relating to matches he played in, including this one.’
 

She hands over a yellowing page containing a photo of Terry escorting a youngster across City’s pitch. The caption reads:
 

'Terry Burton looks after fourteen year old ball boy Raymond Thompson after being knocked down by a wayward shot by Colin Macey.’
 

‘That’s you, isn’t it?’
 

‘Yes.’ I can feel tears in my eyes.
 

‘The press liked to paint him as a bit of a bad boy who liked to drink and gamble, and he probably cut it out because it showed him in a different light. Did you ever mention the incident to him?’
 

‘No. It was enough for me to repay him the kindness which he showed me back then.’
 

‘He couldn’t have asked for a better carer. I’ll make us some coffee and you can tell me the full story.’         

About the author 

 

Rob lives in Edinburgh started writing short stories during lockdown. To date, he's had several tales published by Cafe Lit and others in various anthologies. He likes to experiment with different genres and styles of writing. 

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Recipe for the Perfect Apology by Clare Martin, a comforting cup of tea

Ingredients

·         Details of the incident

·         An exact recollection of words used. Note: These must not be blanched, minced, shredded or coated in sugar, or the flavour will be completely ruined.

·         Understanding the impact of the incident.  Exact quantities are essential. Do not estimate, and ensure you use appropriate measures. If in doubt seek advice elsewhere before preparing the apology.

·         Promises, for decoration (optional extra)

Method

Prepare your work area. Make sure you have cleared away any leftovers from previous apologies to ensure no cross-contamination.

Assemble everything you need. Consult your list to make sure nothing is left out and that all ingredients, especially your words, are carefully weighed.

Invite the injured person into the work area and make sure they are comfortable.

Make a clean breast of the issue and carefully blend all the ingredients. Note: It is essential to do this in the right order or the apology will curdle and be unpalatable.

Garnish with promises to learn from the incident and do better next time. Note: This step is optional. Sometimes an apology is best served plain to allow the full flavour to come through.

Serve with affection.

An apology is best served immediately. Never reheat an apology.

About the author 

Clare Martin is a writer with a background in radio journalism. Based in Sussex, England, she specialises in flash fiction and short stories. Writing about what lies under the surface of ordinary life, she draws inspiration from overheard conversations and the tales we tell ourselves. 

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Racist by Doug Stoiber, Kendall Jackson Cabernet Sauvignon

As autumn waned, sunlight faded earlier by the day, which mildly concerned Ken. Gazing out the kitchen window, he hoped he would see Lydia’s blue Tesla pull into their driveway any minute.

 

On her usual ‘work’ days (she and her fellow docents were volunteers, not employees) at the State Women’s Museum in the city, she would have arrived home by now. Making the forty-minute drive back to their semi-rural subdivision before it got dark was important. At their ages, the retired couple avoided driving at night whenever possible.

 

Tempted to call or text her to find out where she was and when she might be home, Ken hesitated, as he knew her phone ringing or a notification pinging irritated Lydia while she was driving - she would just ignore it. And she was surely on the road by this time.

 

This late in the day, Ken had already whiled away the hours with his usual chores and errands, answered emails, scanned his usual blogs, listened to a podcast for an hour, so he was left in the unusual position of having nothing to do but sit and think until his wife arrived home. What could be holding her up?

 

He had never known the museum to stay open past six p.m. And Lydia didn’t usually stop to do errands on the way home when darkness was imminent. Car trouble, maybe? He was fairly certain her car had nearly a full charge when she left; if she had car trouble, she would have called by now. It was almost completely dark.

 

Maybe he should jump in the Prius and head toward Lake City. Little chance that they would miss each other en route. Except it was now fully dark and he didn’t trust himself to pick out her blue Tesla on the divided highway between Green Maples and the city.

 

Oh, hell, get the phone and call, he thought. She would just have to understand that these were extraordinary circumstances.

 

He had just touched her contact icon when headlight beams flooded the kitchen window and the garage door hummed into operation. Relieved, he waited for his wife to come through the door from the garage and fill him in on her late arrival.

 

‘Glad you’re home, Sweets’, he started, ‘I was beginning to worry ─’

 

Based on the stricken look on Lydia’s face, worrying was not out of the equation yet.

 

‘Oh, my God!’, she almost shrieked as she rushed through the door, right past his proffered peck-on-the-cheek. Dropping her keys and purse on the kitchen counter, she headed for the living room and fairly collapsed onto the sofa, her face in her hands. ‘Oh, my God, Ken! Oh, my God!’ The last exhortation became a sob, and she was in tears.

 

‘Honey, what in the world …’, Ken tried to think of some utterance that might calm and reassure her - from what kind of trauma he did not know. ‘Can you tell me what happened? Where were you all this time? Are you alright?’

 

‘No! I am not … ALRIGHT! I AM NOT ALRIGHT! I WAS NEARLY SHOT TO DEATH! Oh, my God!’, her angry tears continued. She shoved her husband’s embracing arms away in wild fury and wailed.

 

‘What the hell … shot to death? I’m calling the police!’ He took another worried glance at her red eyes and frazzled hair and reached for his phone.

 

‘Put that down’, she demanded as she fought for emotional control. ‘I have just spent an hour talking with the police. Oh, my God!’

 

Ken hoped there was a way to calm the situation and find out what happened and where he fit in amid all this hysteria. ‘Let me get you a cup of herbal tea. Have you eaten? Can I slice some baguettes for toast? We have some cold salmon in the fridge.’

 

Gasping, and finally calm enough to talk, she made an effort to address her husband in somewhat measured tones. ‘I need a glass of wine, that’s all I want. Please. Now. The cab.’ Ken dutifully stepped over to the wine credenza, upturned two stemmed glasses, and divided the remainder of a bottle of Kendall Jackson into them. Handing one to his distraught wife, he took a seat next to her on the leather sofa.

 

‘Ken, I have never been so scared, so angry, so … oh, my God! They shot a couple right in front of our museum - a bullet flew through our door and missed my head by inches! A drive-by … they must have fired … it sounded like fifteen shots! A white girl, she was pregnant … she’s dead; the baby daddy was still alive in the ambulance, but who knows? Plus two innocent bystanders got hit.’

 

‘Oh, my God, hon, why didn’t you call me?’

 

‘And have you do WHAT? I was afraid for my life, for Christ’s sake, and the police made me explain over and over again what I heard and saw. My heart was beating so loud and so fast, I thought I was going to have a heart attack! Oh, my God.’ Lydia pulled a long draught from the wine glass and shuddered.

 

‘Did they catch the shooters?’, Ken asked, hoping to find out more while trying to head off another emotional upheaval.

 

‘No, not by the time they finally let me leave. I heard witnesses who were on the sidewalk tell the cops there was a car full of them. A big black … Tahoe-something-or-other with tinted glass. They said the car pulled up alongside the couple, windows open, and just started shooting, spraying bullets everywhere! Thugs. Dreadlocks and hoodies, two gunmen, the witnesses said. No one even had time to take a video, at least not that could help the cops at all. Oh, God, that poor girl! And her baby!’

 

‘Holy Jesus’, Ken had murmured several times during the telling, while sipping his own wine. He drew his phone from his pocket and began scrolling.

 

‘What on earth are you doing, Ken?’, she demanded.

 

‘Want to see if the Lake City Sentinel website has any updates. Yep, here’, He touched a link and spread his fingers on the screen to enlarge the text, ‘Four men in custody on suspicion.’

 

‘Let me guess …’, Lydia’s shoulders sagged, ‘they’re all from the ‘hood. God, I feel like such a, like such a … racist!’

 

Her husband continued to read and scroll. ‘Yep. Bowser Street, Kroehle Ave, I guess that’s the Five Points area alright. The suspects and the male victim of the couple are all from there. Stolen car, too.’

 

‘Five Points - you know what they call Five Points in the city? ‘Shots Fired’ is what they call it’, Lydia exhaled deeply.

 

‘What do you mean, you feel like a racist?’

 

Exasperation showed all over her face. ‘I mean, it’s just, it’s … THIS every time, isn’t it? I mean, this kind of crime, this … it’s this lawlessness! So predictable. So sadly preDICTable! Same cast of characters, and here we sit like victims, with our white skin ….’

 

‘Yeah. But our white privilege too, remember’, he sought to clarify.

 

‘Our privilege? OUR privilege? What the hell kind of privilege? That bullet that missed my face by inches, was THAT my privilege? Because I have a home in Green Maples, because we’ve worked and saved and invested and gone to church and volunteered and tried to make a difference in the world, I am somehow privileged and need to be reminded of that when a bullet nearly hits me? Please’, she snorted, ‘we’re fools if we believe that. YOU’RE a fool if you believe that.’

 

‘Lyd, they are people, just like us, except the world has taken so much from them. There is so much rage ….’

 

‘Rage? No, I see the faces, I saw the two - fifteen-year-olds! – do you remember the two who had the stand-off with the cops at The Confectionary across from our museum last month? They smirked! There was no rage! What I saw in their eyes wasn’t … it was entitlement! They were going to take what they wanted from the poor frightened kids working there. Rage, my eye! AS IF they were rising up in righteous anger against oppression!’ Lydia had by now nearly drained her glass.

 

‘Lydia, they are oppressed and we know that! We have not lived in their world. How do you expect ….’ Ken was searching desperately for a means of turning the issue away from the tripwire of race.

 

‘I’m beginning to think ‘their world’ is more a result of their bad choices, not our privilege.’ Anger was smoldering in her eyes. ‘Please get me another wine.’ Calmer now, but there was a determined set to her jaw.

 

Ken rose again to select another cabernet sauvignon and uncork it. ‘Until we’ve walked in their shoes, we can’t judge. Until we’ve had store managers follow us around because we’re ─’

 

Lydia nearly spat, ‘Wait a minute. Do you really think store managers follow your friend from church, what’s-his-name, DeMario …?’

 

‘DeMarcus. DeMarcus and Chanise Briscoe.’

 

‘Do you think they follow people who dress and act like the Briscoes around in stores? In Lake City? Please. That kind of excuse-making is getting tiresome.’ Lydia took another swallow. ‘Store managers follow around people who look and act like the people who shoplifted and stole from them yesterday and the day before, and the day before, and are ruining their businesses. Poor innocent victims! Talk about privilege! How about the privilege of breaking all the laws and still wearing the mantle of ‘victim’!’

 

Ken wanted desperately to douse the fiery rhetoric. His wife was reacting to trauma - a bullet just missed her head! - and this kind of fury was not helpful, even if somewhat understandable. ‘Why don’t you take a hot bath and a melatonin and get some sleep, hon? A good night’s rest will help put this in perspective.’

 

‘Jesus, Ken, are you serious? Are you trying to mollify me? Are you afraid I am going to say something that upsets your happy worldview? I ALMOST GOT MURDERED BY THUGS WEARING DREADS AND HOODIES!’ Lydia was now shaking, using two hands to lift the stemmed wine glass to her lips. ‘What does ‘in perspective’ mean, anyway? Do you think I’ll wake up tomorrow and forget the street scenes that happen more and more often on Merchant Street, right in front of our front door? Uchanna Ebi, who sometimes works with me, is afraid to go out the front door for her lunch break - she says they call her awful names, it’s always ‘Hey, n____’ this and ‘n____’ that … and she’s from Nigeria! She hates them! She is terrified of what Lake City is becoming!’

 

‘Lyd, the world is not perfect. We need to remember to judge people as individuals, not lump them into groups’, Ken chided her, and then tried on a strained smile, hoping to mitigate his lecturing tone.

 

‘And yet’, Lydia fired back, swiping away his smile, ‘and yet ‘groups’ are all we hear about; groups that we must accommodate and celebrate, groups about whom we must never misspeak, groups who can slander us, harass us, ruin our businesses and get people fired. Groups swing all the political power now. God, it’s so obvious.’

 

‘You’re starting to sound like … ‘, Ken had to be careful here; this was not a comparison he wanted to make lightly, lest his wife go ballistic (there had been a history). Instead of finishing the sentence, he rose to pace over to the wine credenza again, even though his glass was nearly full.

 

‘Like what, Ken? Say it … like what? A racist? Yeah, no kidding; that’s exactly what I feel like, too. A bullet flying past your skull can almost make you reason like a racist.’ If anything, Lydia was now building steam, not decompressing. ‘Mike always said ‘a liberal is just a conservative that hasn’t been mugged yet’, and I’m beginning to see the sonofabitch’s point.’

 

Ken, trying desperately to defuse the conversational dynamite, could not help himself. ‘You told me that’s why you divorced him - his knee-jerk conservatism.’ Now what was he getting himself into? Marriage kerosene splashed on a flaming race relations argument? He had to find an offramp from this contentious dialogue in a hurry.

 

‘We have to think like rational adults here, not reactionary yahoos’, he added, and immediately regretted it.

 

‘Oh, okay. My ex is a ‘reactionary yahoo’ now! Listen, I had my reasons for divorcing Mike, and they are none of your damn business’, Lydia growled. ‘Mike was many things, including a lying philanderer, but I will tell you what he wasn’t:  A victim! Mike is not going to stand by while thugs take what’s his because THEY feel entitled! Mike doesn’t bear a shred of guilt about ANYthing, least of all his skin color or ‘privilege’’.

 

Ken regretted bringing up her former husband in the first place, but by God, there were principles at stake here - principles he knew in his heart that Lydia shared with him, despite her frantic ravings of the moment. ‘He kept a gun, too, didn’t he?’

 

Lydia shot Ken a look that could have bored a hole through him. ‘Guns. Plural. Yes, he did, and it scared the living daylights out of me. He kept one right there in that hall stand by the front door’, she gestured. ‘One under the seat of his car. One in the bedroom. All loaded. Mike was prepared to defend himself and his property with deadly force. It used to make my skin crawl. But Mike never gunned down a biracial couple on a city street, I’ll give him that.’

 

Feeling utterly defeated, Ken proposed a cease-fire. ‘We can talk about this in the morning if you want to. Look, I am so sorry this happened to you and I’m glad you’re home safely. I am ready to hit the hay - what do you say I straighten up around here and we turn in for tonight?’

 

Lydia sat staring into her wine glass and said nothing. In a post-adrenaline letdown, her eyes sagged, she leaned back, and she surrendered to torpor. Five minutes went by while Ken loaded some dishes and his wine glass in the dishwasher, wrapped up a baguette, returned some Whole Foods kikka sushi to the refrigerator and snapped out the kitchen lights.

 

‘C’mon, Lydia, let’s go to bed.’ He was pleading by this time.

 

She was almost in a trance now. ‘You go ahead. There is no way I am going to sleep - not yet.’

 

‘Hon, I can only imagine how this … horrible incident must make you feel. Believe me, it’s awful; it’s mind-blowing! … but it’s OVER, and tomorrow, things will start to make more sense’, he tried to encourage her to give up, give in, retire.

 

Lydia continued to stare at nothing and spoke as if under sedation. ‘You say that. You don’t see … you don’t want to see the hell that is rising over the land. You want to believe in a world that’s not real, a world that makes us feel good and just and righteous and right about everything we believe. You haven’t been mugged yet. Yet!’

 

By now, Ken could feel a giant wave of despair crashing over his soul. How could his wife - his wife and partner! - be so overwhelmed that she could think … that she could consider, even … discharging all her compassion for her fellow man at the passing of a single bullet? Can human compassion be so brittle, so ephemeral?

 

‘Listen, hon, I am going to bed. Please, give your mind and your emotions a rest. Giving in to hatred is never going to solve anything’, his tone was gentle and soothing as he leaned in to kiss her cheek tenderly, ‘C’mon’, he whispered.

 

She sat and said nothing.

 

Ken went down the hall to his bathroom, and she heard him brush and floss, and close his door. The sliver of light from beneath his bedroom door went out.

 

Why should she do the same, she thought, only to lie flat on her back in her bed and replay the entire shocking episode over and over in the dark?

 

One more glass of wine would help to bring on sleep, and if sleep came to her while nestled on the leather sofa, well, so be it. But first, she rose on wobbly legs, walked from the front door to the kitchen/garage door to the back porch door, checking and re-checking the locks. She tried all the windows and turned off the living room lights before she settled once again on the sofa.

 

Then she rose once more, and turned on the soft light in the foyer, before returning to her sanctuary. Within minutes, she got up again and turned on every light in the living room.

About the author 

Doug Stoiber writes poetry and short fiction and is a member of the Mossy Creek Writers in East Tennessee. His short story, "The Friends of Daniel Cabot", appears in The Rabbit Hole Volume VII anthology, and his original short story, "Woowo" debuted at The Literary Heist on June 21, 2024. 

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Sunday Serial, 280 x 40, 45 45. Beast of a Car 3, by Gill James, whisky on the rocks

 Introduction

This collection is a collection of seventy stories, each 280 words. They were inspired by the first picture seen on my Twitter feed on a given day. 

This was the car he'd always wanted.  He touched the metallic blue paintwork.  A thrill, a mini orgasm, ran thought his arm and up to his shoulder.  Those wheels could tackle any terrain surely? He felt dizzy with excitement as he smelt the new leather of her seats.

"Go on.  Take twenty-four hour test drive. You know you want to."

He nodded at the dealer and climber into her. He pressed the ignition button and he was away. Smaller cars and even big lorries got out of his way.

Soon he was out of the town, cruising through farmland and the out on the moors. Everyday life was left behind.

The road became rougher and rougher. It didn't matters. She held her own.

She was made for going off road. He turned the steering wheel sharply to one side and they left the road. It felt different under the wheels now but still she kept on going,. She was made for this.

There were no lights or buildings now. It was getting darker and darker. He had plenty of fuel and the vehicle almost seemed to be finding her own way between obstacles.  Hadn't the salesman said she could almost drive herself?

He had the sudden curious thought that he might not ever return. He shivered.

The mountains were right in front of him now. Still he drove on. The nearest one seemed to open, as if there were a door there. He accelerated and drove on right into it. The light inside was blinding. He pushed his urgently foot on the brake and hoped the car would stop before they hit anything.

He now knew he would never return.          

About the author

    

Gill James is published by The Red Telephone, Butterfly and Chapeltown. She edits CafeLit and writes for the online community news magazine: Talking About My Generation. She teaches Creative Writing and has an MA in Writing for Children and PhD in Creative and Critical Writing. 

http://www.gilljameswriter.com 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B001KMQRKE 

https://www.facebook.com/gilljameswriter 

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