Over Ordered

It was a mistake anyone could have made or at least that was what he kept saying to himself as the driver used the fork life truck to take down yet another pallet of the boxes.

He had checked back to his order and now he knew that it wasn’t single items he had ordered, they were ordered and delivered in multiples. He had one hundred pallets of them when he had only wanted one box with one hundred jars. He was desperately trying to calculate how much space the pallets of Tality were going to take up in his garage. It was already almost full and less than half had been taken off the lorry.

He had to do something before his wife got back. This was supposed to be just a little sideline, a little online business to keep him interested. He had read about the amazing benefits of taking just two tablets of Tality every day and had tried a sample and it seemed to work. So on the strength of that he had ordered small initial order just to see how sales might go. Now he realised he’d missed the vital part that showed the volume of the order.

Standing at the back of his garage he was trying to ring the supplier in China but was still getting no response. He had to ask them to take some of the order back and now. To add to his growing frustration and tension he could hear the ‘beep beep beep’ of the fork lift truck reversing with yet another enormous pallet to force into the garage.

He was trying the supplier for the tenth time when he heard the crates being pushed up. He could hear the straining of both the wood and the metal bindings around the cling filmed boxes. Then he realised that the new pallet was forcing the pallets already in the garage towards him trapping him against the back wall and away from the door.

He shouted, shouted at the top of his voice but remembered the driver had earphones in listening to music. It was one of the things that had annoyed him when he was trying to stop him unloading when he first arrived.

Another pallet and he was being crushed. It was then he heard a voice at the end of the phone. In broken English he could hear the same phrase being repeated ‘Hello, hello, you there, you want moreTality

Just Inside Your Head

There’s something in the garden Mum!

There’s something in the shed

It’s come into the hallway now

It’s crawled beneath my bed.

‘There’s nothing there to worry you,

Your safe inside your bed

You needn’t have a worry

It’s just inside your head.’

‘Just inside my head’ she said,

Just inside my head!

I do not need to worry

‘Cos it’s just inside my head.

And that is where they live now

That is where they fled

The dark thoughts and the shadows

They live inside my head

My fears and my self loathing

I keep them fully fed

For that is where they live for now

At least until I'm dead.

A Christmas Tail

He’d been following her for about two weeks. He had begun to map her routine and knew the bus that she took to get back from work.

He had started to wait for her near to the stop she got off. He had started to follow her home at a distance, a sort of test. A couple of times she had turned but he had looked away apparently uninterested and she had looked right through him and walked on.

There was one occasion when he had decided to make his move but just as he approached he had been picked up by some woman and it took all his efforts to get away. By the time he had his target was gone.

He was great at following, one of the best and people would pay big money for his skills but he knew that this was the last one and tonight was going to be the night.

He walked at a distance behind as she made her way from the bus carrying a number of bags and parcels. He made sure that she could not see him and that no one would interrupt his journey this time.

Finally he saw her open her front door and step inside. Once it was shut he waited a few moments for people to pass and then quietly walked up her path. He didn’t want to make a scene so he scratched gently at the door.

Inside she was putting her shopping away when she began to hear the noise. She walked into the hall and knew it was coming from the front door. She put the chain on the door and turned on the outside light. When she felt safe she opened it and glanced out, there was no one there.

As soon as she had opened the door wide enough he had snuck in. He ran down her hall into the kitchen and positioned himself.

She shut the door, shrugged in confusion and then turned to continue her unpacking. It was then that she saw him, his sharp penetrating eyes staring at her.

‘Hello,’ she said in a kind, singsong voice, ‘how did you get in here?’ He took it as his cue and walked towards her weaving between her legs and purring at the same time. She bent down and scratched behind his ears. In response he rolled over onto his back.

‘Who do you belong to?’ she asked while scratching his stomach, ‘someone is going to miss you, especially on Christmas Eve?’

He purred even harder – he knew he wasn’t going to be lonely this Christmas.

Our Road

Theirs was a typical road, a typical terraced road with certainly nothing special about it other than it was where they lived. OK the road surface was pitted and marked and the paving slabs cracked and uneven in places but it was their road.

Of course they complained, of course they wanted it to be better – they wanted their road to be repaired, lit better, have better services. And why shouldn’t they want that? It was their road

Then one day the people heard there road was going to be extended, new houses built but, and it was big but, as part of that work there was to be a new road surface, new paving, new lighting and extra money for local services paid for by the new homes. So, although they had their doubts they agreed and the new houses were built.

Then for a while everyone was happy. The older residents loved the improvements and although the people in the new houses ‘weren’t quite like us’ they seemed all right. And of course they were, because being different doesn't automatically create a problem if you try to understand and get along with each other.

But then it started. It was subtle at first. Just odd words, odd phrases, the introduction of them and us. Then the local newspaper started saying how much 'better off' the people at the new end of the road were.

Voices got louder – ‘moved into our road and start using our streetlights’, ‘walking on our pavement and wearing it out’. Soon the cry was heard regularly – ‘we want our road back’. The memories of how the road used to be had grown hazy, new stories of how ‘great’ it was were propagated. Life, quite simply, had been much better in the old days, before …….. well, just before.

And so a meeting was held and a plan hatched. Not everyone was for it, in fact it was just a handful of votes difference but it was decided that the plan would go ahead. They would set fire to the houses at the top of the road.

Now of course there were those whingeing voices that kept saying ‘but these are terraced houses, the fire could spread down to this end’ but the louder voices just kept saying everything would be ok, better in fact as they would get all the light and paving and services, oh and more.

But doubts persisted in some. The fire could destroy everything. They just wouldn’t accept they had lost the vote. Finally, the leader of the plan explained that everything would be ok because the wind would blow up the street and keep the flames at that end only. Voices of opposition saying you couldn’t control the wind were denounced as pessimists.

And so the plan was actioned and the fire started. The blaze, grew and grew and soon some of the old residents in the middle of the street began to mutter that the fire was getting awfully close. In fact it was getting too close and licking at the roofs of their houses.

‘What happened to the wind you promised?’ they shouted to the leader of the plan.

‘We never said there would be a wind,’ he answered with liar’s eyes.

Soon the sound of streetlights cracking was heard. ’You said we’d keep the lights!’ some shouted.

‘We never promised you lights,’ he answered with liar’s voice.

Slowly it became clear that the whole street would be destroyed and by morning all that was left was the charred remains of their homes, cracked paving, broken streetlights and pot marked surfaces.

As the residents turned to their leader they saw him getting into a lovely new car. ‘Now don’t you worry about me,’ he called out to them, I’ve been invited to move to a beautiful new town with people more like me. But look,’ he said pointing, ‘You’ve got your road back.’

And indeed they had

Sharpened

He slid open the drawer and smiled. Waxing the runner had removed any friction and the way it glided pleased him more that it should. He stared at the tiny green baize compartments and a smile returned to his face. In each small cushioned rectangle was a treasure, his treasure, well, a treasure to him – his collection of pencil sharpeners.

When others at school had collected rubbers from the gift shops and school trips his passion had always been sharpeners. Even now, at an age when most had stopped their collections, he still searched online.

He had never understood the passion for rubbers. Why collect something that was created to remove, to hide, to cover up your mistakes and in doing the very act lose a bit of itself?

No, pencil sharpeners were infinitely preferable. They could take the blunt and give it a point, return precision and purpose to the run down. Bring life back to the broken.

In many ways pencil sharpeners were the perfect metaphor for his life. He slid the drawer back and locked the cabinet. His mind sharpened he was going to act.

Today he was going to, he was going to, he was going to try to leave the house. Well, we all have our point to prove.