The other glass

“It’s five o’clock on a Saturday…the regular crowd shuffles in…”

He giggled to himself as the Billy Joel lyrics sprang to mind upon entering Gloria Jeans as usual this Saturday afternoon at 5pm. He looked around sheepishly for an old man making love to his tonic and gin. He giggled again.

Spotting his favourite table, he eased himself into the chair, carefully placing pen and notebook before him. He perused the crowd, sipping his Cookies and Cream Chiller.

What would it be today, he wondered.

Of course.

Carlo.

How he missed him.. the way he would come lumbering over the hill. How he would notice him from miles away and almost frolic over.

It had tickled him. Cows frolic! Go figure. He didn’t think there was anything quite so magical, so delightful, so touching as seeing this big calico cow frolic over to see him.

And they would play. Tentatively at first as they got to know each other…(not that it had ever been his intention to play, let alone interact, with ANY of them…he was just running! Running through the holy fields as he did, clearing his mind, airing his soul – and they trapped him.)

Yes, at first it was tentative. He didn’t have much choice really – they had blocked his path in their enthusiasm.

Go figure! Cows are enthusiastic too!

So he reached out his hand. Yeah, they COULD chomp it off if they wanted, but they didn’t. Carlo didn’t. He sniffed, then licked.

And it was the beginning of a daily communion. A friendship. He running, breathing, filling, Carlo frolicking, nibbling, talking. It was like that.

Until one day it wasn’t.

A Friday, he remembered as the pen scurried across the page, the words blurred by  tears.

He reached for the other glass.

Jasmin Webb

April starter

True to form, the Artistic Director is offering something that could be interpreted in multiple ways. April's starter is 'The other glass'.  Feel free to do whatever you like with that one - a casual line of dialogue in passing, a random prop or something central to the essence of your story.
All offerings to rosemary.mcbryde@gmail.com by 30 April.  Happy writing!

Sedentary

Jake forced his eyelids closed and felt the momentary surge of white hot pain as moisture returned to his eyeballs - blinking didn't manifest when you were this close to the top of the leaderboard after three straight hours of CounterStrike. He couldn't fail his teammates, even though they were complete strangers, probably sitting in their own dank bedrooms in some far-off suburbia.

Jake took a hasty mouthful of congealed pizza from his desk and poured a few glugs of Diet Coke down his throat, the syrup compounding an intestinal rumbling and the slow degeneration of bone density that would make it harder for him to articulate his corpulent pork of a body to more productive ends.

Existing online and inside video games was a far cry better than sinking time into coursework or real human interaction, and at any rate Jake’s potent mixture of social retardation and physical repulsiveness made it increasingly justifiable to not even try. His mother was the only person he'd actually seen this week.

"Mum!" It’d be refill time soon, and a bathroom break would be wise.

"Hey mum!" No response from downstairs. "Pamela!"

It was early evening, and Jake couldn't face the world outside his room if it was soaked in crepuscular sunlight. Most people closed their curtains at night, letting the sun purify their spaces when the earth was kind enough to face it. Jake thought the sun was a pain in the arse, swimming through the dust to stress every sticky mark on his monitors and putting an impossible glare precisely on his crosshair. He couldn't remember the last time the curtains were open.

He opened a new browser window and pounded an address into the keys -- 'isitdarkoutside.com' -- and the screen returned a large, repressive 'NO'.

Back to it then.

Brendan McBryde

5 a.m.

Only she and the driver were awake, like watch keepers, their fellow travellers contorted in fitful sleep.  She drew a scarf more closely against the chill and for just a moment regretted the liberation from her waist-length hair.  Behind her, the Samoan couple’s snores rose above the relentless engine drone.

The barest wash of lightness brushed the horizon. Outside, the passing landscape was layered shadow, trees silhouetted in charcoal against black hills. In yellow-eyed farmhouses, she pictured early risers and restless children sharing the liminal hour, neither day nor deeply night.

The air rustled and shifted behind her. E a mea sou faalagona? The woman’s mellow tones were answered by a groaning thunder-rumble. Ua tiga lo'u patua.  Ahead, two girls stirred, embraced, roused by the flare of a chirping mobile phone.  With rising panic, she pressed her forehead against the glass, and reminded herself why she had left. 

“Today’s technology is the dominion of the ungodly,” the pastor had preached the day before he preyed upon her. “We must remain apart, as God divided light from darkness.”

“Your sinfulness is making you barren,” her husband had declared, as month after month her bleeding testified to her failure.

“From today, I have no daughter,” her father had announced that final morning, and her mother’s blank face turned away.

The Samoan woman retrieved a bag from the overhead shelf and sat, breathing heavily. A zip opened, a lid was removed and paper rustled.  E ai se mea e te fia ai? An answering grunt, then the greasy waft of cold pastry and sausage.

A hand touched her arm. “You want something to eat? A sandwich? Take it.” The woman pushed the container forward.

Hesitating, she accepted the offering with a quiet word of gratitude.

The bus rolled on towards morning.

Rosemary McBryde

9 July 1863

It is too late in the night – too late in history – for words: just the sound of embers; shadows crowding in from the whare rafters. Silence, but no sleep – no one will sleep this night. Hunched figures in the gloom, they stare at the embers and the small weaving flames. It is dark outside. The ruru call in the rock forest down the slope towards the east – hine-ruru, the owl woman, ancestral spirit of the family group, guardian, kaitiaki to protect, warn and advise … or just ruru, messenger of death?

When the Sun rises above Puketapapatangaahape they will leave – take what they can and leave, begin the sorrowful trail south from Tamaki Makaura to Waikato, to the protection of Kingi Potatau Te Wherowhero.

They will come – the pakeha. They will raze the buildings, uproot the gardens, fill and trample the spring. They will take the land and make it their own with their specious laws and their brutal army of occupation.

And they will physically take the land – take it away. With their steamshovels and their bullies they will carve away the sacred maunga till it is a wizened stump and on until it is a pit and the seawater seeps in. Gone.

They desire the land with a deformed lust, but they hate the land as well – the land and all its fecund life. Their bitter souls love only neat rows of black numerals in their ledger books.

Tonight the strong and razor claws of the ruru tighten round the hearts of those at the fire. This night they will sit and stare at the flames here for the last time. When the Sun rises, in silence they will rise, weary and heartsore, from their vigil of despair and they will leave. But now it is dark outside.

Barnaby McBryde

March stories

Thanks to the contributors of the February stories for your various entertaining offerings and welcome to our readers from the USA, Australia, Poland and the Ukraine.
This month's starter is: It's dark outside.  Perhaps a theme, a line of dialogue or a phrase of text, or just an idea for a setting... over to you. Stories to rosemary.mcbryde@gmail.com by Wednesday 30 March. And remember, strictly a 300 word maximum. Happy writing.

Coming up Trumps (aka surviving with helmet hair as the only injury)

Years ago, in pre-earthquake Christchurch, when riding a bike was not for the foolhardy but a necessity for the cash-strapped student, a sortie to the supermarket was usually an uneventful chore. To feed the eight-strong crew of the Grey Whale, the once a week meal roster required the purchase of ingredients on a large scale. These would be carefully arranged in my backpack for a speedy journey through the backstreets of Riccarton- legs pumping, eyes focused and hands anchored to the handle bars in a steely grip as the gears clicked with ease. I was, in essence, coolness on two wheels.

That was, until the fateful day when epic proportions turned an ordinary commute into a spectacular display. Now just to backpedal a bit, the purpose of my trip was to source the items required to replicate the savoury delights of the Pancake Palace. With my bag filled to capacity and still more to pack I was confident that leaving the two equally weighted items to balance elegantly from the handle bars would be the winning trick. 

So off I set on my journey down Clarence Street with 1 kg of yoghurt dangling comfortably in a plastic bag on one side and 1 kg of cottage cheese on the other. As I picked up pace the trip followed suit of many taken before. The gentle rustle of plastic however was soon replaced by a rhythmical knock as the two bags swung towards each other, mimicking the motion of Newton’s Cradle. A short sharp escalation of knocking was followed by the violent inhaling of bags into the spokes and the Catherine wheeling of contents behind me, leaving a 50 metre trail of dairy diarrhoea.

This story ends well, dear readers, with the absence of witnesses and a conveniently located bin….coolness intact.

Sharon Cook