I should have posted this yesterday but real life has been overwhelming this last week. It’s a ficlet I wrote a couple of years ago for a picture prompt but I’ve chosen to go with a view of artificial poppies rather than the original.

Something to remember.

Hamish had worshipped Donald since they were bairns at the local school together. He had never said anything, of course. His friends found it hard enough to express their feelings for lasses. There was no way of articulating his desire for another boy. He had talked to Jock when Jock had started courting Mary, but had got nowhere in his search for words and phrases.

“Och,” Jock said, “she’s canny enough and she kens I’m not averse. But I wouldnae tell her so out loud. Doesnae do to turn their heads, ye see?” Hamish saw. He’d have loved to have turned Donald’s head, especially in his direction, but there didn’t seem to be a way.

They joined the regiment together after Highers. It was that or the fishing boats or university and neither felt cut out for the sea of fish or the sea of knowledge. So they went through basic training and felt proud of their uniform and the history they were taught to see as their own.

The wreath-laying ceremony was such an honour. The minister wrote from home to stress how proud the village would be if their boys were to appear on the small screen. Each of them secretly hoped to be the one to carry the wreath of poppies and lay it on the memorial. Hamish could hardly contain his excitement when he was chosen.

The wind whipped around their faces and he was glad he’d had the forethought to borrow a hat pin from his gran. He never thought of his kilt, even when he stepped up in front of them all and stood respectfully after he’d laid the wreath. The gust of spiteful air whisked the heavy folds sideways and up. He hoped his face as he turned to walk back to the line was not displaying his embarrassment. He must on no account show anything, give any sign that he knew there had been anything wrong. He must not give a signal that would allow the crowds to laugh or give the journalists a chance to bay at his heels. He knew his sergeant wouldn’t blame him for the display, but he might well blame him if he wasn’t dignified about it.

And yet, he thought, as they stood singing about Christian soldiers or those in peril on the sea or whatever… And yet, it could have been worse. He could have been wearing underpants and that would have been something his fellow soldiers would never have allowed him to live down. Sometimes he put a pair on when the cold got too much for him, but on this day of pride he hadn’t dared. He was glad.

Donald approached him later, crossing the training square. No-one had said anything and he’d begun to hope there’d be no comments – and no pictures in the papers. But Donald fell into step beside him and grinned and he knew. Donald was not going to let it pass. He shuddered inwardly. All his dreams and shy admiration and now he was a figure of fun to his idol. But Donald was speaking.

“Ye’ve a fine pair o’ cheeks there, Hamish. I always thought ye might have. And I’ve always wanted to know if I was right. The wind was my friend today, wasnae it?”

“It wasnae mine!”

“Nonsense – ye’re the pride of the regiment. And I’m proud to call you my friend. I’d be proud to call you more than that, Hamish. If…” He stopped, blushing the red of the threads in his tartan and started to move away, every motion betraying anxiety and speed, a running away from what he’d said. But Hamish grabbed his arm and whirled him round.

“Ye’ll no get away that easily, Donald,” he said softly, a steel determination underlying the words. “Ye can call me anything ye like, d’ye see?”

And Donald did see, and they walked back to the barracks together, knowing the future could be sweet.

They came up between the floorboards at first, a little like smoke, or perhaps mist because nobody seemed to suspect fire. Tendrils crept into the various rooms, up the stairs and down into the root cellar.

They made things strange. Not uncomfortable, exactly, or not that anyone could articulate. There was an atmosphere of oddness, of unrightness. A glass that had been polished and put away would reappear on the table, smeared, with a yellowish sediment in the bottom. A bed that had been neatly made would be tumbled and creased, the pillow tossed on the floor. A towel in the bathroom would be wringing wet when nobody had used the basin or shower since the previous day. Everything could be ascribed to poor memory, to human error. But everything added up. Nobody was harmed, but nobody was happy and eventually they left. They sold it, of course, but the next residents, and the ones after that had the same experiences. Ridding the house of humans took a few years but they could afford to wait.

Next, they turned their attention to the small things. The bugs that lived in the cracks, once there were no humans to clean the place, found their cracks filled with unpleasant textures and smells. The mice under the kitchen sink had a nest damp from drips even though the taps were no longer working. The birds that built homes in the roof space had a feeling that predators were constantly overhead. They all left, not at once, but one by one, reluctantly but in the end with relief.

Then the moss on the roof failed to thrive. The lichen that tried to establish itself on the front step found the atmosphere polluted despite the lack of anything within miles that could affect it. The creeper on the back wall rotted.

At last they had the house to themselves. It was a beautiful house, built from aged silvery grey wood with large airy window frames. It was the perfect home and it had taken a while to get it exactly the way they wanted and it had taken a lot of work but at last it was finished, and they settled down. Anyone passing, though very few ever passed, might have heard, soft on the evening air, a sigh of contentment.

(The picture is not mine. It’s a slightly photoshopped version of one I found on Pixabay by Wyosunshine. The information for the photograph said it was free for even commercial use. It’s very similar to the one used for a prompt that inspired this ficlet. Given a lack of wooden houses anywhere near either of my homes, I felt obliged to go looking and make sure there was no copyright violation. One or two of you might have seen the ficlet a while ago on my personal journal.If so, ignore!)

Last Christmas…

I remember it as clearly as yesterday, and you’re lying when you say it all passed in an alcoholic blur because of your new job and celebrating and so on. We were living together so it would have been a bit hard to fool me that much. Most of the time you were sober and a bit morose about having to move, to leave, even though you were pleased with the new status and even more with the new pay package.

I gave you my heart…

…right after the office party, on the way to the station. You were grumbling about having to pretend we weren’t together and I suggested we should stop pretending, let the world know, get married (it’s legal now, after all) and let the office busybodies have their nine days’ wonder, shock and salacious gossip. I said I would come to London with you, find a job somewhere, somehow, so that we could be together. We stopped under one of those huge streetlights on the station approach and you kissed me right there in public. Well, OK, there weren’t many public around and the ones there were were wrapped up in their own thoughts and destinations. But you kissed me without looking over your shoulder and I remember the sleet glistening on your hair under the light, the fiery coldness of your lips and the way my heart sang. Then you held my hand till we had to leave loose and run helter-skelter for the last train, laughing.

Neither of us had had that much to drink. We never did at those office things, too scared, I suppose, of giving ourselves away. So instead I gave my heart away and when we got home we fucked, or rather made love, till almost dawn.

The very next day …

It was Christmas Eve and we went into the village to buy a tree. We thought they might be cheaper, with less than twenty-four hours to go. We found a really nice little tree outside the supermarket, with a huge ‘reduced’ sign on it and we were just going to go in when Anna, that new girl from the typing pool, came past. We hadn’t known she lived in the same suburban village as us; she’d left the party early and of course we normally travelled in by car so we wouldn’t have run across her. She looked surprised then asked if we were together, with one of those smirking, knowing looks that some people seem to find appropriate. I was just saying yes, proud and dizzily happy when you said no, we were just flatmates. I felt the bottom drop out of my world.

We didn’t even decorate the tree and it just stood there all dark and bare till I threw it out on New Year’s Eve, tired of the needles dropping on the carpet, dry and spiked like my thoughts.

You left on the Sunday night and you tossed me your keys without a care in the world.

This year…

I was surprised to see you, pleased for you to hear about the promotion and the return up north, but not impressed that you seemed to think I’d just have been waiting all year, like some kind of doll you can throw into a box and take out again when it suits you. You were never that great a ‘catch’ despite the inflated salary. I could always have found someone else but we were good together or at least I thought we were. You didn’t. obviously.

… someone special.

He’s already asked me privately and he’s arranged this romantic public proposal under the mistletoe at his mum’s house. They know, too, so there won’t be any outcry, just lots of people pleased for us. He’s really dependable, and not bad-looking. I’m going to be happy.

But sometimes, very privately, I just wish it was last Christmas all over again.

(I wrote this a few years ago to a prompt from a writing group. I’ve tweaked it slightly to bring it up to date. It’s a kind of homage – and maybe we all wish it could be last year and 2016 could be re-run with edits?)

At a recent writers’ group meeting (most of us were fanfic writers) we were given prompts to pick from a hat and a time limit for writing.

My first linked prompts were: ‘a historical personage’ and ‘coming out’. That, in fifteen minutes, produced the following:
Out

A ghost talking? I can see your disbelief. But we’re all ghosts now, those of us who were here two millennia before you. Yet to me it is yesterday and I need to tell someone about it. You’ll do.

The word in the forum was rumour built upon rumour until even the youngsters were scrawling their ideas on the walls; black, white and ochre graffiti. ‘Who the woman in the relationship?’ they scribbled. ‘Who the one shamed?’ Drawings asked questions as rudely as words; laughter came alike from merchant, soldier and slave. But no-one really knew the truth of it; it was all suspicion and turmoil, envy of those in high position, belief that leaders might or even should have feet of clay.

I could have told them. Throughout the campaigns, military and political, I remained silent and so did he. We never spoke of what we shared, even to each other, of the hot sweaty grappling that ended in heaven-sent release. The army was, in any case, a forgiving environment where what men did in tent or camp stayed there and did not follow them back to Rome. And yet it hurt, somehow, to pretend we were no more than friends or colleagues, hurt not to acknowledge the real, closer relationship.

We all knew events were spiralling out of control. We all knew secrecy could breed sourness on every side and that every public mask could hide a growing private bitterness. I knew in my heart that jealousy and a fear of power would eventually rot and spoil what we had together. But I had never thought that love could turn around as if from north to south, into hate.

I never intended to out myself or my lover. Then as I felt my life seeping away, the dagger thrusts hurting my heart more than my body, I could not help but say, with what I knew was a tone of injury beyond mere death, “Et tu, Brute?”

My second pair of prompts were: ‘Merlin (the show) or Arthurian legend’ and ‘threesome’. Another fifteen minutes gave me this.

Before

Before the fighting began, before their armies were drawn up behind steel lines, before it was too late… and yet perhaps it was always too late? Anyway, they drank together, trying to find some way back. Drink loosened their tongues and their moods. Drink fuelled a pissing contest, real and metaphorical. Whose piss arced furthest? They were too drunk to measure with any accuracy. Who was the bravest? Gawain might know but he wasn’t there. Who was the most daring? They took time in a confused fashion to tease apart the ideas of bravery in the face of immediate danger and daring in rushing to face danger that had not yet appeared. Who was the best lover? They could hardly ask Guinevere.

The last two questions merged. It seemed the answer could be had from anyone, male or female. They did not so much invite Mordred as hijack him and take him to one of their beds. It wasn’t clear whose bed it was but Guinevere, at any rate, was not in it.

Consensual but very drunken sex followed. If they fumbled and were less than brilliant in their loving, well, all were drunk and unobservant. They all swore a solemn oath on the grail they could not see never to tell Guinevere, or anyone else. Mordred pronounced, his judgement as weighty as that of Paris but less intelligently reached.

Next day they awoke together but fled apart, each thinking someone had played a cruel hoax when they had been in their cups. None of the three could ever recall anything of the night other than a faint feeling that their relationships were not quite as they used to be. Not that, in the end, it mattered.

                                                                                                                                   (picture in public domain)

SHAKESPEARE AT THE ZOO

“We’re supposed to be rewriting Shakespeare, not messing about researching Polar Bears.” Amy was always grumpy before the keepers brought their morning fruit.

“Not rewriting, writing all over again. But Polar Bears are more interesting. I saw some in the zoo once.” Adam always had a reply for Amy. Of course, he was the leader and was expected to keep everyone in order.

“When?” Amy was brave, questioning him, but then she was always brave. “When you went to the hospital?” Adam just sniffed but Antony looked admiringly at him. A trip to the hospital was an adventurous thing to have undertaken, even if occasioned by a septic toe. The grand outing had spawned enough tales to keep Adam’s image glowing with glory.

“They eat sheep.” Alan looked up from his research and announced this fact to the assembled group. “Well, they eat meat of any kind really, but at the zoo they eat sheep meat. It says here.” He gestured towards the screen. There was a silence, broken by Adam scratching his head.

“Any meat? You mean…” Perhaps a Polar Bear wouldn’t make such a good hero for their story after all. He shuddered and remembered the delicate look of the railings around the enclosure.

“But you’d keep us safe, wouldn’t you?” He knew without looking that that was Antony, so certain and trusting.

“It’s only a story, Antony,” he said, and Amy laughed, pointing at Antony and chuckling, her sides heaving with mirth.

“But you really would?” Antony was insistent and Adam reached out to fondle his head.

“I’m not God, Antony, even in the story,” he reminded him. “But I’d do my best. You know I would.” They all nodded, even Amanda, who was, as usual, distracted by the antics of baby Bill.

“None of us believe in God,” said Charles, leader of one of the other groups. There were about a hundred of them in the huge room and sometimes rivalries and tempers threatened to wreck the supposedly literary atmosphere. “I’m not sure,” he went on, “that we believe in you, Adam, or even in your hospital trip.”

There was a brief but extremely loud scuffle. When order had been restored Adam watched Charles walk away, cowed for the moment but hardly defeated. Charles looked, he thought, a little like a goat, with his wispy beard and the way his ears stuck up like horns. And those slitty eyes… He looked out of the window towards the enclosure where the petting animals grazed and browsed contentedly in the children’s corner. Yes, a goat. Perhaps the next stage in the plotting of the story would involve tethering Charles as bait for the bear. It was turning into quite an epic, with villains and heroes and suspense.

Antony was tugging at his arm, chattering in excitement at seeing his own hero defeat a rival. Antony’s attentions were very satisfying, Adam decided. He fondled the youngster again in a proprietorial manner and they settled to grooming each other, only half aware of Alan and Amy, who were considering a sub-plot of romance.

“If we had Adam and Antony…” Amy began.

“But we thought in terms of a Romeo and Juliet theme,” said Alan.

“Romeo and Romeo would have been just as intriguing,” Amy told him. “And now that you’ve introduced bears I think we have a bestseller on our hands.” And so saying, she grinned before peeling and munching noisily on a banana. The fruit had arrived and all was well with her world.

I have written, from time to time, drabbles in various ‘fandoms’. They are a form of fanfiction and I have adhered to the 100 word rule in these six examples although the titles are extra. They are all related to television programmes shown in the UK – some of them quite a while ago. They are also all based on the general theme of halloween.

I haven’t given the names of the series. Guess them all correctly (there should be enough clues) and I’ll write a couple of drabbles for you, provided I know the series you choose.

1. Callers.

Janet sighed and closed the door on yet another small skeleton. She had treated each caller with gentleness and courtesy, offering candy and remembering the real monsters out there; monsters they had met and fought. Monsters who would eat these little ones for breakfast. Surely the stream of costumed frights would stop soon and she could relax with a drink and her favourite TV series.

Another knock. But no shuffling or giggling on the step. She hesitated, wondering what waited. Then she heard a voice she knew calling, ‘Trick or treat?’ and opened the door gladly to a smiling Sam.

2. Clubland.

The canal water gleamed like mercury, poisonous and thick. For a moment Vince imagined creatures from some Cheshire lagoon or aliens from the Doctor’s adventures, boiling into the street. He shivered and drew back from the low wall. Halloween was depressing enough without nightmares like that. Then his friends spilled out of the club, backlit by the pulsing neon glow, and he was cajoled into his usual role of best mate, chauffeur and all time gooseberry. The monsters were all too real, green-eyed and menacing. A turnip lantern in a pub window grinned fitful mockery as he accepted the keys.

3. Foreshadowing.

Nick watched Wani sadly. The man had always been as sleek and as independent as a cat, dark and magical. On their first meeting Nick half expected him to leave by the window and prowl the rooftops. Now he had carelessly squandered his nine lives and was clinging to the earth by the tips of his claws. He would haunt their usual places, that was certain. Whether Nick would see him next Halloween would depend on how far he had cast his sickness along with his spell. Others would see a momentary beauty swirl through the dark streets and wonder.

4. Monsters large and small.

Trick or treat. He’d give them trick or treat. He’d treat them to a piece of his mind. Parents should have more sense. Didn’t they know how dangerous the streets were? Paedophiles and drug pushers didn’t go home and draw the curtains just because it was Halloween. Rosy-cheeked ladies offering apples might have hidden blades in the sweet flesh. Idiots, prey and predators alike.

Andy found himself hurrying, wishing he’d stayed at home. John might be trusting enough to open the door. And Theo…

He would have to trust John. Meanwhile, he growled at a small ghost who fled, terrified.

5. The Knock.

“Trick or treat, missus?”

Dipping her hand into the sweet jar, Ros threw a handful of toffees at the sheeted figure.

“Nah. Me mum says them things’ll rot me teef.” The ghost was still solid; Ros realised money, rather than sugar, was modern halloween currency.

“Shut the door and let them do their worst.” Adam’s voice galvanised her.

“Trick,” she snarled. The snick of the latch was satisfying, although she could expect jam or glue in the lock later. She went back to the bedroom.

“Thought we were the spooks,” she said wearily. “We’re no match for the real thing.”

6. Touchdown.

“The planet of Halloween!” His face broke into a creases of delight. “Imagine! Trick or treat every day and pumpkin pie after every meal!”

Donna was less than thrilled. There were shadows that loomed, stalked and flickered; flames where there should have been darkness and darkness where the sun should have shone.

“What do you want to see first?” he asked. “The Sea of Souls, the bat colony in Outer Ghoul, or the Witch King’s palace?”

She shook her head.

“Spoilsport!”

Donna shrugged. She had always hated things that went bump in the night. She wanted to go home. Now.