How do you build a story around a single object? Maybe you wonder where it came from, what its life was like in a former existence. Maybe you wonder what it will become. Perhaps you think about how it has been a part of your own life. And maybe, just maybe, you want others to appreciate it the way you do.

Great oaks from little acorns

This bedframe is saturated with life.

It is a beautiful piece of artistry, this solid oak bedframe. Substantial sides hold a deep mattress in place; wooden posts, smoothed with time, stand sentinel at the foot, a beautifully carved bedrail joining them together. It is as sensorily satisfactory as it is aesthetically pleasing: her fingers trace the curves where straight rail swells slightly into a more rounded shape, the carpenter’s craftsmanship, his love of working with wood, plainly evident in these moulded details and in the carefully sculpted finials that adorn each post. Perhaps, though, it is the headboard most of all that calls to her soul: the gentle curves and undulations of the solid piece of wood are thrown into relief by the carved wooden acorn and oak leaves that adorn its centre – a reminder of what it has come from.

The wood sings of its time in the forest, before it was cut down. Every knothole whispers secrets; each imperfection has a story to tell. The pattern of the woodgrain flows like time itself: not in a straight line but diverging then converging once more until the map of the tree’s life is interwoven into the piece of furniture it has become. Gone is the rough bark that clothed it then: instead, satiny smooth timber has been planed and honed, carved and joined, with care and precision to produce something that is like and yet unlike a tree. Where once birds rested in the branches overhead, soft toys now curl up in slumbering positions amidst the cushions and covers that have replaced twigs and leaves. It is a metamorphosis worthy of a Greek legend, except instead of a hapless damsel becoming a laurel, or a foolish shepherd being transformed into an olive tree, this once mighty oak has become a sanctuary for weary human bodies and indolent felines. It still shelters, still protects, but it is now firmly rooted indoors, not out.   

This former tree has outlasted nine house moves, three children and one failed marriage. Although worn by life, it is not worn out. Its original mattress is long since dead and gone but all the bedslats are still intact – despite the number of times the bed has been dismantled and reassembled. Its first home was in leafy Surrey, then it travelled to a much smaller bedroom in Kent, where its king-sized five feet width seemed to fill every inch of space. Somehow, a Moses basket managed to squeeze in beside it: a poor shadow of the bed’s magnificent splendour and lasting only a few months. Any number of other beds have come and gone in this family unit – bunk beds; metal single bedframes; even a six feet wide imposter, upholstered in cream leather but lacking a comforting presence at the foot – but she has remained constant to her first love, to the bed in which her children were conceived, fed and read to; the bed from whose posts she hung Christmas stockings – gloriously large, fat things in felt and appliqué, whose contents produced squeals of laughter and delight for a decade of childhood.

She kept the bed when she ditched the husband: it was far more welcoming than he ever was – and more reliable. It travelled with her to a tiny rented house where, by dint of sheer stubbornness, she managed to reassemble it single handed. For a while she almost lived in it, choosing to curl up in it in the evenings as if it were her nest, finding it preferable to sofas or armchairs.

Twenty-two years after it was first bought, it retains its original beauty. The wood still glows with the memory of life; the minor scuffs and scratches cannot detract from its charm. The carved acorn, she realises, is symbolic: reminding us of what we have come from; looking forward to what we will become. She wonders now if her grandchildren will one day curl up there with her; if her twilight years will be spent nesting once more in the sanctuary of her wooden cradle.

This bedframe is saturated with her life.

Today’s offering is a philosophical one.

Intensive Thoughts

The tiny form in the see-through Perspex crib breathes in and out with the respirator, dangling wires monitoring the new-born heartbeat.

When you are faced with something as unexpected as your just-delivered baby being diagnosed with a fatal heart condition, you begin to question everything you previously knew, or thought you knew. You gaze at the scrap of humanity in front of you – flesh of your flesh; bone of your bone – and instinctively you wonder why you had to go through eight hours of agony (no drugs) if the child you pushed into the world is going to leave it in just a few short hours. You ask yourself why this should happen to your child – why everyone else you know has had a straightforward experience of birth, able to hold their babies, cuddle them, feed them. You took it for granted that you would do that too; instead, you have a mass of wires and a beeping machine separating you from your baby as effectively as any six-foot high wall.

You want to know where God is in all of this, how a loving God can allow a helpless, innocent baby to be born with his arteries the wrong way round and require open-heart surgery within the first week of his life. And then this thought opens up the floodgates for a whole stream of questions to come pouring forth: Why does God allow suffering? Hunger? War?

The problem of pain is one that has baffled us for centuries – if not millennia. We want an ordered world that makes sense, one in which – to quote Miss Prism in Oscar Wilde’s famous play, ‘The Importance of Being Ernest’ – “the good end[ ] happily and the bad unhappily”. Instead, we are faced with any number of senseless horrors: children blown apart by landmines; thousands dying every day because they have no access to clean water; lives lost due to car accidents, terminal disease or freak ‘acts of nature’.

 C S Lewis, the author and Christian apologist, struggled to make sense of life when he lost his wife to cancer. In his heartfelt book, ‘The Problem of Pain’, he wrote that “God whispers to us in our pleasures … but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

But do we need a megaphone such as this? Is Lewis suggesting that without the experience of suffering we are less than human? Surely it is not suffering that distinguishes us from other animals but rather our response to it: why else would thinkers, theologians and philosophers have spent hundreds and thousands of years trying to establish why some people suffer and others do not?

You are still pondering the question as you sit by your baby’s bedside, hour after hour. At first, his arms and legs sprouted needles – it was the only way to ensure he was topped up with the sugar and water mixture dubbed ‘maintenance’ by the hospital staff. After the first twelve hours, his tiny veins were exhausted and so now a cannula has been inserted into the top of his head, an image reminiscent of some bizarre experiment by Doctor Frankenstein. Your heart breaks; your mother’s instinct is to hold him close, but all you can do is sit and watch as one hour slowly slides into the next, as the world outside darkens and midnight approaches once more.

Is he aware of what’s going on? you wonder. Does he know his life hangs in the balance, that the next twenty-four hours and then the next could determine whether he lives or dies?

Through it all, your son sleeps peacefully, a perfect baby apart from the transposed greater arteries which render him incapable of surviving without a ventilator. When he wakes, he is quiet and placid, despite the needles inserted in his flesh, despite the allergic reaction to his medication which has made one of his legs swell to an elephantine size. You marvel at his composure, amazed that someone so tiny can remain so philosophical in the midst of pain, in the shadow of impending death. You, on the other hand, are a quivering wreck – the Perspex crib too similar to a tiny coffin on wheels to allow you much hope for the future.

By morning, you are utterly exhausted. The “dark night of the soul” has forced you to confront all your untried and untested theories about life, about death. Your body wants to sleep, but you refuse to move, not wanting to miss any of his waking moments in case this one is the last.

That’s when your philosophy is reborn. Pain is not a megaphone but a handbrake: it’s God’s way of forcing us to slow down as we hurtle through life, constantly seeking a better job, a bigger house, a perfect partner. If we were truly aware of the transience of life – if we knew in advance exactly how our days were numbered – surely we would prioritise our time differently, ensuring that we appreciate each moment spent with loved ones instead of erroneously thinking that we can ‘always see them tomorrow’.

Time slows with this new approach. Each minute your child is awake is suddenly more precious, a time to be savoured. Finally, you are allowed to pick him up – still attached to all his wires and leads – and hold him next to your heart. He’s as light as air, as fragile as a flower, his life as transitory as a feather on the breeze. Flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone – you hold him close, knowing that, in a world of suffering, love reminds us that we are still human.

Something a little more lighthearted than yesterday – have fun spotting all the allusions to a famous nonsensical story!

Ellie’s in Wonderland

Ellie stared at her grandmother with exasperation. She had travelled almost a hundred miles to come and visit her in the care home – sitting for almost forty minutes in non-moving traffic whilst muttering to herself, “Oh dear! I shall be late!” – and now Violet seemed to be asleep.

She looked once more at the slumbering form, slumped in an armchair and surrounded by other, equally dotty, old people. Should she try to wake her? Was it like waking a sleeping baby who would cry for hours on end once its dreams were disturbed?

“She’ll be out for ages,” a kindly, white haired biddy commented. “She had a hysterectomy this morning.”

Ellie was quite sure that no such thing had happened. The good Samaritan put down her knitting and continued, “She normally has them in the evening, but last night they forgot, so they gave her one this morning instead.”

Curiouser and curiouser, thought Ellie, who was beginning to wonder if all the residents were certifiably mad.

Across the room, a distinguished looking gentleman was enjoying a conversation with himself. “… of course, she was an exotic dancer … did incredible things with a ball of wool …”

“Who’s that?” Ellie hissed, nodding in the requisite direction.

The stranger sniffed contemptuously. “That’s Mr Hatter. Completely off his head. OFF HIS HEAD!” she suddenly screeched at full volume, making Ellie jump.

“Oh, I see.” Ellie didn’t, but then nothing made sense in this strange reality.

“… and then we all had a glass of brandy,” the gentleman continued, “and I suddenly realised that I’d completely lost my trousers!” He threw back his head and laughed uproariously. Ellie began to feel uncomfortable.

“That’s Mr Hatter,” the lady whispered, taking up her knitting once more. “Quite mad, you know. Off his head.”

Feeling desperate now, Ellie looked once more at Violet. Should she try to wake her?

“She’s out for the count,” the other woman confided. “She had a hysterectomy this morning.” Beckoning Ellie over, she held out her knitting bag. “I didn’t take mine. Look.”

Ellie stared at the tiny white tablet, nestled snugly on a ball of pale pink wool. She half expected it to bear a label that said, ‘Eat me.’

“They make me drowsy,” the woman whispered.

Ellie nodded sympathetically.

“You can have it if you want.”

Against her will, Ellie felt something being pressed into her palm.

The old lady’s eyes twinkled. “I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”

“Er, thanks.” She didn’t really know what else to say.

“And then …” Mr Hatter was laughing so hard he could barely get the words out. “And then, old Pongo set his hair on fire!”

“He’s off his head, you know.” The old lady was gesturing at Mr Hatter.

“Yes,” Ellie said awkwardly. “You told me.”

“OFF HIS HEAD!” the woman shrieked again. Then, gesturing to Ellie to lean closer, she pointed towards a pair who were sitting side by side in the far corner of the lounge. “Mabel and Gladys,” she confided. “Twins, you know – but they had a terrible falling out last week.”

“Yes?” Ellie feigned interest.

“Mabel lost her false teeth,” the unknown woman uttered dramatically, “and she thought Gladys had stolen them. Accused her of taking them out of her mouth while she slept.”

By now, Ellie was beginning to feel faint. Was the residents’ lounge really supposed to be so hot? she wondered.

“…pigeons …” Mr Hatter said earnestly. “She was the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”

“And then Gladys lost her teeth,” the story droned on, “and said she’d found them in Mabel’s handbag. They nearly came to blows …”

Ellie closed her eyes, letting the sound of the teeth anecdote, interspersed with Mr Hatter’s rumbling voice, drift over her head. “… well, she said she’d given them to the  Duke of Norbury but Mabel completely lost my trousers and then Gladys was an exotic dancer and she couldn’t find her pigeons …” She was sure she’d heard these stories many times before. “Of course,” Mr Hatter murmured absently, “I was very, VERY drunk …”

As the voices continued to swirl about her, Ellie found herself falling down a rabbit hole into a topsy-turvy world where a giant pigeon did an exotic dance with a pair of trousers, then turned into a ball of wool and set fire to itself. Meanwhile, Gladys and Mabel fused into Siamese twins, gradually becoming an enormous pair of false teeth which grew wings and fluttered away.

She came to with a start to find a white uniformed girl bending over her. “Are you okay?”

Ellie blushed with embarrassment. “Yes, I … I just dozed off. I expect it was the heat.”

The girl regarded Ellie’s anonymous companion sternly. “Queenie! Have you been giving people anti-histamine again?”

Queenie wouldn’t meet the girl’s eyes.

“You’ve got to stop doling them out like sweets,” the carer told her. “They’re supposed to be for you – not other people. Now, hand them over.”

She waited until Queenie had entirely emptied her knitting bag.

“As for you,” the carer now turned her attention back to Ellie, “I think it’s time we got you back to your room.”

Without protesting, Ellie let herself be led back to her bedroom, hearing, as she shuffled down the corridor, the joyful voice of Mr Hatter proclaiming, “I was very, VERY drunk.”

This time the challenge was to write in a different style to normal – as well as writing on the theme of the Summer Solstice. All feedback gratefully received.

Summer Solstice

From now on, the days would be getting darker.

Daylight was still strutting round as I drove my car through the large iron gates and rolled along the driveway. The building shrugged, as if it recognised me and felt sorry. Its doors stood open to let in the breeze; memories of the day’s heat still lingered.

Hurrying past the deserted Reception, I made my way to her room. Jenny was awake, propped up by pillows, a tiny speck in the sea of sheets and blankets.

She looked up as I entered. “Is it time?”

I nodded.

The nurse on duty in her room helped me lift her out of bed. Six months ago, my wife had been a strong, athletic woman who ran fifteen miles a week and visited the gym every other day; now she was a ragdoll in my arms, her paper thin skin stretched over pitifully protruding bones. To me, she had never looked so beautiful.

I placed her gently in the waiting wheelchair. The nurse handed me a blanket, her eyes expressing the sympathy I so often encountered these days. Carefully, I covered Jenny’s frail frame, not wanting her to be cold as we sat outside to share the summer solstice.

“Any time within the next few hours, Mr Jones.” The nurse spoke quietly, but it was unnecessary: we all knew Jenny was dying.

Once we’d had the official diagnosis, realised that it was too late for any effective treatment, we’d deliberately discussed the things that no one else wanted to talk about. Jenny wanted to spend her last months out in the country, where she could see trees and fields from her window and hear birdsong instead of traffic. The lake in the grounds was an added bonus: when she was stronger, we’d spent hours sitting by the water, soaking in the serene atmosphere. It was fitting that this would be the place where we would say goodbye. 

Slowly, I pushed her wheelchair to the bench that was impregnated with us. Our tears had soaked into the wood as we’d ranted and railed against doctors, against disease, against God. Tonight, though, there would be no talk of cancer or funerals, just the conversation of two people in love. As I placed her on the bench, her fingers stole around mine, a gesture so intimate that my breath caught in my throat.

Gradually, the day faded. The last vestiges of sunlight glimmered on the surface of the water, like memories. In the background, the faint sounds of summer insects were not enough to disturb us.

As the sun finally began its descent, I found I was strangely grateful: grateful for the gift of four years with this amazing woman; grateful that she had enriched my life; grateful to the hospice who had looked after her so well, who had allowed us to say goodbye surrounded by the nature Jenny loved.

My wife slipped away as gently as the sun disappearing behind the trees. I sat and held her for a while, reluctant to let go of the past. Then, as the cold began to seep into my veins, I placed her once more in her chair, ready to take her home.

From now on, my life would be getting darker.

Having been asked to produce a piece of erotica for today’s challenge, I couldn’t help thinking that a) that’s not the stuff I write and b) it’s not the sort of stuff I want to write. Besides, as a teacher in a secondary school, it’s definitely not the sort of stuff I should be writing either. So, instead I’ve produced my own take on the theme and imagined how a woman might find solace in chocolate instead.

Hungry for Love

Julie’s husband’s having an affair. She wouldn’t mind, but it’s ruining her waistline. When they married, she looked like a matchmaker, a slim silhouette in pointy high heels. Now, however, she’s a fat Malteser, her belly rounded by the chocolate she’s eaten.

Julie’s husband’s having an affair. He sees his secretary twice a week for a quick roll on the office floor. Julie goes to Tesco every day and has a swiss roll on the bus. When they married, she was only seven stone. Now she stands on the scale and realises she’s considerably more; she’s been weighed and found wanting.

Julie’s husband’s having an affair. He comes home from work with lipstick on his collar and another woman’s smell on his skin. Julie has chocolate smeared lipstick and cellulite on her thighs. When they married, she thought he was the most romantic man she had ever known; these days, her idea of a hot date involves just her with a giant Mars bar and a family sized bag of popcorn.

Julie’s husband’s having an affair …

Julie’s husband doesn’t know she knows. He thinks she hasn’t spotted the tell-tale signs, the grey hair dyed brown again, the sudden interest in jogging. He thinks she hasn’t noticed that he’s not where he says he is, when he says he is. Julie’s husband thinks she doesn’t know.

Julie does know, of course, just like she knew about the one before, and the one before that. The one before was her best friend; the one before that, his ex-wife. Julie’s known them all and they’re all the same: skinny blonde bimbos who don’t eat for weeks at a time.

The first time it happened, she was thin too – until despair drove her to the drive-in, stuffed her full of sympathetic burgers and friendly fries. Chocolate comforted her; biscuits dried her tears. By the time he got onto number two, she’d gone from a size ten to a fourteen and forgotten what her waist looked like.

Julie’s husband doesn’t know she knows. He thinks she believes him when he says he’s ‘working late’, just like he believes her when she says she’s joined Weight Watchers. Julie’s husband doesn’t know she knows …

Julie’s got some secrets of her own. Julie’s husband flirts with the tart in the office whilst Julie dallies with three jam tarts and a cream horn. Julie’s husband looks for crumpet in the typing pool whilst Julie loads her shopping trolley with crumpets and thick, white bread. Julie’s husband whispers sweet nothings in other women’s ears; Julie pushes Wispas and other sweet somethings into her mouth. Julie’s husband can’t keep his hands off his secretary; Julie can’t keep the inches off her hips. Julie’s got some secrets of her own.

She has tried to get thinner but somehow nothing seems to work. She’s tried every diet in the book: the Atkins, the Cambridge, the Hip and Thigh; in fact, she’s tried them all at the same time and still found herself hungry. She’s cut down on eating between meals – and started eating six meals a day. She’s bought exercise DVDs and watched them religiously, stuffing squares of chocolate into her mouth as she does so. In the end, she just gave up trying and went back to sticking pins into Barbie dolls.

Julie’s husband sits in front of his computer. He drools over scantily clad females, indulges in erotic daydreams. Julie watches ‘Bake Off’, ‘Masterchef’ and Delia Smith. She salivates at the sight of ingredients in their saucepans, wallows in gourmet fantasies. Julie’s husband hides a stack of magazines under the bed: naked girls pout at the camera. Julie has a secret hoard too: seductively packaged chocolate calls to her from the kitchen cupboards.  Julie’s husband goes out twice a week, taking his secretary for sordid sex in a quiet hotel. While he’s gone, Julie has her own secret rendezvous with the cake tin, crams slice after slice into her mouth and lovingly licks up the crumbs.

She used to cry herself to sleep when it first happened, would sob into her pillow every night that he didn’t come home. Now she takes herself to bed with a mug of hot chocolate, three Lion bars and a Bounty, bites into her marshmallows and gorges herself into oblivion.

Julie’s got some secrets of her own …

Julie’s decided she doesn’t like her husband any more. She’s thought about leaving him, but she’s worried he’ll get custody of the freezer. She’s dreamed about killing him, but she doesn’t know how. Julie needs to find a way out …

Today is their anniversary. Julie thinks she’ll make him a cake. She collects her utensils, her ingredients, and sets to work.

Eight ounces of flour                           (Eight instances of adultery)

Eight ounces of butter                        (Eight years of infidelity)

Eight ounces of sugar                         (Too many unexplained phone calls)

Four eggs                                            (Too many nights when he didn’t come home)

Two ounces of cocoa                          (Too late to make it work now)

She tips the whole lot into her mixing bowl, adds one other ’special ingredient’ and starts to stir the mixture. If only life were as uncomplicated as baking, she thinks. But even in the stories she read as a child it went wrong: she should have realised then that her gingerbread husband would run away from her too.

She pours the chocolate goo into two tins, makes sure the oven is hot enough. If she had her husband here at this moment, she’d make him test it by climbing inside, like the witch in ‘Hansel and Gretel’. She can’t, of course: she grew up long ago and adults aren’t allowed to do such things.

She put the tins in the oven, sets the timer for twenty minutes. She’s got just long enough for a little treat. She might have a Feast to celebrate.

The cake is done and lies cooling on wire trays. It looks good enough to eat – almost. First she has work to do. In the office, her husband signs a new contract; in the kitchen, Julie ices his name on the cake. In the car park, her husband kisses his secretary; in the living room, Julie licks her ice lolly.

Julie knows she hates her husband. She knows before he comes in, bringing the flowers that form his apology; knows before he sits down, makes his usual excuse for being late. Julie knows she hates her husband.

She shows her husband the cake. His eyes light up, as she knew they would. She cuts him a large slice and watches while he eats it.

Julie’s husband lies on the floor. His face is a funny colour and he is twitching convulsively. Soon he will be dead. Julie unwraps another Galaxy, peels back the paper, strokes the smooth brown squares. Her husband does not move. She looks at the chocolate, bids a fond farewell to her lover.

Julie steps over her husband, opens the waste bin. There’s no need now for chocolate: she’s finally satisfied.

As a child, I was lucky enough to have a great-grandmother who told me plentiful stories about her life. This piece is loosely based on some of the stories I remember, but I’ve also used dramatic license to embellish these into a complete story.

  The Patient Lover 

Inspired by the life and death of my great-grandmother, Ivy Conway (1893-1991).

Death courted Ivy for the whole of her life.

Born in 1893, the fourth child out of the six her parents would somehow squeeze into their tiny two-up-two-down back-to-back cottage, she nearly didn’t make it. Her mother bit down hard on a stick, thinking that her other deliveries hadn’t been so difficult. As the scrawny mass of baby, blood and vernix slithered into the world, Emily started to haemorrhage; for the next hour or two, the baby was all but forgotten as she lay, wrapped in a clean towel, in a box in the corner of the room. Luckily, Ivy’s older sisters, Mabel and Evelyn, despite being only six and four, knew instinctively that this little scrap of humanity needed taking care of. When Ivy finally let out a thin wail, Mabel picked her up out of the wooden crate and held her tight, whilst Evelyn fetched a cup of milk from the pantry downstairs. For the next twenty-four hours, they dribbled milk off a spoon into the baby’s mouth, until Emily was stable and could finally feed her newborn child. Death shook his head and retreated until another day.

Despite this shaky start in life, Ivy grew and thrived, just like her siblings. Their father was a cobbler so there was little money but a lot of love. Two years later, Renee arrived, followed (after a more respectable three years’ gap) by Charlie. By now, the little house was bursting at the seams: Ma and Pa had the small bedroom and the children shared the larger one, dividing it into two with a blanket strung over a rope that went from one side of the room to another. The girls squabbled and fought for space in the bed they all shared, but it was a companionable relationship and they loved each other fiercely.

As, one by one, the elder siblings became old enough to work in the mill, Ivy found she could earn a ha’penny a week by carrying the lunch pail to the mill and back every day at noon. This was one of the perks of being the next eldest: when she started work herself, it would be Renee’s turn.

On her eleventh birthday, Ivy was treated to a whole egg for breakfast to mark the occasion of her first day at work. She would be going to school in the mornings this week and then doing the afternoon shift at the mill; and this would alternate with a week of mill first, school second. She grew to hate the morning shifts because she always had to go home and change her cotton-impregnated dress before going to school, and this meant she was often late and would be beaten by the schoolmaster.

Death was a frequent visitor to the mill. The cotton dust in the air had a way of working itself into people’s lungs. Many of the older workers died well before their time. Occasionally, he would steal a glance at Ivy, working busily; he always had a particular fondness for those who had eluded him earlier.

He was the uninvited guest at Ivy’s wedding to Alec, some years later. Perhaps it was his macabre sense of humour, but he couldn’t resist reminding her of his presence with the funeral hearse that almost collided with her carriage as she and her husband left the churchyard. The black plumed horses made a startling contrast to the coloured ribbons Ivy’s sisters had tied to the carriage axles; but Ivy was too starry-eyed with love to notice them.

As time progressed, Death found himself busier than ever. The onset of the Great War saw people dying in their thousands. Miraculously, Ivy remained unscathed – although there was a tricky moment when Alec lashed out in a drunken temper: she hit her head when she fell and was unconscious for several minutes. Fearing for their baby’s safety as much as for her own, Ivy fled her marriage and her husband (they were by now living in Scotland) and made the perilous journey back to Hyde and the safety of her family.

Death followed her to her old spot in the mill, watching attentively as she worked a gruelling sixteen-hour day, six days a week. He left her side for long enough to visit her older brother, Harold, as he lay in a hospital bed, his arm blown away by a bomb. Northern grit ran through the entire Conway family, though, and Harold left hospital some months later, living until his sixties despite his missing limb. Death sighed and returned to Ivy. Perhaps the Second World War would push her into his arms. But no, Ivy’s resilience kept her, her new husband, his children and her daughter alive and well. Even the air raids couldn’t touch them – in fact, the only bombshell that did any damage was when her son-in-law ran off with another woman the year before the war ended, so that he never saw his second daughter; but they soldiered on.

Through decades of disease and despair, Death kept a constant vigil at Ivy’s side, more faithful than either of her husbands. The car accident that killed her stepson left her with a slight limp but otherwise unharmed; the byssinosis that choked the lungs of so many of her former co-workers in the mill somehow passed her by. Time and time again, he issued an invitation for her to join him; on every occasion, she declined.

Renee died in her eighties, a casualty of carcinomatosis. The twenty cigarettes a day she’d smoked for sixty years eventually took their toll. Mabel was only seventy-six – but then she’d had thirteen children and the rapid succession of pregnancies and births, coupled with the anxiety of rearing so many at the same time, had aged her prematurely: her hair was grey by the time she was twenty-five. Charlie, who, as a child, had flirted with Death far more frequently than his sister, nevertheless lived to the ripe old age of eighty-one. Ivy often told her great-grandchildren the thrilling tale of how Charlie had stopped the runaway grocer’s horse-and-cart when he was only a teenager; but he was more likely to have ended his days at the hands of an irate husband, since his womanising ways in later life were legendary. Evelyn died in an old people’s home, well into her nineties. Almost totally blind after a botched cataract operation at eighty-four, she claimed that every time there was a power cut in the Home, she could “hear them carrying out the dead bodies.” As a girl, she’d been unbearably bossy towards Ivy and Renee; as an adult, she was equally unpleasant to her husband and daughter, alienating Alwyn to such an extent that she only visited the Home once or twice a year. Despite this, Ivy wept uncontrollably when Evelyn died: she was now the last remaining sibling and the loneliness was unbearable. “They’ve all left me,” she sobbed as she sat by the fire with her great-granddaughter. Emily (named for Ivy’s mother) held the tiny old lady as if she were a child, her fifteen-year-old wisdom realising it was better to let her cry.

Several times, there were false alarms. A bout of severe pleurisy almost finished Ivy off in 1982. Death sat by her bedside, waiting patiently. She was sufficiently ill for her daughter to make the three hundred miles’ trip from Sheppey to Summit, to be with her mother at the end. It was a wasted journey when Ivy rallied unexpectedly, causing Death to retreat once more and bide his time.

The following year, Ivy moved to Kent herself, claiming that she “couldn’t stand another northern winter”. Sharing an isolated house with her daughter and the dog, she was happy enough, walking round the garden each afternoon and watching ‘Songs of Praise’ every Sunday evening.

By the time she was ninety-five, Ivy started planning her hundredth birthday party. She had an ever-decreasing guest list – not just because all her old friends kept dying off, but mostly because whenever she fell out with someone, she crossed them off the list in a fit of childish petulance. “Well, he’s not coming to my party now!” she was often heard to say.

She never made it to her party. Death, who had waited so patiently for almost ten decades, finally managed to entice her into his arms just a few months before her ninety-eighth birthday. Ivy died as she had lived, with a song on her lips and her heart full of love. Death had finally claimed her – and, like all the best things in life, she had been worth waiting for.

Write something Gothic, they said. Great, I thought. Set it in modern times, they said. That could be a challenge, I thought. After all, what’s creepy about the 21st century?

And then I thought about what might freak someone out today and I penned the following. Welcome to …

Grandma’s House

_{As a child, I was always terrified of Grandma’s house.}

_{I had a nervous disposition as a little girl, thanks to the fairy-stories I read. The witches and ogres in the tales I devoured on a daily basis came back to haunt me by night. I would lie awake for hours, eyes closed, listening to the dark. I was sure I could hear them breathing, even if I couldn’t see their shadowy outlines.}

            _{If I was scared in my own bedroom, Grandma’s house was even worse. Every room had a slightly sinister atmosphere, from the ominous ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway, imitating a human heartbeat, to the creepy dolls in the spare bedroom, lined up like miniature corpses, watching me. I dreaded staying there overnight, my imagination working overtime to produce in me a state of frozen fear. I was sure that, once my eyes were closed, they would come to life, slithering off their shelves and approaching me, zombie-like, with outstretched arms.}

_{I may have been scared of their house, but I loved my grandparents. White haired and twinkly-eyed, they embodied everything grandparents should be. Grandma always smelled of baking and bitter almonds; Grandad of Guiness. (The doctor said it was good for him.) I remember sitting with them both for hours, in the safety of my parents’ company, playing Gin Rummy whilst sucking on one of Grandma’s homemade treacle toffees. (She made them with orange juice and claimed they were good for sore throats.)}

_{When Grandad retired, my visits increased – only, this time, without my parents as I found myself being sent there during the school holidays. At first, I quite enjoyed it. They were a happy couple: two old people who had genuinely enjoyed growing old together. Now in their twilight years, they were able to indulge more freely in the pastimes they’d not previously had time for. Grandad was a gardener and loved making things grow: the garden was a blaze of riotous colour, declaring his joyful passion for life. Grandma’s hobby, on the other hand, was the dead opposite – literally. She had spent years obsessed with taxidermy and her living room was now a testimony to this. Perfectly preserved animals sat on tables and filled cabinets: a pair of sporting badgers, glassy eyed, their mouths and bodies twisted unnaturally to suggest playfulness; a moulting eaglewith a mournful expression – I could go on. Their lifeless eyes unsettled me as much as their forced poses.  Faced with this menagerie of moth-eaten creatures, is it any wonder that I often ended up siting there as rigid as these anthropomorphic inhabitants, desperately awaiting five o’clock when my mother would arrive to take me home?}

_{I was fifteen when we finally moved Grandma into a nursing home. She didn’t tell anyone when Grandad died – I’m sure it was from natural causes, but there was something unnatural about the way she arranged his stuffed, silent body in an armchair by the fire, looking for all the world as if he’d just dozed off. It was three weeks before anyone noticed the difference.}

_{“Probably better if she’s got someone to keep an eye on her,” my mother said tactfully as she signed the paperwork.}

_{To begin with, Grandma hated the home. “What am I doing with all these old people?” she’d ask fretfully, staring at the walls of her bedroom, tastefully distempered in a pale yellow. And, “It’s like a mausoleum in here – everyone just sits staring at the TV.”}

_{She had a point: the residents’ lounge was a dismal affair, with uncomfortable looking chairs arranged in regimented rows, facing an outsized television set that seemed permanently switched on. Assorted old people dotted the seats, not one of them with even a fraction of my grandmother’s vitality.}

_{“They just sit there knitting,” she told me scornfully on one of my visits. “That Mabel in the pink cardigan – she’s been knitting a pair of bedsocks for five weeks now and she still hasn’t got any further than the heel.”}

_{“Can’t you play cards with some of them?” I suggested. I was sure that all elderly people loved Whist and Bridge.}

_{She rolled her eyes despairingly. “Most of them can’t even remember what day of the week it is, let alone keep track of the cards in everyone’s hands. Frank and Harold sometimes ask me to play ‘Happy Families’, but the games go on for days because they keep forgetting who asked for what.”}

_{A few months later, I visited again. My usual pattern of going to see Grandma every weekend had been disrupted by mock-exams and a short-lived romantic liaison. I felt guilty as I entered the Home, wondering if my poor grandmother had been slowly dying of boredom with no one to talk to. When I knocked on her bedroom door, however, she seemed strangely animated.}

_{“You’re looking well,” I remarked, thinking there might be another budding romance in the family.}

_{A mysterious smile hovered on her lips. “I’ve been keeping myself busy,” was all she would say.}

_{We spent a happy afternoon in her room, looking at old photograph albums and reminiscing about Grandad. Just before I left, something struck me.}

_{“Where are all your stuffed animals?” I asked, secretly relieved that they were gone.}

_{She shrugged dismissively. “I don’t need them anymore.” Then, as I was putting on my jacket, she added, “I’ve had a lovely time decorating the living room.”}

_{A feeling of foreboding slowly made its way through my veins. Surely she couldn’t have …}

_{Quickening my pace, I hurried to the Residents’ Lounge to be faced with Grandma’s handiwork: a roomful of octogenarian corpses, displayed like dolls in a variety of positions. Mabel sat, as before, still knitting her bedsocks; Frank and Harold faced each other, each clutching a handful of cards. Every figure was perfectly posed and a trace of bitter almonds lingered on the air.}

_{My childhood terrors of Grandma’s house paled into insignificance beside the horrors of her Home.}

You could be forgiven for thinking that this is the Post Script to yesterday’s entry – after all, this is a story of only eight words, more like an afterthought than an actual creative composition.

However, telling a story with as few words as possible is a definite art form: several newspapers and magazines regularly run competitions where entrants have to write a story on a given theme, using only 50 words or fewer. As a teacher, I’ve given the same challenge to students in the past: it’s a good way to decide what’s really important in a story.

So, below is my eight words entry, followed by some of the examples of 50 words stories you can find online. Authors have been credited.

My short story entry

The Divorce: their life ended; her life began.

Examples of 50 words stories from other writers

The Scottish Book Trust has some fantastic entries from children and teenagers – here are a few prizewinning stories:

Theme: your story must include a piano

All-age category winner by Lisa Holland:
The boogie-woogie was driving her crazy. 
Every night, downstairs, her brother would practise those songs on the old piano.
Every night, upstairs, the music would keep her awake.
Until the day she crept downstairs in her pyjamas, and smashed the lid on his fingers.
Now his knuckles had the blues.

Theme: your story must include a bike ride

All-age category winner by Giancarlo Rinaldi:

“Look mum, one hand!” cried Luca, excitedly, the first time he cycled past the family home. Then, the second time around, he shouted with even greater delight: “Look mum, no hands!” But, on the third passing, it was the bicycle that spoke. “Look mum,” it said. “No Luca!”

Theme: your story must include time travel

Young Writers (12-18) category winning fictional story by Ashley Willis, age 16:

Travelling back in time to kiss your tiny palm clinging to life. I’m shredding you out of your skin of wires, machines and pushing you on a swing, healthy giggles erupting the sky. Your life isn’t marked on a stone rotting from rain and tears. In the past you breathe.

It would be interesting to see if any of these talented children become professional writers in the future.

It must be the weekend because I’ve had time to sit and write at leisure instead of squeezing it into the few precious moments between work and sleep. After the recent briefs of writing an epistolary piece and than an ’80s style ‘Write Your Own Adventure’, it’s been good to return to ‘proper’ story writing today.

Three Sides To Every Story

You gaze at the man lying next to you – the perfect husband; the father of your children – and suddenly you realise that you don’t know him at all.

She wasn’t prying when she discovered the email. He’d left his laptop lying open again and she went to shut it, before the kids could touch something and delete an important work file – and that’s when she saw it.

It’s so hard not having you here all the time. When you come round, I think this is what life is supposed to be like, and then you hurry away at the end of the evening and I’m all alone. Get here as soon as you can tonight. Missing you already xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The knowledge was so unexpected that it caught her off-guard. Was that where he was every night he said he was ‘working late’? How long had it been going on for? Her fingers trembled as she scrolled up the screen to see how many other emails there were from this unknown woman and the sick feeling at the back of her throat intensified.

Last night meant so much …

I wish you could hold me forever …

Can you get away for a weekend? I really want to be able to wake up with you.

She’d thought that knowing would help her understand: instead, it just made her feel worse. He loved someone else, was spending evenings with her instead of with his family. Large, salty tears rolled down her face as she wept for what she’d lost.

*

Women! Why did they have to be so emotional?

You think you’ve got it all figured out by the time you hit thirty: you’re married; settled – then along comes someone who wants you so much that you can’t help straying. After all, it’s flattering to be the one being chased. It’s every man’s dream, isn’t it? To have an attractive woman practically throwing herself at you every time you see her?

Of course, the first time he’d met her, he’d had no idea what would happen. She was a new client and he’d been sent round to do her taxes. He didn’t normally make house calls, but she was paying a lot for the firm’s services – and that meant a substantial percentage for him.

It had seemed quite innocent at first. She’d offered him a drink when he arrived and, despite his better judgement, he’d accepted a glass of wine, telling himself that he’d be okay to drive by the time he’d finished checking her accounts.

Her fingers had touched his as she’d handed him the glass. Startled, he’d looked up, detected something in her eye that suggested she might be interested in more than business. Responding to an unspoken question, he’d followed her into the bedroom and towards the large, unmade bed whose rumpled covers hinted at what she had in mind.

Afterwards, as he dressed hurriedly, she watched him from the bed, her face flushed, her eyes sultry. “That was an unexpected treat!” she murmured.

He said nothing, guilt already choking him. What had he been thinking? He couldn’t let it happen again.

But he did.

*

How did you let yourself get into this mess? she wonders. Before him, it was all so simple. You never let your heart get involved.

She’d thought at first that he would be like the others: a brief interlude of pleasure to break up an otherwise monotonous day. When you worked from home, running your own business, it got pretty lonely. She could have hired an assistant – someone for companionship more than anything else; but she was too paranoid of having her ideas stolen. Freelance design was a poisoned chalice: if you weren’t careful, it would destroy you.

Now she realises that he’s just as dangerous. Her heart used to be intact: these days, it’s just a collection of fragments and each one has his name written on it. She’s a stick of rock, stamped all the way through with her love for a man she can never truly have. Why are you torturing yourself like this? she asks herself, hearing the answer in a whisper: ‘Because half a relationship is better than no relationship at all.’

*

Last night, he didn’t come home until almost midnight. By then, you’d read all the emails, waded through all the heartfelt emotion poured out on page after page. You’d torn at your heart by counting all the kisses, listing all the times she told him she loved him.

And now? Now it feels like there’s nothing left. This man is a stranger. You’re suddenly afraid.

*

I think she suspects something. Last night, she was asleep when I got in. It wasn’t that late – only eleven or just after. This morning, though … She’s lying there, watching me, pretending to be asleep. My eyes are closed, but I can feel the disapproval radiating from her. Maybe I should just confess – get it out of my system; clear the air.

But what if she kicks me out? Or, worse still, asks me to choose …

Choose! I can’t choose! How do you make a choice between two things you want equally? It’s like asking someone to choose between eating and sleeping, drinking and breathing.

No, better to say nothing, to let her think she’s imagining it. I can’t give either one of them up. I shouldn’t have to.

*

She wakes, as usual, in a bed empty of anyone other than herself. Every morning it’s the same: the night before always feels like a dream, an illusion. Greedily she clutches at any lingering moments that glitter like dewdrops on the spiderweb of memory, but the mirage melts in her fingers and she is left lonely and bereft.

When he isn’t here, the ache in her heart is so strong it feels like her soul is being ripped out of her body in a grotesque parody of giving birth. I’m pregnant with misery, she thinks sadly, knowing that he’ll never give her a child when he has a family of his own already.

She spotted them in the park once: he’d foolishly told her he was taking the children out for the afternoon on Sunday. He didn’t know she was there: she sat, stalker-like, swathed in scarf and woolly hat, peeping out at them from behind her copy of ‘The Telegraph’. Was that why these papers were so large? So people – spies, rejected lovers – could hide behind them whilst on stake-out?

She’d planned, at first, to wander up casually and say hello. A part of her was curious to see his children up close, to ascertain whether they looked more like him or Her.

She couldn’t do it. This was a part of his other life: she couldn’t intrude.

Bitterly, she wondered why it was that men could compartmentalise so easily: a box for work; a box for his wife and children; a box for his mistress. What was it Byron had said? Something about love being only a part of a man’s life but being “Woman’s whole existence”. And Byron should know! she thought grimly. Didn’t he have something like sixteen illegitimate children? He was definitely the ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em’ type.

Long after they’d left the park, she still sat there, her fingers freezing in the cold. But they weren’t as icy as her heart.

*

Looking forward to seeing you tonight. I can’t believe how much I miss you when you’re not here. My bed feels empty without you in it.

He stares at the email, his heart thumping. She knows.

“Do I need to show you the rest?” Her voice is tight; she’s holding onto self-control by her fingertips, as if it is a clifftop and she is clinging to the edge.

He doesn’t answer, so she continues to scroll through every damning scrap of evidence:

The first time I saw you, my heart swelled with the crescendo of violins. You are all I can think about, day or night. I love you. I love you. I love you. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I’ve missed you so much these past few weeks. It’s been the longest fortnight ever. Come round as soon as you get back. Love you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

All is not lost, though: he’d prepared for this eventuality, deleted his own emails so only her side of the conversation remains.

“She’s a client with a crush on me,” he says confidently. “It’s all one-sided, I promise. Look, all the emails are from her – I haven’t encouraged her.”

She’s less certain now, wanting to believe him – if only to save her marriage; dreading the consequences if she lets him get away with it.

He takes hold of her shoulders gently, twists her round to face him as deftly as he manipulates her with his words.

“Would I really be stupid enough to leave the emails on my laptop if I was having an affair?”

Now he says it, it all sounds so preposterous that she almost laughs. Almost. Not quite.

“What about the email with a thousand kisses?” she asks in a small voice.

He feigns surprise. “Really? I had no idea. I haven’t read any of her messages – she’s obviously deluded.”

“A thousand kisses,” she repeats. “I counted them all. That’s a bit over the top if it’s just one-sided.”

“There’s nothing going on – I promise.”

And his eyes are so sincere, his tone so heartfelt that she starts to wonder if he’s telling the truth.

*

We sit in still proximity as the evening draws to a close. The words you’ve told me are still echoing in my mind; half-empty wineglasses pressed to our lips.

“You always knew it would be over if She ever found out,” is what you say at last, and I nod dumbly, unable to protest.

I’ve already taken you to my bed – ‘break up sex’, that’s what they call it these days. Ironic, isn’t it, that an act of closeness should be the way to say goodbye.

By now, I know She’s seen the emails and that you’ve covered your back by lying. Technically, we could carry on as before – she’s not really any the wiser.

That’s not what you’ve decided, though: even the ghost of a suspicion is enough to make you terminate this contract and take your business elsewhere.

“I’ll pass you on to one of the other accountants.” You’re looking down as you say it; won’t let me catch your eye. “Will’s good – and he’s single. You never know: you might hit it off …”

Beneath the bravado, behind the façade, you hurt as much as I do – only you’ll never admit it.

Time ticks by slowly: each second an unbearable lifetime. The evening’s turned into tomorrow – and instead of making love, we’re waiting for you to go.