Short Fiction

Harbour Mouth

~ Paula Harmon ~ 1 Comment

As usual, dinner choked her and she ate barely anything. Sam didn’t notice but poured her more wine. She drunk some white. Then some red. As usual, she went to bed drained, pincers at her temples and took paracetamol and ibruprofen, and valerian because otherwise how would she sleep? Sam was still watching TV. What was on TV tonight? Nothing. She quietly packed a bag and wrote him a note. 4.40am every day and she was wide awake, mind churning churning, options like the doors off one of those unending corridors – is the answer here? or here? What even was the question? When the alarm goes off her body ached, her eyes leaden. One foot in front of the other, shower, wake the kids, make breakfast, put on the face, do the hair, say goodbye to Sam, take the kids to school, late again, tutting stay-at-home mums watching her as they gossip before going for coffee or to walk the dog or clean their clean houses. Go to work. Endless emails, like the fairytale with the self-filling purse only with the opposite effect. The fuller the inbox, the more drained she felt. Rushing to get the task done for the vague thanks she’d get, providing data so that someone else would get the praise. What did it all mean anyway? Who wanted those endless stats? What did I do in work today? Nothing. Rushing to get back for school pick-up. Late again. Angry teacher talking to her as if she was six. Driving home with the kids, “what did you do in school today?” “Nothing – what’s for tea?” At home, the overflowing laundry, the pointless cooking of tea – prodding of broccoli, shovelling of pasta. What did I do at home today?  Nothing.  She tried to put all this in the note, waiting for the valerian to kick in and took more painkillers. When she left, who would even miss her really? Exemplary employee, caring wife and mother – just functions. They’d miss the functions. How could they miss her? She had been lost a long long time. She tried to put it in the note, but it was hard to put it into words. She wasn’t sure what she was writing. The next day at 4.40am, she slipped out of bed and out of the house. She got to the coast and wondered vaguely if she’d shut the front door. She imagined the house – wide open, wondering where she’d gone – the overflowing laundry, the untidy rooms, the toys crying “organise us!” and the fresh air blowing in whispering “she’s gone, she’s gone” and the children and Sam sleeping on and on until they woke and tried to remember what she looked like and life going on without her. She got to the coast and looked at the harbour bridge shiny in the dawn.She didn’t remember it being so long, the end was barely visible, the other side of the harbour mouth hazy and clean. She didn’t remember it being so narrow, only room for her.  Weren’t there buildings on the other side? Where was the traffic? Maybe it was always this quiet at 4.40am. Was it still 4.40am? No it must be later, time for the alarm to go off. Surprising there is no traffic. She starts to walk across the bridge. Why am I walking? Didn’t I bring the car? Never mind. It’s peaceful here but looks even more peaceful there. The buzzing, the humming, the relentless noise of her mind is silent. Nothing can be heard, not the sea, nor the wind, nor the town behind her. Is the town behind her? She doesn’t want to turn and look – the other side of the bridge is more inviting. There is a person coming towards her, as vague as the bridge, it is calling to her. It must be shouting because it’s so far away she can’t tell if it’s male or female, but the voice is like a whisper, she closes her eyes to hear better. “Not yet,” it says, “Go back, go back, here is some strength, go back, go back” and rain starts to fall on her from the clear blue sky, “come back come back” and she opens her eyes and Sam is holding her, his tears falling on her face, and she is in her bed and he is holding her and he has her letter in his hand, crushed against her, and he has her letter in his hand, crushed against her with its scrawled words: “I’m lost. I’m so tired. I want to sleep forever. Find me.” And he is whispering “you didn’t wake when the alarm went off, I didn’t know, I didn’t know” and he pulls her up to himself, crying into her hair and she steps back off the bridge and into his arms.

bridge 2Copyright 2016 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission

The Familiar

~ Paula Harmon ~ Leave a comment

The way I see it is this.  If people spent more time looking with open minds and less time looking to find fault, they might be happier.  They might actually find what they’re looking for.

See, those people down there, yeah those ones – the ones with the flaming torches. They’re looking for evil and they’ve decided what it looks like (which is a simple formula to them.  “Different = Dangerous”) and so they’ve found something that sorta fits the bill, ignored anything that don’t and are acting on their assumptions.  Plus you can guarantee a bloke down the tavern said or one of the elders said or THEY said.  No-one knows which bloke, which elder, which THEY.  It’s just got to be true.  Cos the minute you say “whoa – hang on – who told you that?  Where’s the proof?” suspicion will fall on you. So you don’t say nothing.  And no-one says nothing and before you know it everyone’s got caught up in the moment and one set (a small set mind) is handing out flaming torches like they’re toffee apples and everyone just takes one co they don’t know what else to do. What are they? Ants?  Bees?  Sheep?

People say they’re the top of creation and look at them – hardly an individual amongst them, unless you count that poor wretch in the middle.  She couldn’t get more individual, could she, bless her.  That’s one woman who asked “why” too many times.  “Why don’t we try this?” “Why do we always do it that way?” “Why don’t you just be yourself and stop worrying what other people think?”  That’s what got her where she is now.

And see the people round the edges, yeah, I know, the smoke’s getting a bit thick. If you’re bothered now, best not stick around.  But look – the ones that are hanging back, the ones that are thinking “why am I holding this torch?” “why is this a good idea?” “why do we think this will make things better?”  Yes those ones – they’ll be next, mark my words. They’re gonna have to think quick if they don’t want to do the thing but also don’t want the others to know they didn’t.

Cos the thing is, people do think Why?  But they think it the wrong way.  They think “Why did the harvest fail again?  Why is my cow barren?  Why did my child die?” and then they look around and find someone to punish for it.  Life’s short.  Who can blame them you might say.  But funny how no-one says “why’s the harvest been so good?  Why have I got more calves than I can sell?  Why is my child so strong and healthy its face glows like an apple?” and then find someone to praise for it.

That woman – what did she ever do?  She wasn’t perfect.  Who is?  But you gonna to say that one little woman is guilty of everything that’s gone wrong – this year’s rain, this year’s non-stop rain, the cold, the crops rotting in the fields, the blue babies?  You think they gonna say to their maker when they meet him – “oh that little woman – we thought she was bigger than you”?   Nah – nor me pal.   If someone could put that to them – see the folk on the outside, they’re asking themselves that right now and trying to fade off into the night – look that one’s put his torch out, that one is starting to cry a little.  But most of the rest – I reckon now their blood is up now – if a voice came from Heaven they wouldn’t hear it or they’d blame the poor wretch herself for conjuring it up.  See they’ve looked for me too but they won’t find me.  I’ll miss her but nothing I can do to help now.   Most respect I can show is by going away and not watching what they do to her.  Best I can do is find someone else like her.  Someone who don’t mind a companion that’s been battered by life and shows it but don’t think it’s the mark of the devil or nothing.  Someone who knows how to ask “Why?” the right way.

But you and me, mate, we’re lucky cos we don’t waste time with talk.  We may think “Why’s there no food?  Why can’t I find somewhere warm and dry to sleep?  Why is the only thing caressing me a pile of fleas?” but we don’t go and blame anyone. We think “there was food once – there’ll be food again.  There will be shelter somewhere one day, there will be caress sometime” – and if not, well, that’s life innit.  Us and them and the fleas and the sun coming up and the rain coming or not coming and birth and death and the whole shebang – it’s all life.

Come on, best stick with me mate.  No point asking why this happened.  It’ll happen till the end of time or until people stop looking to blame others and start looking inside themselves and learn to just accept the fleas along with the caresses.  They’re lighting the pyre now.

Let’s go.  Don’t look back.  The sun always comes up.  It always comes up.

Copyright 2016 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permissionflames

The Return

~ Paula Harmon ~ 1 Comment

Without the map she would not have come. Forty years had passed and she was settled a hundred miles away. She had long closed the drawer on that part of her life, packing up and disposing of more than books and diaries. Unfolding the map’s feeble creases had caused tears to drip onto the biro and felt tip. Night was falling. But how could she be afraid? Modern bad boys were warm indoors playing games online, too engrossed to be out bullying or vandalising.

She trusted only one friend with her secret: that in her loneliest days, strange and out of synch, transplanted from rural Berkshire to West Glamorgan, mocked for her accent, uncomprehending of theirs, she had gone alone to the river and alone to the copse and had talked to the spirits there and they had comforted her. They had sparkled under the trees hanging over the tumbling river and they had murmured from the larches and she had felt at peace.

Life was not so lonely anymore. But it was busy. No longer any time just to sit. Constant rushing and organising, buzzing with demands and responsibilities. Once she had been the lonely girl who drew a map to show where the fairies were, not sparkling childish tinkerbells, but living breathing spirits of wood and water. Now she was a practical adult, sensible and unemotional. Or that was what people thought. Life had taught her to hide herself.

But here she was, sitting under the trees as the full moon rose. She closed her eyes and was silent. But the wood was not silent. The air was cold, but she was not cold. The tree felt warm to her back and her heart filled with peace. “Croeso” it whispered. “We’re glad to see you” it breathed.

She opened her eyes and saw a child before her. Silver and made of moonlight and holding something and then gone. And she remembered. It had been what she had meant to do all those years ago. She unfolded the map for the last time – she could barely see it in the dark but she knew that it set out all the secret magical places and did not belong to her anymore. She folded it back up and poked it down into a cavity under the tree. “Diolch” she heard.

She stood up and rolled her shoulders and looked up into the moonlit trees. “I’m going now” she said, “I won’t be back again. But I want to say thank you. Thank you for being my friend when I was so lonely. Thank you for helping me learn to be happy on my own. Thank you for reminding me how to listen.”

She walked away, down past where the playground had been, where the pigsty had been, where the boy with the rotten teeth had lived and got in her car, parked outside her old house. She looked up at the moon as she drove away – she would never come back. But she was taking the child she had once been away with her and together they would learn to be still and at peace.DSCN4089

Copyright 2016 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission

Flight

~ Paula Harmon ~ 2 Comments

Tori couldn’t relax. As the sun started to fill the fields, she could make out hares and deer foraging in the sepia dawn but they didn’t delight her. Even as she headed north, she remained tense and alert, staring out of the window at the scenery, the towns, the stations – looking, looking to see if someone was staring back.

Then she saw the sheep. They were slowly moving together in a wide valley which led down to the river as it ran alongside the railway. The flock was not bunched up or spread out. They were head down, nibbling at the dew soaked grass but they were moving in formation. Tori sat forward as far as she could and tried to keep watching them before the train passed. She quickly looked round to see if any of the other passengers had noticed but they were oblivious: asleep, reading, playing on tablets and phones. But the sheep nonchalantly continued, formed into an arrow pointing south, back down the line. And then they were gone.

Tori tried to look back but it was impossible. The next station came and the next and another long piece of countryside. She checked her timetable. The train was running behind.

“Look at that” said the man opposite it, roused out of his sleep as his neighbour shifted in his seat, “that means bad weather coming, that does.”
Tori looked where he was pointing. She realised the field was full of sea gulls and they were…

The man’s neighbour looked out, “it’s not so far from the estuary though is it?”

“Far enough mate, they only come inland when there’s something brewing.”

Was Tori the only one that could see the gulls, settling and flying up, forming themselves over and over into an arrow all facing south, all flying up and settling down further down the line? And then they were gone. Tori shook herself. It had been too early a start. She was too apprehensive. She needed to calm down or he…

An announcement reminding the passengers that the train would not stop at the next station. The pace continued, sped up perhaps. Tori imagined the passengers standing on the platform, stepping back to avoid the suction of the passing train and then she saw them – a whole row of passengers, shoulder to shoulder, staring at her and pointing south – all of them pointing south. And then they were gone.

She looked at the man opposite but he’d fallen asleep again. She had to change trains at the city. For the first time, she hesitated. Searching for her platform, she saw the one which would take her home and paused, not sure which was more terrifying the returning or the continuing; then she found her onward train and climbed aboard.

There were no more strange sights. She tried to relax but the closer she got to her destination, the closer she gripped her bag, the more she clenched her teeth. Finally she arrived and alighted. Among the people rushing about, there was no-one waiting for her, no-one paying her attention. Perhaps he was on the other side of the barrier, out of sight. She stood still while the train pulled away and another came in and then she started for the exit.

Tori bumped into a guard. Or he bumped into her. He suddenly put his face very close to hers and spoke very deep and very urgently. “Go back” he said, “you can get on the train behind you. It’s going back. Make something up if they ask about the ticket, but go back.” And then he was gone.

Copyright 2015 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permissionflight_edited-1

A Little Something

~ Paula Harmon ~ 1 Comment

DSCN2928On her birthday, Liz, as usual, got up first while they slept. She went to the office and shared cakes round. She waited all day for something. Nothing.

She got home early. The kids were late: hope flared. She made herself a cup of tea and picked up the post, one official-looking envelope. The front door banged and Amy stormed in, the door banged again and Jason called “what’s for tea?” Amy shrieked: “He humiliated me in front of EVERYONE. Tell him …”

A text from Stuart: “sorry, forgot.”

She left the kids fighting, wedged her bedroom door shut with the laundry basket and opened the letter. A solicitor wrote: “your aunt remembered you in her will with the message: “be frivolous.”

Great Aunt Nell: the free spirit who settled abroad to be whispered about at Christmas. Liz had only met her a couple of times. “Stay independent” she said to Lis the last time, “Don’t lose yourself looking after them.”
£60,000. DIY? university fees? But Aunt Nell had said: “be frivolous”.

Liz kicked the laundry basket aside, ignored Amy’s complaints and walked firmly out of house. She got in the car, drove two miles down the road till she found the “for sale” sign by the river, noted the estate agent and turned back to town. As usual no mobile signal anywhere. For once, a blessing.

By the time she got home, they were all contrite. A takeaway on order, a bottle of bubbly chilling.

“I saw the letter from the solicitor” said Stuart. Liz’s heart stopped. He continued: “How much did she leave?”

“Oh there’s £5000 left,” Liz answered, remembering the sum was not on the letter and that she’d put the cheque and other documents in her chaotic undies drawer. “I thought we’d get you, I mean, us that boat.”

“Shouldn’t you get something for yourself?” he rallied valiantly.

“Oh I’ll get myself a little something too.”

A little something. Ten feet from land and forty feet in diameter – a tiny island with fishing rights.

It was surprisingly easy. When things got too much, she’d pop out for a slightly longer than usual Saturday shop and paddle across in a ropy old canoe and just sit. Sometimes she’d leave work early, change into jeans and just sit, no-one making demands, until it really was time to be at home. She called it Nell’s Island. Interesting, independent Aunt Nell of the serial lovers and child free adventures. Liz built up a stash – a sleeping bag, roll mat, stove and kettle. She kept them under the million bags for life in the car and blamed the expenditure on things for the kids. She never stayed for more than half an hour in daylight. But it was good to feel lost for a while.

One Friday, the whole week had been stressful to the point that Liz thought her heart would explode and she could barely breathe and the house was a total mess and the fridge was empty. Liz was the last person home for the fifth time, yet walked it to “what’s for dinner?” “where’s my best top?” “have you signed that form?” and walked out again.
In her office shoes and smart suit, she drove to the island. Hauling her stash out of the boot, she stomped towards the padlocked canoe with mud sticking to her heels.

But there was someone already there, fiddling with the lock. It was a vagrant, thin. He looked up at Liz and paused. “This is yours isn’t it” he said “I watch you sometimes. Sorry.” It wasn’t clear if he was apologising for sitting in the canoe or for watching her.

“What are you doing?” Liz said, uncertain. The vagrant was dirty, camouflaged in the canoe. Nothing with him but a small bag.

“Borrowing the island to sleep” he answered. “Feels safer. I always lock the boat up after.”

“This isn’t the first time? People aren’t supposed to sleep on it.”

He shrugged. “You’ve never been here later than 5ish before. People aren’t supposed to sleep in doorways either.”

They looked at each other: the vagrant in the canoe; Liz in her incongruous clothes – the owner of a boat, a canoe, an island, a family and frustration.

“Fancy a drink?” said the vagrant, holding out a can.

“More of a white wine girl really” said Liz and wished she hadn’t, partly in case he had some.

“Why are you here?” asked the vagrant.

“Everyone wants something from me all the time and I never get time to myself.” How childish she sounded.

The vagrant stared for a while and took a swig from his can. “No-one wants anything from me. They just want me to eff off.”

“What’s your story?”

He shrugged. “What’s yours?”

Liz was silent. After a while she handed over the stash and said “This stuff – it’s a bit chilly tonight. Just leave the canoe secured.” She wasn’t sure that he needed the stove but there you go. She tried again: “I just feel a bit trapped, pointless, unimportant…”

Eyebrows raised, he looked her up and down and took another swig.

She felt exposed when she turned and walked muddily back to the car but when she sneaked a look backwards he was smoking a roll-up and paddling to the island. Liz went to Tesco then home, found Amy’s top, signed the form, handed a ready meal to Stuart and told them she was taking up a hobby and would take time out occasionally.

One day, when the summer came, she would tell them all. They would cycle to the island, spend the day fishing and barbecuing. Then they would cycle home. It really wasn’t far.

Right now, for a while, she would keep enjoying the occasional ten minutes of quiet raising a cup of tea to Aunt Nell and the absent vagrant.
And if the family couldn’t be bothered to ask and thought that going to Tesco was her hobby, more fool them.

Copyright 2016 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission