All Stories

I wait because perfection takes time.

As always, she’s exquisitely turned out; every chocolate brown hair in place, nails polished rose and clothes just right, even to the gym

She’s pink champagne; expensive and full of bubbles. 

When she asked me where we want to go, she waits patiently until I choose the right place at the right time. Sighing, I smile and accept entertainment comes with a cost; this price is worth it.

Waving good bye to my husband, he jokes that I’m off to see my wife for the third times this week. .

Laughing, I agree.

If only.

Yesterday Ruth met the love of her life.

This morning Ruth remembers every detail.

Unable to lie still anymore, Ruth shoves her clothes on, and her feet retrace yesterday’s walk. But yesterday was perfect. Today can only be a disappointment.  Unless, that red hair looks a lot like…no it’s not her.

Heartbeat stalling and sinking, Ruth carries on, only to see part of her love, in everyone she passes.

Unable to drag the anchor that is her heart any further, Ruth sits down.

“Excuse me?” says a voice so much like her love. Turning, she realises perfection has found her.

He’ll walk across the room, smiling his pleased smile.

She’ll plan to frown and walk away, but her lips will twitch, and the world will lighten, and she’ll wait for him. Soaking in every moment, like a dry sponge soaks up water, she’ll watch him stride over.

As he gets nearer, despite the thirst-quencher, her throat will dry up. So when he talks, she’ll mutter some sarcastic response.

He might hug her. The thought quickens her heartbeat. She must resist the temptation to hold on forever. Even though he’ll smell so good and fit just right, like her favourite jumper.

When they were little you were always there, in the moment. Ready to catch them if they fell, encourage them if they stumbled or cheer when they succeeded.

Growing means their moments become their own, but they usually deign to recall them for you.

But then they hit double-digits and can only grunt and moan. To keep up, you have to follow them on Facebook.

You hope, when they become adults, in age if not maturity, they’ll call once a week or visit and regale you with tales of their wonderful moments, which become your moments.

Don’t miss the moment.

An immortal stands, cloaked in Space, but outside Time.

Circling his hands like a conductor encouraging an orchestra to pick up the tempo, he gathers star dust.

When enough dust is collected, he mixes it like a cook baking a cake. The twinkling lights swirl round the vast, black, interstellar bowl.

Taking a pinch, he sprinkles the embers like a gardener sowing crop. Where the cinders land fortunes are found and futures flourish.

For a moment he might watch the mortals like ants over rubbish, but regardless he continues to gather, like an eternal bin man collecting the universal trash.

Getting on a train, Kailey sighs with relief on reaching her reserved seat. After checking her phone, no messages, she spends several minutes settling into her seat, plugging in her laptop and arranging her limited space to fit her drink and snack.

Still no messages.

By the time she looks up again, the landscape is moving passed and she feels a wave of sadness at leaving, but the feeling quickly breaks up against the rocks of resolution that she’s been cultivating.

Leaving was the right decision, but it doesn’t stop her tapping her phone every few minutes.

Still no messages.

Greeted in the grey car park with hugs, the girls feel loved, wanted and missed. They’ve only known each other for a few months but the holidays have kept them apart for a couple of weeks.

Heading inside the red-brick building, they can’t stop talking. Their chatter is like tap shoes dancing, punctuated with bursts of laughter for jokes and greeting new arrivals with a cheer.

More and more dancers join the conversation. The tempo speeds up, the noise builds, until it is time for the rehearsal to start.

Time for the real dancing to begin.

But the laughter continues.

Mammoths of the mechanical age stand, silent and still like dinosaur skeletons at the British museum.

In the quiet of the morning, it’s almost possible to see the ghosts of passengers, engineers and staff milling around, the war trains, the royal trains, the freight trains and the passenger trains, carrying people, mail, animals and wounded.

These marvels are the epitome of the industrial revolution combined with the instinct to be fastest, strongest, longest and biggest. Now these champions lie still in their graveyard and dream of their glory days, displayed in cabinets, explained in guides and immortalised in toy models.

Take a step every day. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five steps in a year. Thirty-thousand-two-hundred-and-fifty-eight and a half in the average life.

Steps can move forward, wobble, turn, go round in circles, others race passed and some go back. Sometimes our steps sink into the ground, like wading through quick sand.

Big feet followed our first two thousand steps, but as our steps got bigger, we left them behind. Other feet step in time with ours, walk alongside, crash in to us, step over us, stand in our way, help us, dance with us, until our last step when it’s time to sit down.

Rattling echoes across the universe. Warning! Something’s about to happen. Will the chalice be poison or power?

Like a demented clock the ticking gets faster and louder, until the anticipation feels worse than whatever the outcome will be.

The die is thrown and rolls across the galaxy. Ricocheting off stars and swirling round black holes, without purpose. It comes to rest at the feet of a mortal man in sensible, brown shoes.

Sitting in an office, he’s given his results. The odds were good; five in six he’d live. But one dot stares up, like a cyclops, and devours him.