Manfred, known as Fred to his friends, hates shopping and supermarkets. Fred’s trolley is empty as a woman carrying an empty basket staggers towards him. Christ, you’re a cracker, he thinks. She wears a startling multi-coloured capacious check dress that looks as if it may fall off her at any moment. Her grey and white hair is a riot of unruliness like an electrocuted character in a comic. Her intelligent face beguiles him. 

She stops in front of him. Who you gawping at? she laughs. Before he can reply she continues, My husband says he wants a new woman, like a new carpet to walk on. I told him to fuck off, she shouts. 
Shoppers ‘tut’.
Fancy a coffee in the café? Fred asks.
You chatting me up?
Would you mind?
If he wants a new fucking woman, I can have a new fucking man.

Fred brings their coffees to a table for two.
I’m Fred, he says. Short for Manfred.
Manfred? You don’t look like no German.
My dad was obsessed by Manfred von Richthofen, a German fighter pilot in the first world war. He was the ace of aces, winning over eighty dog fights in the sky.
Pull the other one; dogs don’t fight in the sky.
It’s daft. What’s your name?
Amy. She was an aviator from HulI. I often has this flying dream. Can I tell it you?
Fred nods.
I’m a bird, alone in a cage, then I’m standing in a field of deep green ground ivy. I run. The going’s tough. My clawed feet keep catching in the ivy. I fall. I’m a bird, I shout. I should be flying not running. I can’t remember how to fly, but I know I can, cos I’m a bird. Under my dress, this dress, I’ve grown feathers. I run, frantically flapping my arms, my dress flapping, like one of them windsock things. My arms ain’t wings. I rest. I start again. I run, I stumble, trip; my dress blows up in the wind with me knickers all on show. I’m desperate to fly, Amy starts to weep. I want to fly before I die, she sobs. Can’t afford it.
Hold my hand, Fred says. It’s okay. Come with me, I have an idea.

It’s raining outside. Two male security guards, in hi-vis jackets, run across the car park shouting, Hoi! You can’t do that. We’ll call the police. Amy sits in a shopping trolley as Fred races around the car park. Amy screams, Wheeeee. The hi-vis jackets lose ground as Fred pushes Amy’s trolley out onto the exit road. Christ, one says, he’s bleeding fit for an old git. Off his trolley, the other laughs.

Amy shouts, I’m flying. 

As they reach the top of the hill Fred jumps in beside her. They rattle down the slope laughing, until the trolley hits a curb. They lie on a grass verge lost in hysterical laughter.
I think I’ve found me a new man, Amy says.

I hope you enjoyed this story. Please feel free to pass it on to others who may be interested. You can read my previous 500 word stories on my website www.philcoskerwriter.com under ‘Writing’.>>>More

© Phil Cosker 2023
Phil Cosker has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved; no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted by any mean, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.

The king is in his counting house counting out our money.

Meanwhile. 

A massive black dog, a Newfoundland, with a faded black inflated car inner-tube around his neck is on his way to the vet’s; he wails in terror as he’s dragged to his destiny. He senses that something bad is coming. His owners tell him that it won’t be as bad as he fears. Somehow, he can smell it on the wind, perhaps his suspicion is inbred, perhaps it’s instinct, but he knows his desecration awaits; he will no longer be a dog and he won’t even bark like a castrato. 

The king is in his counting house counting out our money.

Meanwhile. 

There’s a small boat, with many people crammed on board; too many to count. The boat wallows in the English Channel, near the French coast, waiting to leave for England. The passengers are all people of colour. Each asylum seeker has a faded black inflated car inner-tube around their neck. The boat looks unseaworthy. The men and women are silent; they sense that something bad is coming. A storm is forecast. The trafficker tells them that all will be well, and it will not be as bad as they fear. The people on the boat know the history of the long journey they have endured to reach this moment. If they survive the crossing and come ashore, they somehow know, perhaps through instinctive suspicion, or experience, that they will be abused and disappointed; the dead will be merely numbers, the survivors no longer people, but statistics. Of the asylum seekers only five are rescued; no one knows the number of those who drowned. The promise that inner tubes provide protection is a lie, as is the fantasy that England is a haven.

The king is in his counting house counting out our money.

Shakespeare has John of Gaunt refer to England as this “sceptred isle … This other Eden, demi-paradise”. Gaunt concludes, “That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.” It’s a tragedy of self-destruction that England has brought upon itself; or many tragedies aggregated to destroy human rights. 

The king is in his counting house counting out our money.

Meanwhile. 

The river Wye is running with shit. Like many of England’s rivers, it’s overwhelmed by faeces, and the sea is no better. Citizens pay for access to water that comes from the sky. Perhaps private companies that have stolen, and ‘own’ the water, plan to do the same with the air and make people pay to breathe. This, of course, is ridiculous, but so is the privatisation of water. But England is a capitalist state; it can never be a green and pleasant land overwhelmed, as it is, with the stench of shit, profit, capitalism and greed. Capitalism converts everything into a commodity, including rain, but worse, people are wage slaves.

The king is in his counting house counting out our money.

Meanwhile, the world is burning.

I hope you enjoyed this story. Please feel free to pass it on to others who may be interested. You can read my previous 500 word stories on my website www.philcoskerwriter.com under ‘Writing’.>>>More

© Phil Cosker 2023
Phil Cosker has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved; no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted by any mean, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.