Treats

Posted on March 31, 2024 by Phil Cosker writer

With thanks to Liz.

Sister and brother, Lizbeth and Henry, stand across the road from Dairy Cottage, on Main Street, Somerton. Their Gran’s home is a long low listed-building with white walls and golden thatch.

I see they’ve finally got it up, Lizbeth says, seeing the sign, For Sale.
Things were always slow down here in Somerset, Henry replies.
Better not let the locals hear you saying that.
Let’s go in, Lizbeth suggests.

The cottage is dusty and cold.
Are you still happy putting all her possessions in storage? Henry asks.
Yes. But it’s so upsetting, as if we were trying to say she’d never existed. I need time to decide what we should do.
Our kids will want a look.
They won’t want brown furniture; it’s out of date, Lizbeth says.
I can still smell her lavender perfume.
Me too.
Is that coffee still warm in your thermos? Henry asks.
Dust rises as they sit on the long slate bench in the dairy. They sip the coffee.
When was our last crazy summer holiday here with Gran? Henry asks.
I was ten.
I was nine, so, 1955.
So long ago, Lizbeth sighs.
How old was she that summer?
I’ll go and get the old family bible; by the way, can I take it home with me today?
Of course.
Lizbeth returns carrying the enormous, illustrated bible, and blows off the dust. She carefully turns the pages. Here we are. She was born in 1877. So, she was 78 in ’55. She was fun.
Or, maybe, crazy.
Not crazy. She lost the plot after that holiday and Mum and Dad said it wasn’t safe for her to look after us on her own again, Lizbeth says.
It made me sad at the time, but, I guess, mistaking beeswax for honey on toast wasn’t a great idea.
Or when the first supermarket in the village, the Coop, opened at the same time as Fish Fingers were launched; she thought frozen fish fingers were just like a ‘99’; she gave them us as a treat stuck in ice-cream cones full of vanilla ice-cream.
Somehow, she didn’t realise they were fish, Henry laughs.
She tried hers and thought it was a delicacy; we loved her, so, we ate on. Mum and Dad didn’t believe us.
But I had the evidence! I’d taken a photo on my little Kodak, Henry says. I miss her so much; we hardly ever saw her again after that summer.
Shall we go and see her grave? Lizbeth asks.

As they arrive at the grave, Lizbeth gasps, Oh, Henry! I never thought you’d make it.
I am a sculptor, after all.
They hug.
A beautifully carved ice-cream cone stands on a plinth, glowing in the sun. A rectangle of brown marble sticks out of the cone, with ‘Fish Fingers’ engraved at the top and ‘Gran was a real treat’, engraved in gold beneath. Do you think she’d be pleased? Henry asks.

If we stand very still, we’ll hear her laughing right now.

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 2024
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.

A Journey

Posted on March 3, 2024 by Phil Cosker writer

Fast asleep, Kristof dreams. It is dark. Out of the darkness, a man, wearing a two-piece suit, joins him. Are you ready Kristof? He asks.
For what?
I’m your guide.
Don’t I know you? Kristof asks.
Perhaps. Time to go.
Where?
To places you’ve not seen.

Where are we? Kristof asks.
A bedroom in a care home.
Can the man in the wheelchair see us?
No.
Why is he sobbing?
Alwyn’s been broken by care less ness. Once he had a carer who came to his small bungalow each day. This was deemed too expensive. The carer was sacked; he’d learnt Alwyn’s chaotic language, was able to understand him, and interpret on his behalf. Alwyn’s disease means he can’t write and, without comprehensible speech, he’s imprisoned in his abject loneliness in room 79. They call him ‘mutey’; he’s forty-eight years of age; he’s expected to have a long life imprisoned in himself.
Enough, Kristof says.

Not yet, the man says. Meet Cyril and Mags in their bedroom in the Green Pastures retirement home. They believe their only purpose is to die in comfort with as little pain as possible; they had hoped Covid would have ‘seen them off’.
Who’s that woman who’s just come out of the bathroom? Kristof asks.
Their new carer, Queenie. She believes it’s her duty to try and lift them from their depression through kindness, and her trust in her Jesus.
Where you from? Cyril demands.
Tooting, Queenie replies.
But you’re black, Mags objects. Where you really from?
Right, Cyril shouts, you can piss off! We never came here to be amongst blacks.
I’m not having no blacks wiping my arse, Mags adds.
I can’t stand much more of this, Kristof whispers.

It’s three in the morning in the area immediately surrounding St Paul’s Cathedral.
Why are there hundreds of small tents pitched everywhere? Kristof asks.
They’re the homes of rough sleepers. Perhaps they thought they’d be safe being nearer to the house of their God? Can you hear heavy boots thumping on the ground, van doors slamming, sirens blaring and men shouting?
Yes, It’s the police. What the hell are they doing? Kristof asks.
Evicting the sleepers, destroying their tents and stealing their possessions.
I didn’t know about this.
Suella Braverman opined that the poor living in tents were making a lifestyle choice. The only thing to do was for those who did that should be prosecuted for a criminal offence. As ever, the cops thought they had license to do what they liked – before the law was enacted.

Why are you wearing my best suit? Kristof asks.
Ah, now you recognize me?
Not sure. We’re close aren’t we?
Once. Now we’re estranged. You put your conscience aside.
You’re me as well, Kristof gasps, the truth dawning.
Yes, the part of you that made you human – conscience.
But I’m not responsible for the things you’ve just shown me.
Ignorance and laziness are no excuse for careless inhumanity, Conscience says.

A Forfeit

Posted on February 4, 2024 by Phil Cosker writer

It’s the cusp of Winter and Spring. Abundant silver birch saplings, their teenage siblings and maturing elders are not yet in leaf, their trunks glistening white in the afternoon sun. Loreta finds the trees beautiful and takes a photograph. She walks on through the wood and emerges onto Spalford high street and fixes a notice to a fence – ‘Woodland for Sale’.

Settled in the empty bar of The Wig, the pub where she will spend the night, she downloads the photographs she’s just taken onto her iPad. She trembles with excitement as she enlarges the image again and again, sits back, and thunderstruck, thinks, What the hell is that? At the right of the frame there’s something, caught in a beam of sunlight amidst the trees. The creature is tall, has a huge horse like head, around which a ruff of white branches shimmers. Its single eye stares straight at her; she blanches.

An elderly man enters the bar where Loreta is the only customer. Welcome, young lady. I heard we had a rare visitor to this god-forsaken hole. I’m Grenville,
Hi, I’m Loreta. Join me for a drink?
Thanks, I will. A half of bitter would be good.
Loreta returns to her table with two beers.
You live here, Grenville?
One of the few left.
Can I show you something that’s bugging me?
Loreta shows him the photograph of the creature. What is that?
Folklore has it that he’s a male dryad that guards our wood. Some say he makes folk disappear.
Bit far-fetched, don’t you think?
Maybe. Why did you put up that for sale notice?
That was quick.
Word soon gets around. So why?
The regional plan has designated these woods as unmanaged, not qualifying as an amenity, not economically viable, and will be sold for housing to the highest bidder.
They’re not for sale.
It’s approved government policy. People need homes not woods.
And what of beauty?
We must forfeit things, even beauty, for the common good.
How magnanimous! Grenville stands. It’s time for me to go.
I’m sorry I’ve offended you. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.
Maybe.

Later, in her bedroom, Loreta wraps up in a duvet against the cold and studies the photograph of the dryad. Finally, exhausted, she sleeps.

Waking, in darkness, the room’s lights no longer work. Wind howls in the trees. Astonished, she smells rich loam. She sees the dryad has vanished from the photograph. She scrolls back and forth; it’s gone.
A haunting laugh from the darkness frightens her.
Who’s there?
The creature lurches forward, its huge skeletal wooden body creaking. It’s one staring eye terrifies her.
What are you? she whimpers.
I am the wood, and the wood is me.

In the bright light of a new day, Grenville pats the trunk of a silver birch. You’re safe now, Loreta: a thing of beauty, and no more stress, ever.

Days later, Loreta is reported missing. The police find no evidence that Loreta had ever been in Spalford.

Delayed Gratification

Posted on January 7, 2024 by Phil Cosker writer

It’s Christmas Eve and George, aged eighteen, uses the master key he’s ‘borrowed’ from his aunt and uncle’s desk to open the rear security door of their cinema – The Tower. Sighing with relief as he locks the door behind him, he hopes that Lauren will keep the promise she’d made when she first appeared the previous year.

When George was six, on Christmas Eve, his parents, Florrie and Reggie, entered the cinema and were never seen again. A murder investigation ensued but the mystery was never solved. After they vanished, George lived with his aunt and uncle who were bitter that George was dumped on them. They ensured he became enraged that his parents had abandoned him. He was told they were fanatical film fans and would have given anything to be part of Hollywood. His aunt gave him an autographed photograph from Lauren Bacall, that said, “If you can make it to Hollywood, I’m sure I can get you jobs as extras, with love and best wishes, Lauren.”

Who’s Lauren Bacall, he asked Aunt Agnes.
Film star and distant cousin of your father.
Do you think she could help me find them?
Agnes laughed until she cried.

George was seventeen when he first stole the keys and tried to contact Lauren Bacall by begging for help in front of the screen for hours. Finally, she appeared, and he told his story. Tonight, he’s desperate she’ll keep her promise.

The screen lightens, but no flickering light shines from the projection booth. His mouth dries as ghostly shades of grey and black loop and swirl on the screen. His heart pounds. A human shape evolves in the centre of the screen. Franz Waxman’s overture for “To Have and Have Not” begins.

Lauren, you’ve come back.
Said I would, George.
Why did you promise to help me last year?
I felt guilty; if I hadn’t offered help, they might not have scrammed. And you were so full of hope.
Hope is all I’ve got.
Hope is an incredible, wonderfully demented thing. Hope endures even when life is not what you expect it to be.

The screen stretches, bulges, seems about to tear apart as unseen forces push against the barrier. The fabric distends. The disembodied heads and hands of his parents burst through.
At last! George shouts as he climbs up on the stage beneath the screen.
We’re not allowed to come all the way through. If we do, we’ll be punished and never be amidst the stars again. Can you forgive us? Florrie pleads.
We missed you, George, Reggie says.
Liar!
Come with us, Florrie says. You’ll love Hollywood.
George grabs his parents’ hands and, terrified, they scream, as their son, using more strength than he knew he had, rips them through the screen onto the stage.

Happy Christmas, Lauren says. I kept my promise.
Thank you.
George gasps as his parents transmute into unravelling spools of 35mm film that burst into flames. He stamps them out; his revenge complete.

The Aviator

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Phil Cosker writer

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.

© 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.

Meanwhile

Posted on November 5, 2023 by Phil Cosker writer