This piece was written for the Six Sentence Story Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘train’.

Note: This piece departs from my usual humorous approach to these challenges.

As Max watched his son-in-law, David, board the train and then boarded himself, he knew two things for certain; they would both be dead soon, because David would die on this train and that he himself would die later, from terminal cancer.

Amidst the metal-on-metal soundtrack and the rock-and-roll sway of the carriage, Max ruminated on the journey that had led to this, seeing early on what David’s narcissism would bring upon the life of his daughter, Jane, and he wondered what had happened to create a world where men could do evil things and other men would not only not intervene but aid and abet.

The early warning signs were there with the litany of jobs that he walked out on because management failed to realise his self-assessed genius and gathered pace when he took out a second mortgage on their house to start a business that was going ‘to revolutionise the world of on-line marketing’, requiring expensive suits and a luxury car to impress potential investors; and then he was bankrupt and then he was violent.

Jane came to live with the widowed Max and an incensed David bombarded them both with increasingly bizarre emails and texts and when the AVO Jane took out didn’t stop the stalking and harassment and the death threats, Max knew it was time and took his old service revolver from the safe, cleaned it and loaded it.

As the train slowly emptied and the aisle between the seats became clear, Max stood and walked towards where David was sitting and David looked from Max’s face to the gun in Max’s hand and back to Max’s face and the condescending smirk that was his trademark turned to a frozen grimace.

The last words David heard were Max quoting Edmund Burke’s dictum that ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’ before Max did something and pulled the trigger.

This piece was written for the Six Sentence challenge, using the prompt word of ‘grip’.

‘Well, Lieutenant, do you think this is the work of Cornflakes Magee, the famous cereal killer, or does it have the telltale MO of the Handlebar Kid, or maybe even the shocking hallmarks of Electric Bill?’

‘No, Sergeant. This has to be the work of Jack The Gripper, as you should have been able to deduce immediately from the contents of that grip bag that he dropped in haste: alligator clips, stillson wrench, BBQ tongs, all the usual paraphernalia, including that dead giveaway of the hardened criminal, superglue.

Obviously your next question will be, ‘where is he now?’ and, again, I would have thought that would have been obvious, even to you, Sergeant; there’s little doubt that he’s found an undercover-in-plain-sight job in the film industry as what else but a grip, a lighting and camera guy.’

‘But, Lieutenant, surely he wouldn’t want the spotlight on him like that when he knows the heat’s going to be on.’

‘On the contrary, Sergeant, he loves the attention and may be working as the key grip, the head honcho.

But my hunch is he’ll be working as a dolly grip, in which case we’ll track him down in no time.’

This piece was written for the Six Sentence challenge, with the prompt word of ‘net’.

I’d been driven by my friends to an exhibition (not at a gallery but at the artist’s house or, more correctly, the artist’s parents’ house, a mudbrick two-storey faux-Gothic number nestled in a forest background), where the wine was served in pottery goblets made by a local ‘craftsperson’ who saw anything that would sit on a flat surface as hopelessly bourgeois, and the nibbles were vegan and indigestible.

Sibilant cutting remarks echoed through the faux medieval gallery, complete with its redwood refectory table that seemed to have been adzed by a blind drunk and chunky chairs that would require a backside like a mattress to endure for longer than five minutes.

The paintings themselves were of the naif school (i.e. devoid of any talent for drawing or eye for colour), consisting of a cross between Alice in Wonderland and the Kama Sutra as seen by someone tripping on LSD, and the number of red dots on them indicating sales was testimony to the number of sucker fish caught in the artist’s net.

A growing susurration led to a focus on the stairway, from which reluctantly descended a fey young man with Jesus locks and wispy beard (it wasn’t quite the Second Coming but the beatific faces of the assembled multitude would have given you pause for thought).

Overwhelmed by the moon-faced adoration of the throng, he retreated upstairs (perhaps even to Heaven?), as those that hadn’t made it to the front of the crowd tut-tutted at the insensitive behaviour of those who had.

Once that it was apparent that the wine had run out, my friends approached me and invited me to gush over the precocious talent on display and, given that it was a long walk home, I proffered ‘The images I have seen today will haunt me until I resolve them more fully’, and they nodded sagely.

This piece is in response to the Six Sentence challenge, using the prompt word of ‘center’

As The Lone Ranger and Tonto came over a ridge, from a small ranch-house they heard a woman’s cry, shrill and piercing.

They galloped towards the ranch-house and before they could dismount, a woman ran towards them, clutching a small child and yelling ‘Help, help, my husband’s in town in Dead Center but he’ll be home soon, please save me!’ and ran back into the house.

The Lone Ranger followed and through her sobs she told him how she’d overdone the chilli in the chilli con carne, her husband’s favourite dish and now it was ruined, but he assured her he could fix it and headed for his saddle bags.

While they waited, the part-Appache woman took Tonto aside and asked why his friend wore a mask and Tonto replied, “Like to look good, get old, get crow’s feet.”

The Lone Ranger returned and stirred sour cream into the chilli con carne, tasted it and said “Works every time, you try it’ and relief enveloped her face when she did.

The Lone Ranger said ‘Our work here is done, Tonto’ and Tonto replied  ‘Yes, kemo sabe’ and the woman smiled as she waved them away, wondering how long it would be before somebody told The Lone Ranger that ‘kemo sabe’ was Appache for ‘horse’s backside’.

Thanks to Gary Larson for the ‘loan ‘of the last line.

This piece was written for the weekly Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘bowl’,

As many of you know, when I single-handedly won the war with Antarctica (quibblers may suggest that’s because I was the only one who turned up), I donned my dinner suit and danced with the penguins well into the night, only to have the producers of Happy Feet steal my thunder.

These days, I moonlight as creative advisor to a host of entertainers and world figures but confidentiality agreements mean you mustn’t breathe a word of what I tell you, except for the divine and unpretentious Lady Gaga, who’s happy to admit that I came up with the idea of the meat dress.

When President Obama invited me to the White House to thank me for my previously unsung role in designing his first election campaign (yes, I could), I enthralled his other guests with my playing of the Star Spangled Banner on a musical saw and delighted them with my stories of when I used to sit in for Charlie Watts occasionally when the Rolling Stones were on tour.

Few people know I was an old friend of Fred Astaire’s and that I was invited to deliver the eulogy at Fred’s funeral; not only was there not a dry eye in the house, when I bounded onto the coffin and tap-danced to ‘Top Hat, White Tie and Tails’, soon the whole wake had a fascinating rhythm.

And then of course there’s my writing, including my uncredited role as script advisor for Titanic, Star Wars and Saving Private Ryan (the stories I could tell about what really went on in those landing craft between takes will have to wait for another day.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare my acceptance speech for the Oscars, where I’m to be presented with a Lie-Time Achievement Award, otherwise known as the Hyper Bowl.

This piece was written for the Six Sentence challenge, with the prompt word of ‘season’.

Barnaby took an elastical approach to the Ecclesiastical wisdom that to everything there is a season; the advent of 24/7/365 sports coverage meant that somewhere north or south of the Equator someone, somewhere, was getting obscenely rich by entertaining the obscenely poor.

He was a great believer in seizin’ the day, irrespective of the carpers seeking D&M moments to achieve their fulfilment, rolling up their peace in their yoga mats and strolling in their leisure wear through the supermarket of life.

This devil-may-care approach to the seasons worked less well in his gardening pursuits, where the green shoots of his sweet corn didn’t take kindly to the first frost and the tomatoes boiled on his unshaded vines in 40C+ week-long heat waves.

Sailing seas ‘n’ oceans was his holiday of choice in the main and he pursued the eligible ladies on board with a passion; he was especially fond of widows who had some grass.

When his progeny came to visit he was only too willing (in fact overwilling) to provide them with the benefit of his accumulated wisdom, especially the males, who dreaded conversations beginning with ‘See, son, ..’

And he delighted them (so he imagined) with his culinary skills, when in fact most of his concoctions were barely edible but his family had learned to cope over thyme (especially Basil and Rosemary) as they lived out the dictum that for every bad meal there is a seasoning.