The wonderful Tarl and Bethany at On The Premises have given me encouragement again with this second prize winner in a mini-contest with a 50-word maximum.
This desolate rock is home to the Limbo of the Fathers. It’s close to the edge of Hell but we dead men can see Heaven in the far distance. Here we speculate endlessly on whether we were the best father we could have been. Eternity awaits our answer.
This piece was written for the weekly Unicorn Challenge to come up with 250 words using a photo as the prompt.
‘This is your inheritance? I thought you said your grandfather was a hairdresser. The sign says locksmith.’
‘It was his little pun on smithing locks of hair.’
‘Why aren’t there any windows, like most hairdressers?’
‘His clients demanded complete discretion. They didn’t want to be ogled by passers-by as they had their nascent moustaches blonded or had their down-there hair removed by Waxin’ Wayne, the disowned son of John. Besides, he preferred to soften the lighting for customers of a certain age.’
‘He must had some famous customers.’
‘Indeed, as you would imagine for a man whose forebears included the chap who invented the Pompadour for Louis XV’s chief mistress. One was Sinead O’Connor who, as you know, once indulged herself in the ultimate in hair removal. Although that upset him. Very dis-tressing.’
‘Any film stars?’
‘Naturally. Many would take a discreet day trip from Cannes before gracing the red carpet. He did a fabulous job on Madonna’s hair. Unfortunately, all the press were interested in was her pointy bra.’
‘When he died, was there no-one in the family that wanted to continue the tradition?’
‘No, his only child, my father, a very unprepossessing young man, ran off to become an apprentice wheeltapper for the railways. He died shortly after I was born, after an unfortunate altercation between him and the Paris-Marseilles Express.’
‘So, what do you plan to with this ‘inheritance’?’
‘The French love their game food so, in a nod to my grandfather, I’m going into hare-raising’.
This piece was written for the Unicorn Challenge, a weekly prompt to riff on a photo for up to 250 words.
Waddya reckon, Shazza? Unrestricted water views.
Where are the grandkids gonna play? There’s not even a beach!
Good. They won’t be trackin’ sand all through the house.
And there’s nowhere safe to swim. What are they gonna do all day?
Make things. Play Monopoly.
But they live on their screens.
Got that covered, Shaz. No phone reception, no wifi. They can learn something about the environment.
And what if they fall into the environment, off the edge of that bloody great cliff?
I’ll build a fence.
Well, there goes the ‘unrestricted water views’.
Why do you always have to be so negative? You said you wanted somewhere the grandkids could come and get some fresh air.
Fresh air? There’s a force 10 gale blowin’ out there. God knows what they’ll be like after they’ve been locked in the house with no phones for a few days.
Always the drama queen, Shaz. I’d take them to the shops.
The nearest shopping centre is 100 k’s away, ya Wally.
So I take it you don’t think it’s a good idea?
Got it in one, Sherlock.
Gotta say I’m disappointed, Shazza. Still, now I can go with Davo, Jock and Johnno on that golf trip.
You devious bastard. You set me up, didnya?
You be careful on the edge of that cliff, my love. Wouldn’t want you to have a nasty accident.
This piece was written in response to the weekly photo prompt from the 250-word maximum Unicorn Challenge.
I’d been taken by some friends to an exhibition at the Monte Carlo Opera House. The gallery included a 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 wine was served in pottery goblets made by a local ‘craftsperson’ who believed that anything that would sit on a flat surface was hopelessly bourgeois.
Designer overalls and wraps competed as statement garments and dreadlocks mingled with severe haircuts for men and women, either celebrating their grey or signaling their cool with streaks of various colours.
The paintings themselves were devoid of any talent for drawing or eye for colour, evoking Alice in Wonderland visiting India. Red stick-on dots adorned each piece, indicating sales. Everyone was riding on the red.
A growing susurration led to a focus on a 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. Soon besieged by the moon-faced adoration of the throng, he retreated upstairs (perhaps even to Heaven?).
Once the wine had run out, my friends asked me to gush over the precocious talent on display. I proffered ‘Those images will haunt me until I resolve them more fully.’ They nodded sagely.
I headed for the casino and put all my money on the black.
This piece was written for the weekly photo prompt from the Unicorn Challenge.
When a passing deep-sea fishing boat noticed that the ferry was seemingly adrift, the captain and his first mate boarded. No crew in sight, no-one on the bridge but half-eaten meals scattered around. ‘Like the bloody Marie Celeste’, the captain muttered.
They went down the stairs to the passenger deck. Deserted. No sign of life. Until the first mate noticed in the very rear seat a young curly-top redheaded girl. He ran to her and said kindly ‘You’re safe now. What’s your name?’
Calmly, she said, ‘Annie.’
‘So Annie, are you the only passenger?’
‘Of course not, you silly man. The trip is fully booked.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Over there is Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot. In front of them is that honeymoon couple, always kissing and everything. Disgusting.’
‘So where are your parents?’
‘Dead.’
“Oh, I’m so sorry.’
‘That’s OK. It was a long time ago.’
‘Where are the crew?’
Annie sighed ‘That nasty Captain Bligh was being so bossy that we asked that nice Mr. Fletcher in Seat 10B to deal with them. He put them in a long boat and we all waved them goodbye.’
‘That’s dreadful. They could be in grave danger now.’
‘They’ll be uncomfortable for a while but they’ll turn up in Batavia one day.’
Looking around again, the first mate said gently ‘You say the ferry is full of people but the only one I see is you.’
Annie stiffened and said in a very adult voice ‘How are your navigational skills?’
Bonus track: The late great New Zealand-born Max Merritt, who I followed all over his adopted city, Melbourne, Australia, in my yooth. https://youtu.be/vhbJiSLlopA
This vital piece of educational material was produced in response to the weekly photo prompt (which I’ve chosen to interpret as the door of a crypt) from the Unicorn Challenge, run by the Franco-Hibernians, Jenne Gray and C E Ayr.
Crypt – secret underground non-movement headquarters.
Cryptic – Form of gobbledygook designed to make the utterer seem possessed of secret knowledge (when in fact they are simply possessed).
Cryptic crosswords – Arguments between crossword compilers.
Crypt-kicking – Sport invented by adherents to the Monster Mash cult, started by Bobby Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers https://youtu.be/u8uvLHnrqdU
Ecryptology – The study of cryptic posts on the interweb (aka black holes).
Desecryptation – Graffiti scrawled on tombs e.g. ‘My mother made me a ghost’, followed by ‘If I send her the sheet will she make me one?’
Manucrypt – Sacred burial ground of Manchester United, often the site of massed choirs from Liverpool singing ‘You’ll Always Walk Alone’.
Nondescrypts – Ordinary gravesites for complete nonentities.
Typescrypt – List of various forms of crypt, with annotated descryptions.
Cryptomaniac – Person addicted to stealing from tombs e.g. archaeologist Howard Carter, who was cursed up and down and across in hieroglyphics by Pharaoh’s Mummy and Daddy.
Cryptocurrency – form of exchange used by crypt dwellers and gullible nerds
Cryptromancy – love stories set in crypts e.g. Romeo and Juliet – The Sequel
Cryptozoologist – researcher into mythical creatures that survive in crypts and vaults, including the Och Yer Big Jessie Monster, Tinyfoot, The Spaghetti Squash, and the Bunyippy-i-ay Australopithicus.
Crypto-fascists – Men given to wearing brown shirts and standing on fruit boxes at railway stations giving four-hour speeches in Italian about the need for the trains to run on time. (Not to be confused with crypto-Nazis, who plan to wear black shirts when they invade Poland. Again.)
This piece was adapted in response to the weekly photo prompt from the Unicorn Challenge.
Last Exit From Tenby
I’m an Australian, ‘doing Wales’. Next stop Portmeirion, to re-live ‘The Prisoner’ (‘I am, not a number! I am a free man!’).
At the Buccaneer Pub, inside the walls of the old town in Tenby, I’m drinking with ancients like me, pretending to be interested in rugby, while they pretend to be interested in cricket. Neither of us fakes our distrust of the Royals (though it must be said that the man in the top hat and overalls, feeding his bar stool-perched water spaniel some crisps and Guinness, is a little less harsh than his mates. He would allow them to take their own lives come the Revolution).
Drifting from a woman seated at a table behind me comes ‘I already told you what I want but you didn’t want to buy me that!’ before she storms off to the Ladies.
I turn to see her man, red of face and bloodshot-eyed, togged up for ‘a nice night down at the pub, to get out of the house, like’, staring at her receding back.
Before the next pint, I offer side bets to my new companions about how long it will take before he realises that she really didn’t want a gin and lime and that she’s been in the Ladies an awfully long time. And that the pub has a back door.
‘My round, convict lad,’ smiles Top Hat, ‘because the dog thinks your funny.’
This piece was re-purposed from a longer story in response to the weekly photo prompt from the Unicorn Challenge.
After Arabella had finished lamenting the loss of her latest boyfriend, Babs breathlessly unloaded that the trouble with Arabella was that she was insufficiently bubbly, too po-faced, not enough fizz.
Arabella nodded but was appalled by the idea that she would have to be an airhead to attract a man, so the next time a man approached her at a party, before he could speak, she blurted out ‘I’m a committed environmentalist, I hate jokes and I’m as poor as a church mouse.’
The man smiled and said ‘Ditto’ and would she like to accompany him to the Natural History Museum this Sunday because he’d heard there was a very powerful exhibition on the effects of plastics in oceans.
Agreeably stunned, Arabella said she’d love to and then he said ‘I don’t have a car, can you pick me up?’ She said of course and arrived on Sunday at the address he’d given her.
He said he’d had a better idea. A friend had loaned him his motor yacht and they could go looking for dolphins, which delighted Arabella. However, mid-boat-trip, he stopped the engine, dropped his pants and lunged at her, with his willie wagging like a metronome.
Arabella’s self-defense training kicked in instinctively and, while the man was still groin-groaning, she threw him overboard and, ignoring his pleas that he couldn’t swim, she watched him go under with a myriad bubbles rising to the surface and popping and she felt quite …effervescent.
This piece was written in response to the weekly photo prompt from the Unicorn Challenge.
‘So, theories, Detective Constable.’
‘Hit and run, gov. By aliens.’
‘Based on what?’
‘Well, gov, the ambos said that they couldn’t find a heartbeat. Or anything else because all his organs had been vacuumed up by some sort of probe applied to his nether regions.’
‘And the object in his hand?’
‘Sunscreen, gov.’
‘Sunscreen?’
‘Yes, gov. Clearly these were aliens originating from the Sun. He’s seen the intense solar rays and legged it, hoping the sunscreen would save him.’
‘The Sun?’
‘Well, stands to reason, gov. If they were coming from the Moon he wouldn’t have panicked and run into the road.’
‘So you’ve excluded the possibility of a drunk who’s gone to sleep in the middle of the road, whiskey bottle in hand, and been flattened by a passing truck?’
‘Oh, yes, gov. Because that’s what the aliens want us to believe. They’re cunning little baskets.’
‘So, tell me, Detective Constable, where did you gain your detailed knowledge of the methods of nefarious aliens?’
‘Well, it’s all over the internet, isn’t it, gov? I mean, what if the powers that be are in on it and want to cover it up. Maybe they’re aliens that have infiltrated the system. Just sayin’, gov.’
‘So, if I were to say to you that this is the greatest load of nonsense I’ve heard in 30 years on the force, how would you respond?’
‘I would totally agree, gov, because I wouldn’t want to spoil my chances of promotion. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.’
This piece was written in response to the weekly photo prompt offered by the Unicorn Challenge.
The rock industry continues to embrace every form of weirdness and the tradition continues with this all-alien band packing them out at the Lovely Jubbly Club in downtown Jamietown. White tie, top hat and tails meets the Cyclops brothers in this funky frenzy of intergalactic rock a la Sultans of Swing.
Sam the Sham on the synth deck lays down everything from Booker T to Mahler, as Guitar George pumps out a wail harvest of blues/metal/grunge riffs. Vocals come from Sod Vicious, former front man for the Sock Pistols, famous for attacking the audience with machetes, but now rendered armless by a bout of mosh pit revenge. And then there’s the peripatetic lines of bass laid down by Bruce the Jackal, interspersed with mackerel and red herrings.
A reasonable facsimile of the Prefab Four is captured in this street art generated by legendary Banksy copyist, Wanksy. Of course, Bruce is missing because the garage door wasn’t big enough on this occasion but a spokesperson for the elusive Wanksy has said he’s promised to start from the other end next time.
Fans of the band, who like to style themselves as Cyclo Psychos, dress up in their image, covering one eye and terrifying pensioners at the local shopping mall as they do Clockwork Orange versions of Fred Astaire.
Rock fans, the world has changed forever and you need to get on board before the gravy train leaves the station.
Accompanying playlist:
Sultans of Swing https://youtu.be/8Pa9x9fZBtY
Fred Astaire https://youtu.be/c0VeEqonEa0
Sex Pistols https://youtu.be/bC4RFY8vtuM
Six Crooked Highways 