This piece has been adapted from a longer work about my days as a roadie for largely forgettable rock bands in the 1970’s. It responds to the Six Sentence Challenge prompt word of ‘band’.

This was a new band I was ‘auditioning’ for as their full-time roadie, in a sticky-carpeted outer suburban hotel where,  as the afternoon wore on and the band ground out their set and the beer flowed, a group of young men walked in and stood surveying the scene with cold eyes.

The hairs on the back of my neck told me all I needed to know as their leader strode to the bar, ordered a round of beers and marched through the dancing crowd until he got the result he wanted, a collision with a dancing man.

The fully intended brawl began and chaos ensued, with a chair sailing through the air and striking a heavily pregnant woman in the head and her partner hurling himself into the melee to ‘avenge’ her.

The band fled to the back lane, leaving me to defend their gear as best I could by shoving people off the stage with a mike stand and threatening brain damage with its base to the chief aggressors.

Then, as suddenly as they came, the barbarians left, laughing amongst themselves on their way out, proudly displaying their injuries and the band returned cautiously to watch as I restored order on stage and ask if I was OK.

I said, ‘Yeah, sure’ and as they headed to the bar, I made my exit and drove away. The band had failed the audition.

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

He had shape, in the sense that a woman bearing twins has shape but he carried it much lower, folded over his belt that was cinched to his hips, which led to wags saying that he had a veranda over his toy shop.

He had substance, in the sense that he was ‘comfortably off’, a euphemism for owning a two-storey mansion with 12 rooms and 5 bathrooms in a quiet leafy suburb where the closest thing to crime was your gardener mowing your lawn at an unseemly hour, several cars, a yacht, a private jet, and an unknown number of untraceable accounts in the Cayman Islands.

He had presence, in the sense of that indefinable confidence that comes with a private school education, an old boys network in every profession, an impeccable little black book of guys who know a guy who knows a guy that could fix any unpleasant attempted inroads into his fiefdom, and a bevy of judges and legislators whose penchant for social improprieties made them permanent targets for blackmail.

He had import, in the sense that he could always be relied on for a quote for the supine media from a ‘respected business figure’ expressing concern about the latest attempt by politicians to raise taxes or regulate industry and who was known to be a generous supporter of the arts and hospitals filled with machines that go ‘ping’.

He had spirit, in the sense of being seen as some sort of devil-may-care maverick who was unafraid to speak his mind when it came to business matters and the wave of political correctness that he saw as subverting the natural order of things, where everyone knew their place and stayed in it.

But most of all he had ‘form’, that quintessentially British term used to indicate that someone has a reputation for skullduggery, criminal wrongdoing and disdain for the social strictures placed on mere mortals but in his case somehow miraculously never resulted in charges being laid or convictions achieved, which is why, Your Honour, I had no option but to terminate him with extreme prejudice.

These pieces were written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘sin’.

Sin – Disambiguation from Wackypedia

Sin-22 – Catch-all for any sins we forgot first time around

Sincerity – That which once you can fake, you’ve got it made

‘Sin – Cry sometimes heard from the putting green

Syntax – Inexhaustible form of government revenue

Moccasin –  1. The sin of mockery             2. Adding chocolate to espresso coffee

Sinnindipity – The accidental discovery of someone who shares the same guilty pleasures

How Karen became AWESOME

Karen trawled the internet constantly, often feverishly, in search of evidence that the world was conspiring to bruise her soul at every turn and she was rarely disappointed, leaving her in a constant state of distress, a state she lamented to her ever-diminishing circle of online ‘friends’ (her real-life friends and family having long since departed the scene).

However, over time, she began to realise that her scattergun approach to attracting sympathy was simply not gaining her enough attention and she needed to find a way to harness an army of put-upon kindred souls that would one day crown her as the Queen of Outrageous Misfortune.

Slowly she crafted a conspiracy theory that centred on a Government plot to de-sensitise the citizenry to the daily assaults on their delicate and precious sense of self that she called the Toughen Up Plot (or TUP) and her acolytes became TUPpers, who brought forward endless stories of callousness that led to the scars known as ‘TUPper wear’.

The first to join in were the left-handed Catholics, closely followed by the victims of the ‘blue and green should never be seen’ tyranny, and then in quick succession, they were joined by vegans traumatised by ads for butcher shops, lottery losers not offered grief counselling and comfort dogs, University students in therapy because their lecturer mentioned a writer who was not ‘woke’, and mothers who breast-fed in public who felt blanked because no-one told them they were offended, and the list kept growing.

Karen was ecstatic; she had won the Internet but then, just as suddenly, she lost it.

She had succumbed to Andy Warhol Erasure Syndrome – Optimum Media Extent (aka AWESOME), in that she had become famous for 15 minutes and her time was up, which consigned her to a Living Hell of Irrelevance for indulging in the Sin of Pride, Subsection 2, Clause ii, ‘Preciousness’.

Bonus stoning scene – https://youtu.be/Cnn2aGVcCEc

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

Bert and Gladys were folding up the tent on their camper trailer when Bert said “Gladys, you know how we were sleeping in the space inside the tent last night?”

Gladys said ruefully “Well, you were doing most of the sleeping while I lay there listening to your snoring but, yes, I do recall we were in bed in the tent last night.”

Bert mused “So when we folded up the tent just now, where did the space go that was inside the tent?”

Gladys gave him one of those ‘is this one of the early warning gaga signs?’ looks and said “Bert, it didn’t go anywhere; it’s still there but now it’s not an enclosed space, it is now free space, unencumbered by tent-ness.”

“But how do you know we didn’t just fold up our space when we folded the tent and it will be released again when we unfold it next time?” questioned Bert.

“Bert”, said Gladys, ”I think we should just head home and from now on you can sleep in the garage, in the space in the tent, so you can be sure it doesn’t disappear, and I’ll be able to get lost in the infinite space of sleep.”

Footnote: The idea for this piece about ‘where does the space go?’ was inspired by the book ‘Divine Right’s Trip’ by Norman Gurney, which was originally printed in installments in the Whole Earth Catalog in 1971.

These pieces were written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘path’.

Path-ology

(Acknowledgement – I am indebted to Perambulation T. Biped, Professor of Path-ology at Forkintheroad University, for providing the following definitions and clarifications for new students of this discipline.)

Psycho-path – Walking trail to the Bates Motel – not to be confused with cycle path, the home of MAMMILs (Middle Aged Men In Lycra)

Path-OS – A very wide path

Patho-logical – Addicted to the shortest distance between two points (not to be confused with path-illogical, the propensity to wander around aimlessly carrying a water bottle)

Naturo-path – Trail used by nudists

Homeo-path – Navigation system used by pigeons

Sidewalk – mythological (US) means of progressing along a footpath while remaining horizontal

Spike’s final resting place

As Phoebe drove home with her husband, Spike, strapped into the passenger seat, she decided it was time for some home truths.

‘Spike, in all our married years, never once did you praise anything I did or nourish me when it mattered. Far from putting me on a pedestal, you never missed an opportunity to put down my ‘stupidity’.’

Silence.

Phoebe arrived home, unstrapped Spike’s urn and removed the lid. She emptied his ashes into the instant-mix concrete slurry and completed her path to the front gate.

‘You can look up to me now, Spike. Every day.’

PLUS – Shameless plug for my new short fiction collection ‘On the verge of extinction’ just published on Amazon (digital and print versions available). https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7L4JYJY

These pieces have been re-worked from two of my previous longer stories to meet the strictures of the Six Sentence Challenge and the prompt word ‘bookmark’.

Mark Martian and Eddie Earthling discuss novels

Mark Martian said to Eddie Earthling ‘Eddie, what are you doing?’ and Eddie replied ‘I’m writing a book, Mark, or a novel to be precise’ which led to Mark’s query ‘What is a novel?’

Eddie explained that it was a collection of pages with writing on them that contain a long story about characters the author has invented.

Mark looked puzzled and asked ‘What purpose do they serve?’ to which Eddie replied ‘People read them for their amusement.

Mark laughed and said ‘Why have your people never evolved?’ to which Eddie replied tartly ‘We’re working on it. In the meantime, I’m writing a novel.’

Realising that he may have offended Eddie, Mark said ‘So what will your ‘long story’ be about?’ to which Eddie replied ‘It’s about a man who has conversations with a Martian.’

Mark scoffed ‘But that’s not an invention, it’s true’ to which Eddie responded quietly ‘Only if I say so, Mark’ and returned to his keyboard.

Bach Pastorale

Geoffrey imagined a pastoral nirvana when he retired to his ramshackle country cottage.

As he broke up the hardened clay in the ‘garden’ of his new home, he saw a young lad dressed in torn jeans and a brand-name T-shirt, watching his place. In the city, he would have imagined the boy was probably hatching a plan to rob him but not here he smiled to himself and continued his labour.

Later that night, the boy looked into Geoffrey’s front room window and spied the layback chair where Geoffrey was stretched out, accompanied a half-empty whisky bottle, an ashtray full of butts, a tattered paperback with a chocolate wrapper as a bookmark and a thick, battered wallet.

Geoffrey wore a pair of large last century headphones, his eyes closed tightly and his arms gesturing rhythmically as he clutched a wooden spoon baton in his right hand, conducting the Bach concerto blaring from his speakers.

Geoffrey believed the myth that country people don’t lock their doors, so the boy entered easily and silently, grabbed the wallet and padded, in his stolen Nikes, into the welcoming night.

+ Shameless Plug

I am delighted to announce the launch of my collection of short fiction, ‘On the verge of extinction’, now available at Amazon.com in the US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7L4JYJY and at https://tinyurl.com/mt3f7yp4 in Australia and https://tinyurl.com/3c6bv3rp in the UK. If you are a Kindle Unlimited member, it’s free anywhere!

Any and all support will be gratefully received.

This piece was written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘coffee’ (which is a name misleadingly given by Starbucks to 497 varieties of brown dishwater served in buckets to entitled millennial wannabes who place orders longer and louder than the Gettysburg Address).

Over coffee, Arabella was lamenting the loss of her latest boyfriend with her friend, Babs, when Babs interrupted to say that the trouble with Arabella was that she was far too serious and should be more bubbly.

Arabella was appalled by the idea of pretending to be an airhead to attract a man, so the next evening at a social event when a man approached her, before he could speak, she blurted out ‘I’m a committed environmentalist and I hate jokes.’

The man smiled and asked if she would accompany him to the Natural History Museum this Sunday to see the exhibition on the effects of plastics in oceans.

Agreeably surprised, Arabella agreed but when she arrived address he’d given her, he said he’d had a better idea and had hired a boat so they could go looking for dolphins, which delighted Arabella even more.

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, ignoring his pleas that he couldn’t swim, and as his last effervescence rose to the surface, she immediately felt …. more bubbly.

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

Stop me if you’ve heard this but there’s this woman who’s dumped her gaslighting partner and exchanged him for a new bloke she’s pretty keen on.

Being a modern liberated woman, she decides to take the initiative and says to him (bold as brass) “I think we should move in together and I want a life commitment.”

And the bloke goes, “Nah, those things are always breakin’ down and they cost too much to repair.”

So the woman goes, “So why don’t we build a better one then, one with lots of spare love, a big, beautiful bed and no boredom allowed?”

And the bloke thinks for a while then goes, “Alright, alright, but there’s a few conditions.”

So she listens and she listens and she listens,

and then she goes, she goes,

she goes

away.

These two pieces were written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘labyrinth’. There is a tenuous connection between them for the eagle-eyed but I hope they can each stand alone, even though they’re together. 😉

Before entering the labyrinth

In 1958, Maxwell Stuart, an Indigenous man was arrested for the murder of a nine-year-old white girl in the remote South Australian town of Ceduna.

Stuart was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, a decision that was upheld on two appeals and a subsequent Royal Commission investigation, headed by the same Judge who had originally convicted Stuart.

On death row, Stuart met a Catholic priest, who was the first to ask questions about the ‘confession’ beaten out of him by the Police and this pricked the interest of the editor of the Adelaide News.

The News began featuring explosive stories unfolding new details of the case showing that Stuart couldn’t possibly have been guilty, sparking a huge increase in the paper’s circulation, and the newspaper heavily funded a campaign against the death penalty, targeting then South Australian Premier, Thomas Playford, who eventually, reluctantly, commuted Stuart’s penalty to life imprisonment.

After 11 years in jail and decades of parole, Stuart went on to lead a second life as a respected tribal Arrente man, welcoming the Queen to Alice Springs on at least one occasion.

That crusading Editor of the Adelaide News was Rupert Murdoch.

Location: Lab, Yrinth

I was in my lab in Yrinth (the lesser known sister city to Corinth), being interviewed by Cosimo Politanous, the alleged ‘science writer’ from the Yrinth Truth, a tabloid in the Murdokipedes media empire.

Having hastily signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement, Cosimo feigned the ignorance of the innocent enquirer and asked, “Is it possible, through your work on the hidden pathways of the brain, to navigate to the source of a lie and, if so, is it possible to remove that source, so that no further lies can be generated?”

Not fooled for a moment, I poured him a glass of my best ouzo and jested “If you are asking ‘are we on the verge of a brain-based version of Google Maps?’ then the answer has to be ‘no’; we are still in the realms of mud maps, a concept with which your newspaper is no doubt familiar.’

Cosimo was nothing if not nimble and, hoping to catch me off guard, said “So the rumours that you are on the verge of being able to re-write the labyrinthine brain circuits of conspiracy theorists, politicians and climate deniers for the benefit of society are untrue?”

I stood to indicate the interview was over and Cosimo sighed, downed his ouzo in one gulp, put away his notebook, and then suddenly pitched face forward onto my lab bench.

I picked up the phone, called my assistant, Melina Megastarkis, and said ‘Doctor, I have the newest volunteer for your research, complete with his signed consent form.’

These two less than serious tales are in response to the Six Sentence Challenge presented each week at Girlie on the Edge, with the prompt word of ‘strike’.

Beaten by a stretch

As the striker on the old stadium clock struck six, Steve ‘Stinky’ Stilton swung three bats to stretch his stiff arms, all the time chanting in his staccato stentorian voice ‘Today I will not strike out!’

When it came to his turn to bat, he manfully stemmed all thoughts of distress and strife, stepped up to the plate and stared at Sebastian ‘Stretch’ Santanna on the steppe known as the mound.

Stretch wound up and, with striations bulging on his pitching hand, hurled a white satellite in Stinky’s direction and he watched it seem to orbit the strike zone before landing slap in Solomon ‘Stumblebum’ Silverstein’s catcher’s glove and the umpire, Segacious ‘Sightless’ Schickelgruber’s voice howled ‘Steeeeerike 1’, stabbing his finger into the ether.

Stinky steadied his sticky resin-coated hands and blinked away the sweat beginning to stream down his brow and stated firmly to himself ‘Saw that coming, all part of the plan, stew in your juice, Stretch.’

Stretch arched his slender spine and span like a top before delivering his famous well-disguised sliding gesunder ball, with a vicious curve at the end, that steered clear of the edge of Stinky’s bat as he swung, creating an air stream that rivalled Hurricane Katrina, and Sightless yodeled ‘Steeerike 2’.

Mustering all of his muscular and mental strength, Stinky picked the straight-as-a-die sucker ball emerging from Stretch’s fingers and felt the tinny but satisfying thwack of aluminium on leather and then saw in horror that the ball had lodged teeth-shatteringly in Stretch’s mouth, as Sightless intoned ‘Batter out’ and swept his arm toward the bench.

Diogenes, dodgy knees and doggedness – Extract from Wackypedia

Diogenes, the Ancient Greek, lived in a clay wine barrel and laughed at the pretensions of men, hence the expression ‘a barrel of laughs’.

He carried a lamp in broad daylight in his search for a man, arguing that the brainless residents of Athens did not qualify for that term.

When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes he asked if there was anything he could do for him and Diogenes replied, ‘Yes, get out of my sunlight. I need to warm my dodgy knees.’

He was often called dog-like, which he took as a compliment because he believed dogs live in the present without anxiety, have no use for the pretensions of abstract philosophy, and instinctively know who is friend and who is foe.

Where he differed, he would often say, was in the fact that ‘other dogs bite their enemies, I bite my friends, to save them’.

The first cosmopolitan (he invented the word), he was stateless, homeless, shameless and free, on strike from alleged civilisation.