A Taste of Chlorine

A Taste of Chlorine.

Did you hear the possums last night? Up in the roof?

Sorry, I say, I didn’t.

It sounded like a stampede, she says. Like a wild party.

Why weren’t we invited? I chuckle. Nah, I was asleep.

I forgot, she says. You sleep deep.

I had a dream, I say.

Now you’re sounding like Martin Luther King. What was yours?

I was swimming laps in the pool. I was the only one there. I came out exhausted but exhilarated. That’s when I came in to see you.

You better have a shower then.

Why’s that?

You smell of chlorine.

Lady Bay

Lady Bay

Molly and Tom are sipping G & T’s on the porch of their third room apartment overlooking the golf course.

“It is so peaceful here, “ Molly remarks.

The main road passes the links where cars pick up speed after leaving the confines of a 50 k zone but their roar is swallowed by the distance from the apartments and the vastness of the course.

Just then Tom’s eyes lift as he notices a vehicle driving over the green. It has just come off the road.

It slows down and stops. Two figures in dark blue uniform dash out.

“It looks like a police van,” Tom remarks. “What are they doing on the course?”

Just then three shots ring out. Then silence. There is a scuffle of some sort. Within a few minutes the van drives off.

Later at dinner Tom and Molly learn from their waiter that a king ‘roo had been hit by a SUV and wandered onto the course, broken and bloody, “scaring the bejesus out of the oldies”.

That it was the night before Halloween did not go unnoticed.

Siberia

Siberia

We arrived late at night. That may have been the reason.

Or maybe our reputation preceded us.

Either way we ended up in Siberia, Room 313 , the furthest most room from the front desk, next to the storage area.

Adele, the desk clerk, wasn’t much help. In her effort to be genial, she often hit the wrong note.

Eventually, we got our keys and lugged our baggage down the long, long corridor, the shadows across the carpet hulking and ominous.

By the time we got to our room we were stuffed,

We stripped off and hopped beneath the covers of the king size bed.

That’s when I realized we had company.

The figure beside me shifted uneasily  

Me & Mrs, Crasthorpe

I am going to bed with Mrs. Crasthorpe.

I have been to bed with her before.

It was a most pleasant experience.

Her husband is dead. She is a free woman now.

She is fit and feisty and when she’s breathed in the briny air of Eastbourne, she loosens up and tells me.

She has generously full lips. blonde hair and grey-blue eyes and is the ripe old age of 59.

Nothing unseemly passes between us, however.

Sadly she is an invention of William Trevor.

What She Saw

You look like  a newt

in yr birthday suit

she said with clear élan.

A little blemished.

Somewhat unfinished.

A strange fit of a man.

I’ve read yr text.

I know what’s next

& up the stairs she ran

Will It Be Painless?

Is it any good pleading? Thompson says.

For your life? Not really.

But you can’t just toss me aside like a dog carcass, not after all I’ve done for you.

You were more than serviceable, Hunter admits. But you’ve served your purpose. You can’t argue with me.

Will it be painless?

Yes.

Well, get it over with then.

One minute, Hunter says.

He reaches into his satchel and pulls out his laptop.

Finish your drink, Hunter says. Out with the old and in with the new, he smiles, keyboarding fiercely.

He taps the delete button.

And with that, Thompson is gone.

They See Ghosts

I was talking to my rarely glimpsed neighbour who was out the front raking the leaves.

We chewed the fat for a while

and then I asked him about Gus, his elderly Jack Russel.

He doesn’t annoy you. does he? he asked.

Not at all, I said. I’m a dog person.

Well, he annoys the hell out of me, he said. The other day he was barking at the dining room wall and wouldn’t stop. There was nothing there.

Apparently, they see ghosts, I said. Even in the dark.

He stopped raking.

Or he has dementia? He offered.

Wow! I said. That would open a can of worms. Think how many documented ghost sightings could be put down to dementia.

People don’t bark at walls, he said.

Not even in they’re barking mad ? I asked.

We both laughed uneasily.

Inside, the dog began barking again.

My Genetic Flaw

Your canal’s very narrow, he says.

Narrow?

Yes, like the Thai tunnel cave divers had to negotiate to get those boys out. Not  much sound can get through. There are no cave divers small enough to help it along.

Like that film in the sixties? I say.

Which film is that?

‘Fantastic Voyage’, where a submarine crew are shrunk to microscopic size and injected into the bloodstream of a scientist to repair his brain.

Can’t help you there, he says.

Is it hereditary then?

Quite possible. The left auditory canal is quite large. Can carry a lot of sound.

Maybe that’s why I lean a little to the left, I say.

Politically? he asks.

No, doc. When I walk.

• pic courtesy of Pinterest

Taking Over

You’re taking over, she says.

Am I? I say. I didn’t know that.

You men are all the same, she says.

I go away and think about it.

Can one take over without even realizing it?

Did Alexander the Great conquer all those kingdoms without

even being aware of it?

Did Genghis Khan?

Did these warrior leaders perform their actions with sleight-of-hand

fooling even themselves?

Take over? Who? Me?

I talk to my therapist who is mightily amused at the very notion.

She said what? Who? You?

I take a good look in the mirror as I pass by.

Ummm. My tentacles do seem to have grown longer.

pic by pinterest. Andrei-Pervukhin on DeviantArt

Stuck in the Moment

Someone once said, be in the moment otherwise you will miss your life.

I don’t know about that.

Once I was stuck in the moment.

It was like being stuck in a lift.

I was going nowhere.

Not even up and down.

There was no way out.

No alarm button to press.

No side passages to explore like in a labyrinth.

I was stuck. In the moment.

That moment when at three in the morning

the phone shrieked at us

from the hallway.

I could hear the old Minotaur lurching down the tunnels

of my brain.

I tried not to panic.

Tried smoking a cigarette

Humming a tune

Studying a fly on the wall

Studying me

Reciting my nine times tables

the alphabet back to front —

do you know how difficult that is? —

And then suddenly SNAP

I was out of it.

I don’t know how long I was in the moment.

But I did wonder if I’d ever

Get out and join

The flow of life again.