Humour

It’s cold and dark here, so for this week’s piece of flash fiction, I let my imagination take me away to a tropical island. Join me?

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My guess is: it was some sort of WWII installation. A tiny island – only 15 metres at its widest point – and smooth red rock rather than the sandy beach, those cartoons about a man stranded on a desert island would lead you to expect.

And a huge pylon antenna right in the middle.

My guess is: I was going to die here.

A lot more rain than you’d expect, too. I sat under the antenna, wishing it provided some shelter, listening to the raindrops sizzle as they fell through the metal struts. Microwaved castaway: like that joke about only needing five minutes to get a full eight-hour sleep in the microwave bed. I’d be dead of thirst, exposure, or pure boredom in hours rather than days. Fine.

The rain sounded like music after a while, cheap 80s synth beats.

Then it sounded like voices: “This is an emergency broadcast, this is not a test. If you can hear this…”

That’s when the storm let up and it cut out. Murphy’s Law.

Was that how I came to be here? I couldn’t remember, the antenna must have fried my brain already. I left the psychological shelter of the antenna’s iron legs to search for my boat for answers.

#

No boat. No supplies. Was WWII still going on? Was I a prisoner of war?

Dummy, I’d learned about WWII in school. How could it still be going on?

Unless that’s what they wanted me to think. But who were they?

I didn’t really fancy touching the antenna in case I got electrocuted, but I had no more options, so I climbed to search for a clue as to what was going on.

And I found it. There was a little steel plate screwed to the back of the antenna – or brainwashing machine, or whatever it was. “Made in China” was stamped into the metal in block capitals.

They couldn’t do this to me. I was an American citizen.

Wasn’t I?

Looking at my hands didn’t help. I could have been American. Or anything else, really. Maybe I was a God? Of this whole island. And unless someone else came along – if there was anybody else, which seemed unlikely at the moment – I was God of everything else, too. I clambered away from my metal totem pole down the slippery rocks to the shore. There were crabs there.

I let the ones who worshipped me escape and ate the non-believers.

Some butter would have been nice to fry the meat under my microwave tower.

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This week’s flash fiction is a slice of life, inspired by the streets of Berlin…

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The Mercedes stuck half out of the parking spot on the road, blocking the cars driving by. By the time the driver came back, his windscreen sported a flapping yellow ticket. He drove off without noticing.

At the next traffic light, he spotted it. He had to interrupt his phone call with his friend to get out and confirm that it was really there.

The traffic light turned green while he stared. Horns rose around him. He didn’t notice. He had never had an accident! At least, he had never caused an accident. With all the lunatics on the roads, it was normal to have had a few bumps and scrapes.

The light turned red again. He gave the finger to the cars behind him, still beeping.

Beeping him for no reason. Idiots!

He crumpled up the ticket and threw it away.

How dare they?

He revved the engine and had to swerve around some idiot who had decided to cross the road right in front of him.

The traffic light turned green and the other cars started to move.

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So. Bis nächstes Mal, wa?*

*Translation, Berlin -> English: Fare thee well, yes?

As the world slowly comes out of lockdown, we’re all going to have to get used to flying again. I hate flying!

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It wasn’t that if even the slightest thing went wrong, he’d plunge to his death after an interminable and exhilarating dive from above the clouds. It was the tiny bathrooms he hated most about flying. He managed to finish and wash his hands without brushing up against any of the puddled surfaces.

When he tried to slide its silver bolt, the door wouldn’t open, though the bolt moved easily. All he’d managed to do was turn off the light in the cubicle-ette.

“Hello?” He called. People were gasping and shouting outside as the plane tilted again. This time the right wing went up and something – somebody – hit the door hard, even as Miles threw out his arms against the walls, catching both elbows nasty jars in the cramped box, to avoid being tossed against the toilet.

The Intercom crackled and spat white noise before, very clearly, he heard a gunshot. The screams outside increased in volume and pitch, and the plane veered sharply down, nosediving as if to get away. Miles listened furiously in the dark toilet cubicle. This was the worst thing about flying: plunging to his death, while stuck in the toilet. Outside, gunshots, screams, and wind whistled, papers snapped as bullet pierced the Perspex windows.

After they landed, Miles was bundled out of the plane with the other passengers, his hands held high. Watched with, he thought, a touch more suspicion than the passengers who’d been seated. They were subjected to searches. Ugh, thought Miles, security checks. This is the part he hated most about flying.

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I prefer trains. See you next week!

For today’s flash fiction, I reminisce about my time as a building manager.

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They could sit at the edge of the unfinished fourth floor because the safety guy wasn’t there. It wasn’t like you could really fall off the edge while you are having lunch, and it felt good to enjoy something you had made. Brick was dying out in favour of concrete, even though concrete was so much worse for the climate.

“Oh, shit!” Rick pointed with half a beef-tongue sandwich. Andrew, the safety guy, was getting out of his car at the edge of the building site, and he was staring straight at them.

They scattered, stuffing a last bite of food into their mouths and grabbing their things. Down below, Andrew was running towards the building, his clipboard in his hand. Rick raced to the roof. He could hide in the unfinished chimney, though it wouldn’t be comfortable. The rest raced for whatever hiding place they could find. Brett headed for the stairs and was intercepted by Andrew’s “Hey!” Paperwork finished him off.

The safety guy was coming.

Paul waited for his footsteps to get close, then slipped down through a hole left in the floor for pipes, twisting his ankle when he landed.

“I know you’re here,” said Andrew. Dave and Charles looked innocent, pretending to measure the gap for the window on the other side of the building, but Andrew didn’t fall for it and bombarded them with forms.

Up on the roof, Rick’s grip was loosening on the board over the chimney. There was only another thin one below his feet, and it shook as Andrew’s voice reverberated up through the hole. He was close.

Andrew got four of them altogether. Not a bad score. It was for their own good. He had just decided to call it a day when a lunchbox shot out of a chimney close by. What were they playing at now? He poked his head into the chimney to see what was going on, just in time to break Rick’s fall.

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Stay safe out there, I’ll see you next week!

Hi all, possibly inspired by the (unsuccessful) attempt to unionise workers at a US-based Amazon warehouse, we’re going to dive right in and tackle the complexities of industrial relations. Don’t worry, it’ll be fun.

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The witch listened to the villagers murmuring outside until it started to bother her. “Come in, if you’re coming!” she called. And then, because it was her job – and being a witch was a union gig, she could get in trouble – she cackled.

There was a long pause before they filed into her office in the woods. “Close the door behind you, you’re letting the magic out.” The green twisting smoke pushed past people’s faces as they came in, as if it had its own plans for the day. The witch tried a smile to put them at their ease. It turned into another cackle.

“It’s about the frog’s legs,” said the delegation’s spokesperson, a large fellow with dainty moustachios. He pointed around the office walls, which held countless small bags of supplies, each with a cardboard backing which had instructions printed on the reverse side. Frog’s legs filled a large majority of the bags: they were extremely popular. “It’s got to stop,” said the man, who she recognised from earlier union disputes. He was the leader of the French chef’s union. “There aren’t enough to go round, we need those legs, too.”

“Sorry,” said the witch. “I’m required to sell ‘em. Union rules.”

“What about us? Some of our newer members have barely seen frogs’ legs.” A number of fresh faced chefs, barely old enough for moustachios, nodded nervously but with passionately flushed cheeks.

“Maybe you can tell us where you get your frogs from,” said the man.

She leaned closer. “I make ‘em,” she cackled.

“You wouldn’t dare,” said the large man. “We’re all union members!”

“Course not” she said. “Just… pulling your legs.” And she laughed a proper laugh and her eyes twinkled.

The representative of the French chef’s union counted his members when they got back to the village. But he hadn’t counted before they left, so he wasn’t quite sure if someone was missing. “Right,” he said. “How about we concentrate on snails, no one is using them?”

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See you next week!

Morgan

I recently had a conversation with someone who insisted on telling me something that WE BOTH KNEW FOR A FACT was not true. So that’s where this story comes from. Enjoy!

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They kept referring to it as Central City’s tallest building, even as the spire and top ten stories had to come off, because the weight was cracking the foundations.

It was still pretty big.

Then, one morning, it looked shorter. It was sinking into the ground.

By the time everyone assembled, it was midnight. The Great and Gracious Sultan of the country did not like to be summoned. But he was willing to be present when the architect and the construction manager insisted that, only he, the Great and Gracious Sultan could help them figure out what to do. If the ground was as solid as the Sultan’s Grand Engineer (and son-in-law) had told them, then it was inexplicable that the building should sink. The Great and Gracious Sultan clapped the Grand Engineer around the ear-hole, then went to see what he could do.

The answer, of course, was simple. No mistake had been made. The building was too beautiful to be seen by common people, some of whom had said mean things about it, and even meaner things about the Great Engineer, when he had – admittedly quite late in the project – suddenly decided to have the top 10 stories and the spire removed, after deciding that he preferred the old-fashioned style of uncracked foundations. The building could take no more and was retreating into the ground.

But this was a wonderful opportunity! For each storey the building sank, they could add another storey above ground. And who said that the only way to build a tall building was to have it sticking out of the ground?

Well, from now on the Sultan would show that a building could start anywhere, even underground. All the architect and construction manager needed to do was to ensure that each storey had its own entrance in the ceiling, so that the people who were supposed to be working there could continue to access the building.

What?

Certainly they should continue to work there!

And the Great and Gracious Sultan clapped his hands and when he got home, he smirked at the Great Engineer and his daughter hugged him and whispered in the Sultan’s ear, and they both looked at the Great Engineer and laughed.

And the building work continues to this day!

One day, perhaps, the foundations will pop out through the Earth’s crust on the other side of the planet, and if they keep building, then it will be two of the world’s tallest buildings, the Great and Gracious Sultan be praised!

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