Realism

Hi everyone, I’ve been to a few galleries in my time. There were several near where I used to work, so it was a good way to get a drink. But I never saw anything like this…

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You had to show your cock to get into one of Breckham’s “things.” It was lewd or life changing, depending on who you asked, and just one of the reasons the critics hated him. I can assure you he paid more attention to the flash of a Patek Philippe or Rado on the wrist than what was being fished from between the steel teeth of the zipper.

The starkly white walls of the space were hung with kitschy gold framed canvases, all blank. The walls around them were daubed with neon paint. I was admiring the one closest to me: the blank square canvas the focus of a swirl of purple green and yellow that made me think irresistibly of water leaving a sink after a hippy had tie-dyed a T-shirt there, when Lena walked in.

I knocked back my wine and grabbed another one before the fireworks started. As always, Lena had taken the thing too far. She strolled around with not one, but two joke shop penises hanging over the elastic of her waistband. Breckham wouldn’t like that, but that was the point. When he saw her, he grabbed for the penises. She managed to hold on to one of them, and the thing turned into a bendy latex sword fight.

It looked good, but was clearly choreographed, at least to my eyes. But then, as his agent, I knew Lena was not just his most vocal critic, but also his business partner and lover. They fought their way around the room, crashing into guests now and again, until Lena had worked her way around to the table at the back where Breckham’s ink-filled phalluses stood. She grabbed a handful of the dicks and, slapping Breckham on the side of the head, knocking his glasses off, she raced around the walls squirting a glob of colour right into the centre of each of the blank canvases.

We made it into all the newspapers the next day. Not just the art sections, but the actual “news” parts. We didn’t sell any of the art. Breckham gave some interviews, magnanimous in agreeing that perhaps his art had become too phallocentric. We let that settle in, while I wondered how many zeros to add to the “defaced” canvases when they finally did go on sale.

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If you’re signed up to my newsletter, keep an eye on your mailboxes this Saturday for a special Choose Your Own Adventure style short story. If not, sign up here to avoid missing any more!

We’re going home for this week’s piece of flash fiction. Or at least to school. Enjoy!

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We always took the tanyard shortcut to school after lunch. We only had half an hour and spent a lot of that time queueing for a go on the chip shop’s arcade machines. The school’s principal hated it and used to lie in wait where you came out of the trees that surrounded the school grounds. No one at the tanyard minded us traipsing through, except for Paddy Short and his dog. The tanyard was what nowadays would be called a Business District, or maybe an Incubator. In those days, it was just the tanyard, where businesses went to struggle, shrivel and die. Converted old sheds with battered trucks with telephone numbers on the side.

A dog might scare off intruders, but it was a magnet to schoolkids. Nothing made sneaking into school via the forbidden tanyard more exciting, than first kicking on the gnawed door of the shed where Paddy kept the animal locked up to make it bark, then running off before Paddy came out with his walking stick over his head, his jaws working in rage.

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I hadn’t thought about it in years, but when I went back to the town to take care of matters after my mother died, I found myself down at the tanyard. Ireland was in the middle of a property frenzy, and the rundown sheds had bloomed into large outlet-style “bathroom paradise” businesses. Still right at the back was Paddy Short’s shed.

And then, maybe out of habit, I thought I’d kick at the door where the dog had lived.

“I wouldn’t do that,” said a voice. The principal. I recognised him immediately, though it was thirty years since I had last seen him.

“I suppose he’s no longer there anyway, is he?”

“Paddy? Oh, he’s there, all right.”

“But he must be 100 by now.”

“Something like that.” He had come up to me and I had my back to the shed. “You prick. I was never able to catch you. But I have you now.”

The venom in his voice! Then he kicked the door and ran off. Before I could move, a hand snaked out and grabbed me.

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See you next Thursday!

Morgan

Hi all, welcome back to another piece of flash fiction!

Now, I don’t mean to boast, but I have accounts with two separate banks. They handle security and logging in differently. One of them does it very well.

This story is more about the other one.

Enjoy!

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“Thank you for calling the Your Bank! hotline. I’m Trina, how can I help you?”
“Hi. I can’t login online. It says my account has been blocked?”
“Have you forgotten your password?”
“No.”
Silence.
“Do you need me to confirm it, or…”
“No! Sir! Please never give your password to anyone.”
“I wasn’t going to! Just confirm the last few digits, or something.”
“Sir, providing access to your account to third parties is in violation of the agreement you signed when you joined up. Never give your password to anyone.”
John rolled his eyes.
“Sir?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll need to confirm your data. What’s your address?”
“1216 Blue Tree, Arkansas.”
“Correct. Mother’s maiden name?”
“Delphine.”
“Correct. Date of birth?”
“Mine? Um, March 14th, ’83.”
“You’re doing very well, sir.”
He glanced at the phone’s screen. Eight minutes already.
“Now. If you could only take two of your siblings on the helicopter to escape a terrorist attack, which one would you leave behind?”
John waited for her to say “just kidding!”
“Sir? That’s a time-sensitive question.”
“I…”
“Paul, Andrew or Frank.”
“Frank, I sup—”
“Correct.”
Correct?
“Aaand last question: if Paul or Andrew had to die – and remember, this is a hypothetical – if one of them had to die, which should it be? Paul or Andrew?”
“Paul.” Paul was a dick.
“Correct! Thank you, sir, you can now access your account.”
The voice on the other end of the phone stopped talking, but the line stayed open.
“What should I…?” John lowered his voice.
“Sir?”
“What should I do about Andrew?”

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Hi all, here’s a little story about someone who thinks they’re it. Don’t worry, they’ll get a chance to learn something. Enjoy!

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Pop.

Another one bagged. I lay my feet on the tiger-skin upholstered foot rest and sip at my gin and tonic. I love summer.

I wait for the starlings to settle, then strain my ears for the sounds of the servants rustling through the trees.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t enjoy shooting the servants. But it’s a tradition. Survival of the fittest, and all that. That’s an expression I rather like.

Of course, you have to be a sport about it. That’s why I’m upset to find my eyesight getting dark, and the gun slipping from my fingers. Poison in the gin, of course. Hardly fair. But underlines my point, I think? Give an inch, and they’ll take a mile, and all that.

Who’s shooting at me? How can a butler be such a bloody good shot? I dive further back into the trees, running for my life.

It’s not fair!

Here’s the first post of the new year. A weird little something which I whipped up while having a cup of tea. It might help if you imagine that the interviewer looks a bit like Terry Wogan. On the other hand it might not. Feel free to pretend that YOU are the interviewer. Enjoy!

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“Room for a little one?” he said.
Talking to himself while doing cocaine was one of his more irritating habits, she thought.
He snorted, then massaged his nose wetly with his fingertips. She led him to his seat in front of the cameras. That was what she resented most: he didn’t need to be led to a chair he sat in five evenings a week. How was that even a job?

Opposite him was the unoccupied chair. The guest was always a surprise. She melted into the crew on the other side of the camera.

And then: the interviewer’s mother. Everyone laughed. They hadn’t been expecting that. She started talking, and the room went silent. Across the country, the living rooms all went silent. She was so wise – they could see where he had got it from.

There was no need for coke in the dressing room anymore. She made him warm milk, then picked him up and carried him to the chair in front of the cameras. He curled up in her lap. Sometimes he let his eyes close as he lay against her bosom, while she chatted to the guests.

The editor’s on the third floor. His editor’s on the seventh floor, and the scheduler is on the eighth floor, but in the other wing of the building. I have to see the scheduler to arrange for the editor to read my manuscript, but first I have to visit his editor (that’s the one on the seventh floor) to find out when he has “capacity.” Then the scheduler will contact my editor to work out when he can check my last draft, and when he needs the next one. She can’t contact the editor’s editor because that’s the job of her scheduler, who’s been pinched by the marketing team in order to arrange for the bookmarks to come out in advance of the book. She’s still grouchy about it and HR don’t have time to get a replacement as they’re understaffed. She’s doing me a favour in even seeing me.

“Baskin has time on July the third, 2022”—That’s 18 months away. What am I going to do until then?—“but we need to lock it in with him now.” I keep my voice neutral, there’s no point in getting her back up.

“I don’t have time in July,” she says.

“That’s okay, it’s only me he needs to see. And I’m free.”

She sighs. “As per company memo dated…” She taps at her computer. She ignores the ringing phone. She ignores me. “…17 June 2020: ‘the scheduler may decide that their presence is required at author-editor meetings to ensure scheduled meetings are for the purpose for which they were scheduled.’”

“But what else what I be scheduling it for?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “But what are you going to be doing until then?”

“I don’t know.” I think. “Working,” I say.

She gives me a look. “I can do September,” she says.

“I asked about other dates while I was there. He told me July was the only window. Look, I can record the meeting for you. I just want to get my book out. It’s been—“

“We all want to get your book out, Mr Harlowe. That’s why we need to make sure everything is locked in. You’re hardly earning your advance running from one office to another. F_____ Publishing is carrying you and has been for quite some time. I can assure you we are most keen to see some return on our investment.”

“What if I helped out as an assistant? Between writing.”

“Oh, nice try,” she says. “Don’t think I haven’t heard that before.” Her mood is restored. “Now run back to Mr Baskin and ask again about September. If not 2021, then perhaps 2022.”

“2022?”

“Or 2023. Really, you’re wasting time. Hurry before the window closes.”

I walk back to Mr Baskin to find out if he will have time to see me in two-and-a-half years, so we can start editing my manuscript. The sun is hazy in the walkway between the two wings of F_____ Publishing. It’s cold outside and people scurry past on the street. It must be Christmas soon, and I allow myself to imagine that they’re all rushing back from the bookstore, eager to open the book they just bought. It’s got my name on it. An idle fantasy to cheer myself up. F_____ Publishing is still quite some way away from that. In the meantime, I help edit other manuscripts. Anything to help the editors get through the slush pile. And the scheduler is right. I’m not earning my money back. At least I’m helping out. Since the advance disappeared, I live in one of the dormitories where the authors live. I give myself a shake and keep walking. I’m glad I’m not outside, anyway. It looks cold, though I can’t remember what cold air on skin feels like. My reflection in the glass has grey in its hair.