'Nobody's Home' by C Kirby

It was over, just like that.  I, personally, never thought it would happen.  It was them - our enemy.  The whole thing reeked of their thirst for violence, their lust for blood that turned brother against brother, state against state.  As the war progressed, it claimed just about everyone I held dear and that was when I started to learn how to hate.  Quite a trade, really.  We gave them literature, music, art and they gave us war, hate, and killing.

Expecting destruction and desolation, the scouts reported worse.  Ruins, everything was gone, all the sculptures, paintings by our great masters, all our art, literature, the very essence of our culture lay strewn about, like some giant jigsaw puzzle.

I was studying some plans for several emergency housing projects when Hans came scurrying in ‑ all legs, as usual.  He was so agitated that it took a drink and several minutes before he could explain himself and then I needed a drink.  His scouting party had found someone alive, as incredible as that sounds, trapped beneath the ruins. The scouting party had received no orders regarding survivors, so they sent Hans back to me.

It was my first trip outside the shelter and I was astonished, aghast at the destruction.  I hadn't imagined this in my worst nightmares ‑ had always clutched to the dream that something would be left.  What is this victim was one of them. What then? 

Reaching the site, we were greeted by a pleading voice.

  "Hello?  Are you still there?  Is anyone there?"

I moved closer to the hole from which the voice was issuing.  Trying to pierce the dark and see the voice’s owner, I squinted.  "Hello," I answered softly, slightly surprised at the sob that greeted me.

"Oh, thank God you're still there.  Help me!  My legs were pinned." 

Hans had gone for a lantern and, until he returned, I wanted to keep the voice talking. "It's all right now.  Just be patient a bit longer and we'll get you out and to a doctor.  What's your name?" 

"Sam.  Please, hurry."

Han returned with the light then and, as it pierced the shadows of the hole, my fears were confirmed ‑ it was one of them, the killer of our children and mates.  I saw in the faces of my companions and knew what my own face must have betrayed.

Simultaneously, we turned our backs with a sharp click and started away.

The voice pleaded with us, to forgive him, not to blame him for the ignorance of the others, to help him.  He kept screaming for us to come back.

And we would come back… in a week, possibly two.  When the enemy was dead and the voice was silent.  Then, our fight would be complete.  They would truly be gone forever and we would be free to live again. 

But, then, after all, what else could we do?  There’s nobody here, but us cockroaches.

'Damson Tree' by Cathy Lennon

When we first bought this house, one April, we watched with delight in the weeks that followed as the fruit trees in our back garden blossomed foaming white. At summer’s end the tallest, a damson, dangled blue-tinged fruit from every twig. With ladders and buckets we harvested them. In the steaming, shabby kitchen I hummed along to a contented tune of bubbling jam pans. I gathered jars and pots to warm and fill. I labelled them proudly, kept some, gave more away. That tree was showing us the joy of putting down roots, blessing the fruitfulness of our new life together.One bright Sunday morning, two Septembers later, visitors arrived to find our house still sleeping with curtains drawn. Unhurried, murmuring peacefully, they wandered into the waiting garden. Tempted by those overladen boughs they filled carrier bags to bursting with plump, bittersweet fruit and left them by the back door as they tiptoed away. All the while, across town, I sweated and swayed, moaned and panted, bore down and cried out and gave them a first grandchild. 
Four days later I came home to cellophaned bouquets that remained unarranged. I sat transfixed by the back door, bedazzled in an Indian summer sun and gazed, awestruck, at my damson daughter, sleeping furled like a bud. By my side two purple-weeping bags oozed, ignored.
Seasons passed with all their changes. Like me the damson bloomed and cropped again. From time to time as I paused wearily at the sink, letting a tap run, loud chaos about me, I stared blankly at that tree, standing loyally there in my neglected garden. We exchanged grim nods of silent solidarity.
Across the garden, in another September, drifted giggles and shrieks as my two lean-limbed fairies stretched and jumped to reach those dusky fruits. Squabbling over the stepladder, they filled their little pails. If I was feeling energetic, I squeezed out a Sunday crumble or two. It seemed a shame to waste them. The girls preferred picking them to eating them though. More often than not, the dark pulp languished, in lumpen, unappealing bags at the bottom of the freezer drawer, was pressed on visitors to take away.
Andrew wanted to cut the tree down. It’s too big and it’s in the wrong place, he said. He’s right. While we were out, he felled it. I didn’t want to watch. 
There’s a pond where it used to be. Nobody really liked damson jam anyway. In middle age our crumble days are kept to a minimum, for fear of calorific consequences. The girls are going too, out into the world where they should be. One day I hope they’ll find their own damson tree. Now and again, from a corner of my eye, I catch the remembered ghost of mine. From the gleaming, empty kitchen I stare out through the window. It flickers there. I feel again that overwhelming rush of love and pride, the fear, the joy, the awe of that September damson time.

'Flood' by Chris Cole

The flood came and went in one night so to many of the townsfolk the wet carpets and two metre tide marks were treated in personal isolation. It was often only when they attempted to call the office, some grateful for the excuse not to work, that they found the lines down and they began to suspect that they were part of a broader picture. The assistant mayor muttered and swore as he fished his favourite tie from out of the basement laundry room. He would have no answers for the angry public. His young boy stood naked in the front room, smiling broadly as he looked out of the French windows. In the middle of the lawn were many balls, all different sizes and all thought lost to the garden next door.

'The Right Way to Do Things' by Matthew Adams

“So we need to convince this guy we’re going to kill him, right.” said Vinnie, pushing the cheap trilby low over his eyes.

Lawson sighed.

“But we’re not,” said Lawson, “Remember that Si…..Sorry, Vinnie. We’re. Just. After. The effin’. Money.”

“For fucks sake…” snapped Vinnie, spinning round.

Lawson raised an eyebrow.

"OK OK…..Right,” sighed Vinnie, turning back and pouting as he reached up to knock on the door.

He paused.

“Wait,” he said.

Now what, thought Lawson, sighing again. Effin’ perishin’ out here.

Vinnie crouched, placing his ‘baccy tin on the floor, sheltering behind his long coat as he made a rollie.

“Got to do things right,” muttered Vinnie as half a pack of papers blew away.

Too much Tony Soprano, thought Lawson shaking his head. Not the right way to do things, all this dress-up and menaces.

The credit-card companies had it right these days. Warm offices. Tea on tap. All recorded messages, automatically telephoning people,                twenty-thirty times a day. 24 hours a day, everyday. Now that was the type of collecting he could get used to. Respectable like.

Vinnie stood, adjusted his hat again, put the rollie in the corner of his mouth, scowled, and only then banged on the door.

Eventually, it opened a crack.

“Aaawwww!” said Vinnie, sulkily.

Lawson grinned, and crouched down.

 “Hello young man, your daddy not home today?”

'Simple Brown Vase' by Antony Barkworth-Knight

“But you know what she likes, right?”
Dave looked at me exasperated, he'd been through this a thousand times before and still I got no better at understanding.
“Just get her what she wants, what she'll love you for.”
He was right. I picked up the car and headed to the out of town shopping mall, into the large department store, up the escalators to the second floor and within two minutes I had it in my hand, a simple brown vase.
I wrapped it that night in cream paper and placed it in the center of the coffee table. Under the diffuse light of the dimmers it blended perfectly into the room. A sickness came over me. If someone could show all this to my twenty year old self he'd be suitably enraged. I held my head in my hands and rubbed my eyes; the midlife crisis wasn't going to happen, not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. I closed the door on my teenage self and went to bed.
When she opened it the next morning she cried. Small tears bouncing off the surface of the vase.
“How do you know me so well?” she asked and kissing me on the forehead she rose, placed the vase in the center of the mantel piece and left the room.
For some time I sat and looked at it, that simple brown vase, innocuous, unoffensive, mediocre, and I too started to cry. For every day left on this earth, I could love her.

'A Chance in Life' by Gillian Brown

He doesn’t look back, he isn’t ashamed or afraid like I am. He reaches out to hold my hand. I take one glance over my shoulder and wish I hadn’t.

‘What will happen?’ I ask.

‘Don’t worry. We did the right thing,’ he says.

I grasp his hand. My throat is as dry as sandpaper and my head throbs as if someone is hammering nails inside. Every muscle in my body is tense. I fear if I let go I won’t be able to stop the torrent of tears backed up behind my eyes. I must get to the exit. Away from this place. Into the anonymity of the street.

I repeat the words. ‘A nice home. Loving parents. Plenty to eat. A good education.’ All the things I yearned for myself and never got. A chance in life.

‘That’s right,’ he says.

Hanging onto his words, I focus my eyes on the rectangle of door at the end of the corridor. I start to run. The echo of our footsteps accelerates like a drum roll towards a finale. I clutch my throat. ‘If I don’t get out of here soon…’ I yank his hand, unsure if I want him to stop and turn back, or keep going.

‘No,’ he says, dragging me forward. ‘We decided, remember?’

As we make it to the door, a high-pitched scream tears at my heart. Her cry is like a hand reaching out for me. I stop dead, ripped up inside. She’s just three weeks’ old. I look at him, his buttoned-up face. He shakes his head.

We’re through the door and out on the street, leaving behind a tiny life in someone else’s hands.

But her cry stays with me. It always will.

'Geraldine' by Angela King

 She arrived in late spring, just as the desert heat begins to drive sand into every fibre of the city and mother announced she couldn’t cope. Hardly more than an adolescent bag of bones Geraldine was meant to provide an inclusive remedy for mother’s woes. My sister and I loved her from that first day.

    Father had chosen Geraldine because she was the only applicant with any English. He arranged her flights and collected her at immigration. He’d never been so embarrassed. She arrived in a cherry-red cardigan which drooped to her ankles and obviously started life on someone ten times bigger, no shoes on her feet, nor any form of luggage. Father was convinced immigration suspected him of trafficking but all her papers were in perfect order. Despite appearances Geraldine was extremely proficient.

    Although English was hardly her first language she’d received an elementary education from one of the last outposts of the Missionary Society. She took the view that God’s word should be uttered in hushed reverence and being that God’s word was plainly English all conversations with our new nanny assumed a sombre gravity, as if some revelation was about to be disclosed. Prayers were said before every meal, and at bedtime, and she wouldn’t tolerate swearing, even from father. Although the family found her behaviour antiquated we soon learned Geraldine was abundant with affection and possessed a delightful giggle which could override any fit of sobriety.

    Even mother couldn’t wear her out. The house shone, visitors smiled and all our childhood anxieties seemed easily rectified. She became more like an older sister than a nanny and when mother announced she was expecting it was Geraldine who went into raptures and counted the days.

    By her own request Geraldine’s wages were paid directly to her parents. They were farmers and because she had no brothers she must support them until she found a ‘good husband’. Mother showered her with gifts in the hope she would stay, expensive gifts, relevant to a lifestyle completely alien to Geraldine. Father, appalled by this generosity, enquired what use Geraldine had for Chanel No. 5 only to find she had sent the bottle to her parents.

    “Whatever uses have your parents for perfume?” Mother snapped.

    “Oh Miss, they put everything to good use.” Geraldine apologised. “And after some trials they found a few drops deterred the wild pigs from raiding their vegetable bed. They wondered how soon I could send more.”

    When baby was due mother decided Geraldine should accompany her home. Worried about being cold she wore virtually every item of clothing she possessed layer-on-layer. Not only did it negate any need for a suitcase it alerted Heathrow to the impression she was involved in an entirely different felony, that of smuggling. The strip search took hours. Geraldine was neither bemused nor angry, only confused that the officers didn’t believe her explanation - she needed both hands free to help mother. Why else come to London?