'David' by H Anthony Hildebrand

“I wish my car was as dirty as your wife,” David sobs.

I eye him suspiciously. I have never been married.

David sends me a postcard. The text on the front says: Wish You Were Her! Beneath is a picture of the Titanic sinking, passengers drowning. Iceberg hulking. On the flipside the postcard’s surface is reflective. The tiny embossed font reads: You Are Not Here.

***

David takes me to a restaurant. We wait to be seated in a space designed to look like a doctor’s surgery reception, the walls adorned with posters warning of the dangers of chlamydia and offering advice on living with irritable bowel syndrome.

Our waiter leads us to our adjoining workstations. Runs through the standard pre-meal tech checks.

“Gentlemen, here at The Lab we pride ourselves on delivering the finest haute cuisine dining experience available on the planet,” he says. “And to aid you with locating and enjoying your meal and indulging in all of its sensory pleasures, we are delighted to offer you, at no additional charge, use of the Hitachi SU3500 Scanning Electron Microscope.

“A new dimension in electron microscopy, the Hitachi SU3500 SEM features novel and innovative electron optics and signal detection systems affording unparalleled imaging and analytical performance.

“You’ll be able to savour your meal from every angle using the low-vacuum observation method the Hitachi SEM series is renowned for, but now you’ll also benefit from a completely overhauled electron optics system, enabling secondary electron imaging at a resolution of 7 nanometres at 3 kilovolts, and back-scattered electron imaging at a resolution of 10 nanometres at 5 kilovolts.

“I’ll leave you to peruse the menu and get acquainted with the equipment. I’ll be back to take your orders shortly.”

I choose the lamb. It looks amazing through the microscope. Mouth-watering when magnified. David has the sea bass.

We run our tongues over our plates, hoping our tastebuds will prove sensitive enough to savour what The Times reviewer described as “the culinary equivalent of an angel dancing on the head of a pin, or perhaps a teenage nocturnal emission; exquisite and fleeting, suggestive of a power beyond our feeble reckoning”. But my palate, damaged through years of uncultured oral abuse, detects only the lingering hint of pine-scented dishwashing liquid.

David says his meal is delicious. Hides in the bathroom while the bill arrives.

***

“I like my women the way I like my coffins,” David whispers. “Without my grandfather inside them.”

I eye him suspiciously. His house parties suggest otherwise.

David sends me a postcard. The text on the front says: Life’s A Beach! Beneath is a picture of a women’s volleyball match in action. One of the sandy players has a broken, bleeding nose. On the flipside is a white skull and crossbones on a black background. The tiny embossed font reads: From The Office Of The Prime Minister.

'Postal' by Kelly Daniel

The post-box was right outside her front gate.  She shut the front door behind her and walked over to it.  She looked at the letter in her hand. Her address was beautifully written and the stamp completely symmetrical. She allowed the letter to slip through the void and heard it slump into the dark. For some reason she had brought her purse.  She looked at it.  Money, cards, receipts, photos of her kids.  She posted that too and started walking

'Magnetic Fields & Electric Fences' by Amy Mackelden

It was late, when we stood in a field, with fifty cows. The bull, you said, was two fields down, and you thought it would be funny to let it in this one. I wouldn’t let you. You, who listens to me sing without laughing. Which isn’t easy.

Earlier, when it was light, I sat on your lap while you sat on a picnic table. You came up with lines to let him down with. I liked ‘Let’s just be friends,’ emphasis on ‘for now,’ and ‘I’m unboyfriendable.’ You told me it’s from a song, but you wouldn’t sing it. It wasn’t late enough and you needed more to drink.

Later, in the field, with the cows, we lay down, somewhere we guessed was centre, though is sure to have been off. You said it was the most women you’d slept next to, not just in one night, but always.

‘Me too,’ I said, and you laughed.

            ‘But you’re not next to any women,’ you told me.

            ‘I thought you meant the cows,’ I said. ‘The cows are all girls.’

After the lines about the cows, that made you laugh, that shouldn’t have, I thought how I could never use that line on the boy I was meant to, and I couldn’t keep him hanging on either. You fell asleep before I could get you to come up with other options.

The next day we found the bull, three fields down, not two.

            ‘Not much to do, on his own, is there?’ you said.

            ‘Too much in the other field though, really.’

I told you then I couldn’t tell the other boy I didn’t want to be with him, with the lines we’d come up with. You thought I meant I chose him, which wasn’t it, Pétur. It really wasn’t.

            ‘This is where we leave it then,’ you said to me, ‘One wanting to give it a try, and the other, not brave, with not enough charming lines to get them out of dates they said they’d go on.’

So I stood, in that field with one bull, thinking how, three fields down, he had so much choice, but he didn’t know it.

'Irony' by Alison Wassell

He had three months to live.  She held his hand as the consultant delivered the news.  She gave it what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze.

        He proposed in the hospital car park.  She did not love him.  She barely knew him.  What she loved was the idea of herself as a young, tragic widow.  She planned her funeral outfit, rather than her wedding dress.  It would include some kind of a veil.  For the first time in her life, she was interesting.

           The wedding was a quiet, dignified affair.  He remained seated throughout, bringing her hand to his lips whenever she was near him.  His touch, and his lips, were unpleasantly clammy.  She smiled sweetly, thinking of the black dress, and the hat with a veil, and her chance to be interesting.

          He refused to die.  He had been saved by the love of a good woman. She looked over her shoulder to see who he meant.  Years passed.  He became a legend, a tale told to give hope to others.  She ate for comfort, and mentally ordered her black dress in a larger size.

           He maintained an invalid lifestyle and checked himself daily for new signs of illness.  He reclined on the sofa as she cleaned around him, raising his feet when she vacuumed.  Sometimes, he reached out to squeeze her hand affectionately.  She batted it away like an annoying fly.

           He ate only that which required no effort, cooked until it attained the consistency of baby food.  Anything that needed to be chewed was returned to the side of his plate.   He fancied himself allergic to most things.

         Youth gave way to middle age.  She was alone when she received her own diagnosis.  The heart defect had always been there.  She was a ticking time bomb.  She asked how long.  The consultant mouthed platitudes.

         Lying in bed, stiff and apart from her husband, who had long since forgotten how to touch her, she listened to what could well be the last beats of her heart.  She congratulated God on his sense of humour.

The Gift' by Calum Kerr

The shavings curled off the plane as it glided along the curve of the wood. Each one dropped to the floor of his workshop with the silence of snow, collecting around his ankles in a drift.

             Philip glanced up at the clock as he worked, checking the minute hand as it swept towards midnight. He needed to get this finished and he needed to do it right.

             He fit the joints together, and they married perfectly. The craft was right and the pieces slotted in place. He assembled the box with swift ease and then wiped it over with an oil-soaked rag until it shone. Another rag and another wipe and the box was finished.

             A layer of red silk and a moment more to insert the gift, and it was complete.

             He carried it out of the workshop and into the house just as the clock started to strike.

             Margaret was waiting on the sofa as instructed, her eyes closed.

             "Is that you?" she asked as he approached.

             "Who else would it be, ya daft thing?" he replied and placed the heart-shaped box into her hands.

             "Happy birthday, love," he said, and she opened her eyes.

            

'About a Buoy' by John F King

Looking back I’m glad I was kind to him at the time.

At least I think I was, in the now, not later, not retrospectively.

Standing at the school gates in his Navy uniform, Percy seemed to have found his legs.

Back then you could leave school at 15, sort of age when you know exactly what you want to do with the rest of your life.

At school Percy was all at sea.

On his last day, cast off, he simply sailed away.

It has to be said (does it?) he wasn’t the brightest boy.

Some of our more direct brethren used the words Percy and plank  in the same sentence.

He wasn’t aloof, self-contained, a self –appointed loner;

he was lonely – there is a difference – isolated, lost.

I never knew why, who was responsible, if the responsibility was his or others and to what ratio.

Do people choose to be alone?  Really?

I can see his last day now,

that defeated walk of his, off course.

There were not many waves for Percy.

Three years elapsed before any messages from him were picked up

but to be direct not that many were on his wavelength.

It was my last day by that time too.

There was a cluster round the gates:

Percy came into view. He seemed taller but it was the way he stood,  to attention, making the most of what there was.

He passed his white hat round,  polaroids emerged

and to cap it all, flares were in that year.

'An Apology' by Nettie Thomson

Dear All,

Janie, my wife, says I may have made a few off-colour comments to some of you during our Christmas ‘do’ on Friday evening and I’d like to offer my sincere apologies to each of you.

Specifically, she says I should say sorry to Helen Cardyke from accounts.  I’d like to assure you that contrary to your name, you are most likely not a raging lesbian who preys on the female clerks who work beside you.  Wearing a trouser suit to work every day is not indicative of a sexual preference.  Even if it was, it doesn’t mean you deserved to have your trousers pulled down in front of the M.D. during the Dashing White Sergeant, with a suggestion to get together with him and his good wife for a bit of double-entry you wouldn’t forget in a hurry. 

I should also apologise to Sir Hugh and his lady wife, Jemima.  I’m sorry if this suggestion offended either of you, but given that I then went on to tell Jemima that she could do better than an aging old fart in a suit that first saw light of day when Doris Day was a virgin, perhaps by this time you were past caring. 

By the way, Sir Hugh, great choice of hotel.  I was very impressed by the mile-long driveway and found it really difficult to pee on every bush along its length.  Difficult, but given the amount of beer I put away, not impossible.

To the design team, I’d like to offer my assurance that I don’t really think my six-year old son could do better using nothing more than his crayons and Winnie The Pooh stencil set.  I’m sure there is a lot more involved in your work than join-the-dots and colouring in and that if you tried, you certainly could keep within the lines.

I’m not entirely sure where to start apologising to everyone in Goods Inward and the warehouse.  Ian, Santa would be very lucky indeed to have you in his toy warehouse, even if you did have to call the other elves lofty.  Size means nothing, says Janie, and she would like me to assure you that she would know.

Helen, HR is a very important department.  Your people skills are exemplary and any suggestions I may have made to the contrary are unfounded.  I retract the implication HR is staffed by a group of hysterical she-bots whose idea of bolstering staff morale involved a cut in pay and quick kick up the arse on the way out. 

Finally, I regret my parting comment that we were a third rate company and that all they we’d get for Christmas was our P45s wrapped up in pages from the financial times smeared with the excrement of the management team.  Always assuming they had any left after all the shite they had been telling us all year.

I hope you all have a fun filled Christmas and, if I may make a suggestion for next year, could we not bring our spouses as Janie has been nipping my head all weekend.

Graeme.