THE ACTOR AND I

Take a bow.  The show is over.  I retreat in triumphant, but exhausted reflection.  I am safe, they can’t see past the actor.

The performance means more these days, as the reward is greater.  It’s not the same old tired audience as before, but a new larger one.  Fresh eyes are upon me and I am weighing them up, finding out what they need and adapting to suit, pulling more and more out of the bag.  I once thought that being myself would make me happy, but I’ve realised I thrive on living through an act, remaining ever a stranger and letting no-one in.

The audience is everywhere, at work, at play and at home.  I am driven ever further into my shell, forcing me to make my isolation a more comfortable place, a welcome respite at the end of the play.  Doing this has been worthwhile, I used to despise the actor, but now she retreats and rests with me.  I give her instructions for her next part and she does her best.  Sometimes the mask slips, but that’s fine.  The audience appreciates a bit of vulnerability, a mistake or two, it’s OK to fuck up.  This is a more accepting crowd.

THAT DRESS

We come into the bedroom and find it has escaped from its box.  We shut it in the room with us, but it still wreaks havoc, racing around and trashing the furniture.  It tears through your suits with its claws and rips apart my favourite dress with its bony hands.  We are well drilled with what to do.  We sit on our bed with our fingers stuffed in our ears and our eyes firmly shut, waiting for it to exhaust itself.

Eventually, you nudge me; “I think it’s tiring.  Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I whisper, “we mustn’t look at it.”  I recall the last time I glimpsed its green flesh and emerald eyes.  It took us days to recover.
“It’s behind us,” you murmur.
I feel its rank breath on the back of my neck and cry; “Now!” We turn; eyes shut and grab its slippery body, holding on tight.  It puts up one hell of a struggle.  We stagger, holding it between us to the box.  We are well versed in the techniques of putting it back in, but it seems to take forever.  It’s so hard to work with your eyes shut, but we stick to the routine.  You hold it, I force down the lid and you remove yourself at the last possible second ... Finally after four failed attempts, we trap it and can open our eyes again.  We sit on the box while it howls obscenities from within and reminds us of the past - of every argument that we ever had.  It feeds on attention, being listened to, looked at and fought with.  We’re aware that even our tussle with it has given it strength.  It can never die; being put in a box and ignored is the only thing that can weaken it.  We hold each other, kiss, reaffirm our love and it finally shuts up.

You glance at me wearily, get up and leave the room.  I remain sitting, racking my brains as to how it could have got out.  You went out last night and I heard it moving in the box, whispering maliciously to me, but I let the words wash over me as trained and you came back, didn’t you?  Albeit two hours after you said you would, a little drunk, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Maybe it was something I did.  There are verbal and non verbal signals that allow it to escape and it seems to me that these days the slightest little thing can release it.  I didn’t mean what I said this morning though, before I put my little dress on and went to the office ... Well, that dress is torn up in pieces in the corner now and I can never wear it again.

NO HEAVEN

Joan Stowne died on the 3^rd November 2013.  She lay in darkness for two nights; then on the third day she woke to find herself at the entrance of a beautiful garden.  An angel opened the gate and Joan walked through.
“Congratulations!” the angel cried, “you’ve won a stay in Heaven for all of eternity!”
“No thank you,” Joan answered.
The angel looked horrified; “What do you mean?  No thank you?”  Then his face softened, “look, God knows and I know that you were under some pressure in your life and perhaps all of it didn’t go as well as you’d hoped.  I want to reassure you, everything is done for you here.  There is nothing to worry about, nothing challenging, no more stress.”
“I didn’t mind the challenges,” Joan was looking over the angel’s shoulder at a cherry blossom tree, “they made me feel alive.”
“OK, your relationships with people then, you really struggled with those, didn’t you?  Here you’ll have an entourage of perfect friends, you’ll never be alone.  They will compliment you constantly, raise your self esteem, they won’t betray you or bitch about you.  Everyone is terribly lovely here.”
“I didn’t mind the flawed people,” Joan replied, “they were the most interesting.”
The angel was struggling now; “Is it that you’ll miss your friends and relatives on earth?  Don’t worry, you can look down from above and witness their achievements.”
“If I’d wanted to watch my friends and relatives being happy I wouldn’t have closed down my Facebook account while I was still alive.”
The angel stared at Joan in complete confusion; “Look at the surroundings, the accommodation you’ll live in will be excellent, you’re in Heaven for goodness’ sake!  I can’t understand why you’re not happy.  I think you’re being ungrateful to be honest.”
“Am I still Joan Stowne?”
“Well of course you are.”
“Therein lies the problem.  When I killed myself, I wanted there to be a big, black nothing.  I don’t like being Joan Stowne, I wanted her dead and now you’re sentencing me to be Joan Stowne for all eternity.  You think I’m ungrateful, well you’re cruel.”

NOBODY IN WINCHESTER

I had to write to the Council to get them stopped.  That riff raff from Southampton and other places always visiting.  They lowered the tone of the city, that’s what I said in my letter.  Staggering round the city half drunk; wearing hoodies and leggings or little boob tubes that left nothing to the imagination.  Let’s be rid of them, I said.  Thank goodness our wonderful City Council listened.

Unfortunately, I had to write again.  Students, everywhere, thousands of ‘em!  Faces buried in their smart phones as they stumbled through the city doing research on their dissertations.  Be gone!  I said and take your creative ideas and youthful exuberance with you.

The unemployed had to go as well, we can’t have scroungers here, they don’t pay their way and they do nothing for the economy.  Also, those people who work for a living, who do they think they are? - getting up at 6.30am, walking in clacky heels past my house or slamming their car doors to wake me up.  The insolence!  I suggested they go live elsewhere.

Who wants old people?  They deliberately go out during lunch times or rush hour when there’s lots of traffic on the road and hold everything up with their slow driving.  They’re not doing it because they are infirm let me tell you, they’re doing it to annoy.  Many a time I’ve been trying to walk quickly down the street into town and there’s some old blighter dawdling along in front of me, blocking the pavement.  I screamed at one old biddy to get out of the way, only for her to pretend to be deaf.  Then, when I gave her a good old shove, she dived like a Chelsea player in the penalty area and pretended to have hurt her hip.  Away with them!

Children, don’t get me started, luckily the Council was quick on the uptake there.  I told them exactly what I’d done with mine and they did the same - promptly packing them off to boarding schools in Kent.  Good riddance!

You may wonder what I’m writing to complain about now.  The thing is, there’s nobody in Winchester, except horse-faced, 4x4 driving, Aga mums like me and I can’t stand them...

FOR A SEASON

The office was doing his head in.  James took a walk in the park, choosing the path leading into the woods.  After a while, he stopped and stared into a clearing.  The wind was playing games with the leaves, picking them up, spiralling them and letting them fall.  Somehow the dancing woman seemed part of woods, wind and leaves; they whirled all around her as she spun and pirouetted.  He cleared his throat and she turned.  There was power in her steady gaze.  Her colours were autumn, auburn hair, green eyes, warm complexion.  She wore muted reds and browns.  She smiled.  James looked her up and down, nodded approvingly and said; “What’s your name, love?”

James’ world was one of profits, pensions and portfolios - the people occupying it were image conscious and shallow.  Katy’s conversation was of nature and change.  He did his best to follow it and asked if he could date her.

“For a season,” she said.
Over the following days, he persuaded her into the pub and then into his flat.  She looked beautiful, naked in his bed, but she asked such irritating questions; “Why are you never outside?  Why do you waste your time doing a job you hate?”  He hadn’t thought of these things before.  He’d gone to office, pub and home, existing without living, moving without aim.  Sometimes he wished she’d shut up.  She made him restless.

The nights drew in and the air became bitter.  In the park, he noticed how in tune with her surroundings she was, hair almost white blonde now, like the frost that was still heavy on the ground.  She wore a combination of blues and blacks, her eyes were icy and her pale skin cold.

“You’ve got thinner,” he remarked.
Katy seemed distracted; “Time is running out.”
James agreed; “I’ve only got half hour’s break today.  The wheels of industry keep turnin’.”
“Things shouldn’t stay the same,” she said.
“I don’t know.  I think you and me, we’ve been seein’ each other for a little while, we could keep on seein’ each other; there might be a future.  What do you say?”
She laughed, the sound was brittle, like branches snapping in a storm; “The season’s ending, James.  We will end with it.”
“Enough of this shit!” he snapped, “what’s happened to you anyway?  You look different, not half so pretty.  I don’t like you like this.”
She kissed him with dry lips, her cold, hard hands circled his face and she stared deeply into his eyes; “Remember, time runs away.  It disappears.”
He watched her walk away and shouted after her; “I’m sorry!  Tomorrow, yeah?”
She made no sign that she’d heard.

The next day he called her mobile only to hear a weird crackling over the line.  He walked into the woods, the trees were stripped bare, the clearing empty.  There was no Katy, no dancing leaves, just the cold and lingering frost.  He realised what had happened, sank to his knees on the petrified ground and wept.  Then slowly, he wiped his eyes, got to his feet and returned to the office.

BODIESSSZZZ

That day at the office, Marianne was dreading the encounter with her employee.  Derek had said he was going to tell his girlfriend about them last night. 
She braced herself as the cleaner approached and said; “Marianne, I don’t feel so good today, may I go home?  Derek has left me.”
Marianne couldn’t look her in the eye; “I know.”
There was a pause as the cleaner put things together, black brows furrowing, eyes darkening.
“I’m sorry,” Marianne added, “we worked together and fell in love.  It’s like we’re one.”

Indeed they were.  As days passed, Derek abandoned his bohemian wardrobe for designer clothes and Marianne hummed the tune he always whistled.  Neither were discreet, they walked down the corridor arm in arm and discussed plans in front of the cleaner.  It was when Marianne mentioned taking Derek away at the weekend that the cleaner, after hesitating, said; “Have you thought of etatuM Hotel?  Derek always wanted to go there.  It’s for couples who want to become truly one.”

The traffic was horrendous, but the sat-nav eventually guided Marianne and Derek off the motorway and into the heart of the countryside.  The lanes became narrow, there were no streetlights and it was pitch black.  Marianne was going to suggest giving up, when they turned onto a track and saw lights.

“Here we are,” Derek said, “etatuM Hotel.”
“Trust you to want to come somewhere like this,” Marianne sighed.
“I didn’t want to come here.”
“But she said you did.”
Derek shook his head.
Marianne was tired.  “I’m going straight to bed,” she stated, as Derek parked the car.

There was a security guard at the desk instead of a receptionist.  He gave them keys to their room, picked up their cases and led them to a lift.  They were on the top floor; “You have the penthouse,” he stated in a melodious voice, “no extra cost.  It’s low season.”

Any doubts were dispelled by the opulence of the accommodation.  There was a sitting room with wide screen television and surround music system.  The bathroom had a Jacuzzi and the bedroom a king size bed with rose petals scattered on it.
“Room service only at this time,” the security guard added.

Later Derek and Marianne lay in bed, having consumed delicious Italian pizza and red wine.

“I’m glad you had the courage to leave,” Marianne said, “she’s never going to do better than cleaning.  What were you thinking?  Were you slumming it?”
“I guess I was,” Derek answered.
After they had made love among the rose petals, they held each other.
“I feel such a connection,” Marianne murmured.
“Me too,” mumbled Derek, “can you move over a bit, I need to reach for my drink.”
She tried; “Derek, I can’t move, I seem to be ... stuck to you.”  She felt a strange pulling sensation in her body.
Derek tore the covers off and they stared in horror, unable to see where Derek’s flesh ended and Marianne’s began.  It was as if their bodies were being pushed closer by an invisible force, the skin liquefying.  Marianne tried to scream, but her voice took a strange tone, not like a woman or man.  Her eyes closed, her face was pressed right up against Derek’s, her chest suffocated against his, knee joints smashing into his bones.  The bodies on the bed struggled, limbs thrashing, backs heaving and then finally all was still.  What was left stood and staggered to the mirror to look on itself.  Two had become one. 

In the hotel bar, a woman sitting alone raised her glass.