All stories

The rain comes out of nowhere. If she had been paying attention, Nat would have noticed the slow circling of grey carrion clouds over the street, but she is not. Her hands are cold and thrust deep into the pockets of her second hand jacket and her eyes scour the floor avoiding the dog shit and the eyes of the other pedestrians.

She’s trying to pretend she is somewhere else altogether, like when she was little. Back then her teachers had said she was imaginative and creative. Bright. People don’t say that about her anymore.

If she doesn’t look up from the ground, perhaps it is a sunny, brisk day.

If she doesn’t look down at her clothes perhaps she is wearing stylish, warm boots and a red coat that makes people stare at her, but in a good way, not like they expect her to steal something.

If she doesn’t look at the broken glass and ruined shop fronts, perhaps she is wandering down cobbled streets in Paris, carrying a basket of fresh bread and tulips instead of a stained tote bag of tinned tomatoes from the food bank.

The first icy drops of rain on the back of her neck drag her away from Paris and her red coat, back into her denim jacket and scuffed trainers. Nat darts into the Salvation Army shop.

The lady at the till smiles, then dips back into her book. Nat wanders around. It’s the usual assortment of Primark dresses, but then she sees it, rolled up and propped against a stack of board games. A yoga mat. Nat runs her fingers across the top of it, remembering how she used to be the sort of person who did yoga.

The sticker says 99p. In Nat’s pocket is the last of the week’s money. A few pound coins to get her through the next three days, but something forgotten and reckless surges up in her chest and when the rain stops, Nat is leaving with the mat tucked under her arm.

Nat is thinking about where she might put the mat and if she can remember her sun salutations, when she sees Jan across the road, still wearing her food bank volunteer t-shirt, so everyone knows how kind she is. She looks pointedly at the yoga mat and raises her eyebrows. Ten minutes ago she had doled out tinned tomatoes to Nat and here Nat is buying herself treats! She feels a hot curdle of shame in her belly. She hurries past, eyes down.

Nat climbs the stairs to her flat. It smells of bleach and cigarettes but as she reaches her own door Ruth next door is coming out of hers. Nat tries to hide the mat behind her, but Ruth notices and grins.

“I’ve got one of those in the wardrobe and a Davina McCall DVD somewhere. If you’re getting into it, maybe I’ll dig mine out. We can have a go together!”

Nat smiles. They agree that Ruth will call around later that evening. She has no idea how they’ll fit, but, somehow it doesn’t matter. Nat unrolls the mat on the laminate floor and looks down at it. Suddenly she can remember exactly how it feels to be the sort of person who does yoga.

Apologies for late publication. If new arrivals are confused by what follows they may find explanation on the website under my name titled “Pirates”. created by our benevolent ruler.

Bradleigh Salterton, Dandy, Buccaneer and Skipper of The Seahorse was between parrots again. He’d sworn off these Avian imposters whose disloyalty and inability to imitate his favourite tv presenters always ended in tears.

At pirate gatherings he’d to put up with Blackbeard boasting about two psittacine companions who recited romantic poetry. “A right parrakeets” he called them, whilst Fakebeard the female pirate, often mentioned enjoying a Cockatoo in her cabin.

This week however parrots weren’t mentioned because all spyglasses had turned to the subject of the forthcoming Pirate World Cup. Apparently Eggbeard had spent a whole treasure chest modernising his training camp with “state of the Arrrr improvements”. Salterton who was on his 6th flagon of rum, boasted that his players would win easily.

His bravado wavered when he returned to his ship and examined his troops which comprised a tiny cabin boy, 5 players without their right legs and 5 whose left pegs were non-apparent. Their manager Blind Pew thought tactics were mints in a see-through box.

Salterton retired to his cabin to cry.

But whilst there he heard a voice familiar from Commentary on Squawksport. On looking through his porthole he spied on the shore, an irascible parrot with a broad Scottish accent giving a team of Kakapos the featherdryer treatment. It was unmistakeably legendary manager-turned-pundit Ally Macaw working his way back up from the bottom.

Within moments and at the cost of many dubloons Macaw had been installed as manager. The only advice Salterton gave was to avoid training on a Tuesday evening when the crew were glued to “Four in a Hammock” an entertaining show where pirates passive-aggressively searched for hairs in each other’s bunks.

The new manager quickly installed a new regime with grog and old Jamaica chocolate banned. His revolutionary new diamond formation disappointingly to the crew, did not refer to the sort you find in treasure chests. If any player stepped out-of-line they were swiftly dispatched to walk the plank and replaced by skilful ringers with hastily disguised pirate names such as Long David Silva and Deckhand Rice.

The tournament started and the Seahorses were a revelation, vanquishing Bluebeard’s motley crew 5-0, Yellowbeard’s desperados 8-0 and even Eggbeard’s Cress Army 3-1. However a narrow squeak in the semis which they won on penalties enraged Ally Macaw and on the night before Wednesday’s final he called an emergency training session.

A mutiny ensued.

It’s not known which of the team ran the foul-beaked gaffer through with a cutlass but The crew were relieved to be able to watch their favourite programme in peace and get their hands on the locked victuals.

Salterton himself took over as coach but didn’t really understand football and spent the morning designing a new kit for his brave buccaneers with billowing sleeves and copious belts that made movement impossible.

The final was a one-sided affair as Fakebeard’s all-female crew cruised to victory against their hung-over and elaborately-attired opponents.

As Salterton watched his hated rivals celebrate with the cup, he vowed that he would never have a parrot onboard again as it always ended up like this! But also he knew deep down that all it might take was lack of inspiration on the part of his creator and he’d be right back in the same parrot infested boat again.

Another Day (not Tuesday)

The late publication of the court circular threw out their plans. Even the most dedicated believer in the revolution had to pause and think before assassinating a dictator and his wife just after the arrival of their grandchild. Not a good look in propaganda terms at all.

The plans had been laid over months, though the decision to carry them out had been made over many years. Not only were people starving now, but hundreds more disappeared almost every week. The lucky ones ended up in the regime’s shiny new prisons. The others, perhaps in the desert lands east of Albuquerque, or in the ocean west of San Ana, dropped off one of the flights that had suddenly made one of the strips at John Wayne airport unusually busy during the last twelve months. No doubt the Duke himself would have approved. It was his characters that believed in summary justice of course, but his own pronouncements suggested that he wouldn’t have been too far out of step with them.

It had been five years since a supine Congress had been cajoled into creating the space for a ‘benevolent ruler’. The geopolitical crisis had necessitated it they said. Democratic systems were just not fit for purpose in the current situation. It was sold as a temporary measure of course. There seemed little prospect of an end any time soon.

Slowly the disparate resistance groups evolved ways of maintaining some contact with each other. People had to see that some form of organized opposition existed, so smaller acts of defiance began to emerge. Demonstrations had become too dangerous. Snatch squads operated with impunity. So, passivity had largely taken hold. The explosions, small at first, were mainly targeted at oil refineries and corporate HQs, but as volunteers grew more impatient there had been direct attacks on the homes and families of some of the lesser apparatchiks surrounding the leader himself.

The day had looked auspicious enough. Leaked intelligence had him at a comparatively soft location. Opening one of the many ‘arts’ venues that he had renamed after himself or one of his simpering children. He hated the arts of course, so this was his idea of revenge. This building had some vulnerabilities, most obviously an ancient fly tower that was hard to completely police. It had so many nooks and crannies that could be made accessible by a brave stage manager with the right accreditation.

The planning involved the recruitment of someone with enough flexibility and courage to hide out at great height in a narrow space for several hours. And willing to risk whatever might come next of course.

The prize was great though. A galvanizing of popular support for the movement. The leader had replacements in waiting of course, but perhaps not with the utter ruthlessness that he possessed. Given the extent of the growing repression, it had to be risked and there were people willing to give their life if necessary.

Then came the simple message, just moments before the sniper was to be smuggled into place. The child had been born and acclaimed on the networks, despite the circular being late. The coded text followed just in time: Not Tuesday.

It would have to be another day.