Worthing Flash

If she mentions that cattery again, I shall deposit something on her precious white rug.      I'm sick of her prattling on about needing a break. What about me? Discarded like an old toy. Hasn't she heard of animal rights?      Believe me, I'd leave tomorrow but some fool would bring me back. Then worse still she'd be slobbering all over me.      She's pathetic. Never gets my food right. I want fresh food, preferably alive, not jellied mush.  And - listen to this, she imagines by shaking a box of dried revolting pellets which resemble rabbit's unmentionables, that I'll come running. Wrong again.      As for the company she keeps, she needs her head tested about a certain obnoxious creature. My claws are razor-sharp, so HE's about to have his private parts scratched. I won't be called a mangy old  tom in my own house. she didn't hear him but I certainly did and I neither forget nor fo...

  Daffodils, a silver shoe and a peach sit on a packing-case before a group of elderly artists. Thea daubs lines on paper, tongue resting on her bottom lip.        Remembered scenes flicker in her mind: flowers in a milk bottle, table covered in newspaper, underwear steaming on a clothes-horse by a range. Thea, the land-girl, prizes beet from frost-bitten ground, steamy breath mingling with morning mist.      Her party shoes had been red, not silver. The girls helped colour each other’s legs with cold tea. Sometimes there were nylons if they danced with Yanks from the air-base, big and blond with wandering hands.      Joshua was different, his shy smile and teeth white in the moonlight as he walked her home.   She shouldn’t have let him touch her but she loved him, his skin dark, his hands black velvet.      ‘You have such pretty ankles, Miss Thea,’ were the first words he’d cr...

by Rajan V Kokkuri I searched for my old friend Sunny's telephone number in my old diary and got it. Sunny used to work in Kochi. Sunny was one year senior to me during my college days. I was happy I got the number. It is for a long time I called him. The bell was ringing and there was no answer at the other end. I was about to ring off the phone. Suddenly I heard a boy's voice at the other end. "Hello" I was happy finally; I am able to hear someone, "Can I talk to Sunny? "Uncle Sunny Passed away in 2001." I could not get words to talk further. "Oh, I never knew." "How about his wife and children?" "Yes, they are here, aunty got a job in his previous company Cacil in Kochi." I called Sura immediately. "Sura, did you know that Sunny passed away." "No, I never knew." We both spoke a lot about our college time. Sunny used stay in Barely Street, Bangalore with h...

There was gloom in Mission Control. Opportunity was dead. After 15 years of Mars exploration, the plucky little rover stopped communicating on in June 2018. On February 13t of the following year, NASA announced that its mission had come to an end. Now Curiosity, launched in 2011, would take up the baton. Then, at two o’clock on the morning of February 14 th , a solitary computer blinked into life. When the scientist whose computer it was logged in some five hours later he gasped in disbelief, then gave a whoop of exultation. This is what he read: Hey, NASA. I hear y’all have been worried about me these past few months, so I thought I’d touch base one last time. I’ve been up here 15 years now, and I’ve been pretty busy sending you pictures of where I’m at. And thanks for giving me the credit for discovering water on Mars, it’s nice to get a bit of recognition for a job well done. I haven’t seen any signs of actual life, though, and I have to admit it was getting ki...

by Ron James We had been married for five years, but no signs of any children. All the usual tests had been made and everything seemed to be working properly, but still no luck. We sat down one night to discuss it and decided that it was time to explore the possibility of adoption. Should we go for a youngster, or maybe a little older? We agreed on a youngster. After quite a while and thorough investigations we were offered an eight week old, one of triplets. There was some doubt as to who the father was, and they couldn’t stay with the mother. We thought he was beautiful and adored him from the moment he arrived. Everyone said how cute he was, and what lovely eyes he had. As he grew I would take him out for little walks, and as he got older he and I would go on walks into the countryside, something that was one of the highlights of his life, and mine as well. Just like a true father and son relationship should be. When he was nine years old he started to get h...

Adam stopped digging and looked up at the sky. The weatherman had got it wrong again. It was far warmer than forecast, although the predicted storm clouds were now gathering out towards the horizon. He brushed the perspiration from his forehead and removed his tattered pullover. It didn’t feel like the fifteenth year on his allotment. Each new spring bought its own excitement as if he had only just begun. He noticed a robin on his piece of dug earth. The tiny bird looked up at him expectantly. ‘ Hello young chap,’ Adam said, ‘looking for worms I’ll be bound.’ He imagined this was the same robin of the last few years but couldn’t know for sure. Still, it did have a similar white spot on its breast. Adam resumed digging out the apple root, a tree which now bore little fruit. It had been hard work chopping it down for a man already in his seventies. It was nearly lunchtime and he needed to get home to prepare a meal for Mary. Not that she understood the meaning of time now. He bu...

  The box appeared on the doorstep just before Christmas. Joe was puzzled; he hadn’t ordered anything and it was ages since they’d received a parcel. ‘What is it Joe?’ Brenda asked. ‘Let’s open it and see.’ He took the box to the dining room, ripped off the tape, lifted the flaps, removed the bubble-wrap and delved into the tightly packed straw. He pulled out a very fine statuette of a cat, eighteen inches high, fixed to a marble base. ‘Whoever sent it, Joe? It looks expensive.’ ‘It’s bronze, Bren.’ Joe examined the box labels; his address was correct; the sender’s address read:  Christmas Lottery,  Reindeer   Park , ME2 U4X.    ‘That’s not a postcode.’ Brenda exclaimed, ‘Perhaps there’s an address inside.’ Joe found a card under the straw; there was no address, just a rhyme.    Don’t sell, don’t tell, remember well.                    ...