The Diner by Jo Cameron-Symes

I'd been driving all night on Highway 67. The sun was coming up and the heat haze was turning the horizon to water. Seeing a neon diner sign, I decided to stop. The parking lot was deserted save for a rusty old Buick and a green Mustang.

I stepped out of the car into the searing desert heat then wiped the sweat off my neck. I entered the cool air-conditioned diner. My shirt stuck to my back and I shivered. The jukebox was blaring out the strident tones of some goddam awful doowop song. The fake cheerfulness of the song contrasted deeply with the eeriness of the deserted diner. I ignored the sign that said ‘Wait to be seated,’ at the front and sat down in a booth. I figured that it being this deserted, there would be no need for such decorum, but I was wrong.

"Hey Mister," a bored bubble-gum chewing waitress came over to berate me.

I looked up at her. "Can't you read?" she said, arms crossed with a severe expression on her cheerleader perfect face. Blonde waves cascaded either side of her perfect head. I just looked at her and pointed to the coffee pot on the side. She scowled and walked away then came back with the coffee and almost threw it down on the table, the contents sloshing at the sides. The coffee was always hot in these kind of places, it was also free and refills were obligatory. Though I seemed to have pissed her off, so maybe my case would be the exception.

"Ed!" I could hear her screeching out back. "Some idiot guy is out there, he just walked God darn right into the service area like he owned the place! Didn't stop or nothin!"

"Gee, Sal, that's real bad," he replied in a laconic drawl.

"Ain't it just!"

There was silence.

She sighed. "Alright, don't look at me like that. I'll take his order then hopefully he'll get the hell outta here and leave us in peace!"

Just what kind of place was this? A diner that longs to be empty? I'd never come across such a thing.
I looked up and saw her by my side, notepad in hand waiting for my order.

"What'll it be Mister? There's a special on pancakes. You can get them with hot cherries and maple syrup."

I looked up at her noticing the bead of moisture above her top lip. How could she be warm in here? It's not even as if the kitchen would be hot as no one else was here to make an order. Perhaps she was nervous? She took my examination of her as an affirmative for the special. "Right, pancakes it'll be then. Coming right up," she said then hurried back to short order cook Ed in the kitchen.

"That guy out there, Ed. He gives me the creeps," she said.

Ed walked over to the hatch and peered through. He was a man in his late forties with greasy grey hair and bad pock marked skin. Our eyes met briefly then he went back to his work pouring batter from a bowl.

"Nah, the fella's harmless, Sal," he said. "You've been watching too many of those movies."

"I have not! " she protested. "Well if he murders me and they can't find the body, you'll be to blame! I’m taking a cigarette break!” she said as she flounced off past the kitchen out the back door. Ed just tutted and continued cooking.

I sighed and kicked my heels to the back of the booth and heard a clang. Mystified, I reached under the table to find a gun. It was a pistol with a wide barrel. There was something sticking out of its nose. I reached inside to find a small piece of folded paper. 'Don't try to find me,' it said. I examined it and found there was one bullet missing and five left. I heard Sal come back out of the kitchen with my food, so I hurriedly hid the gun in my pocket.

"There ya go," she said as she plonked the food down then walked away.

I began to eat my pancakes which were surprisingly good. A long black sedan left the highway and drive into the parking lot. I saw Sal look out of the window then run to the kitchen clearly unnerved.

"The Boss is here, Ed! You didn't tell me he was visiting today! What the hell’s he doing here in Collier’s Creek?!”

" I din't know he was, Sal. Give me a break, Hon!”

"Ugh," she scowled in anger. She took her apron off, rolled it up and threw it into the corner of the nearest booth. She ran her fingers through her hair and clasped her hands together. I could see that they were shaking. Was she frightened or excited? I couldn’t tell.

I looked at the car, wondering just who was the owner of this strange diner? The front car door opened and a large man in a suit and hat stepped out. He walked around to the rear car door and opened it. The interior of the car was like a huge black hole in the desert. It was impossible to see who or what was inside. The driver stepped away and a silver topped cane cracked down in the parking lot. Sal gasped and a shiver ran through me. This wasn't good. Not good at all.

A Lost Life - follow up to The Dog-Walker Stalker

Note: The previous part of this story was posted on Monday 3rd December

Lizzie has that glint in her eye after I’ve picked at my Christmas dinner, the disapproving one that thinks I’m just an old fool, she’s right, but not in the way she’s surmised. I know it’s hurting her, and for that I am sorry, I should have told her years ago of course but it’s too late now.

Her red-lipped smile had grasped my heart before I’d even dared to ask her out. She was a woman encapsulating joy, just what I’d needed, flirtatious, fun, bursting with energy.  She wore a yellow dress, a bouncy ray of sunshine, linking arms with her sister when I’d first seen her walking on Blackpool prom.

We exchanged a brief hello, but her smile over her shoulder told me she was interested as her sister pulled her away, laughing.

She stamped out my shame with her carefree antics, daring me to drive her to the seaside in my Dad’s car or help her scale the huge wall to watch the race-horses parade, she thought I was a bloody hero. But that was nearly 50 years ago, a lot has happened since then. Her mischievous smile no longer bright, replaced by tuts of annoyance and a furrowed brow, I can’t blame her.

We’d never discussed whether there’d been anyone else before, we were only 19 and didn’t want to spoil the infatuation, we needed to believe it had only ever been ‘us’ and it suited me to leave that well alone.

But the secret I’ve buried all these years slammed back into my consciousness the day I received the letter, the contact I’d feared yet also yearned for, was like a time bomb from the past.

She’d signed the letter Amelia and it took several readings to realise that it was my grand-daughter, not my daughter, that had finally found me. One page of writing that sucked me straight back like a vacuum, making me shake and feel queasy, thank god Lizzie was at one of her WI coffee mornings, oblivious.  

It came with her picture, a pale, ethereal girl with large wide eyes framed by a shock of copper hair that cloaked her shoulder.

Amelia was just 18, the same age I first became a father. I took her in, the image of her grandmother, and slumped to the chair, breathing hard in shock.  I read the letter over and over before the news finally sank in and I broke down and sobbed.

I cried for Marie, my first love I lost to child-birth, for the daughter I’d too-easily handed over to her foster parents when I was too young to understand the years of burden that would bring and now for my beautiful granddaughter who had just lost her mother, my daughter, to a dreadful freak accident.

Too much for her to bare at such a young age and too much for me to deal with now I no longer have the resolve of my younger years. That day I lost everything, my past and my future; I’d never meet my adult daughter, and I’d never meet my granddaughter, how could I?

How could I explain this to Lizzie and the boys and look them in the eye, knowing what I did?

But everything has changed since that letter, I’ve changed, and of course Lizzie has noticed. When I see young women walking down to the woods or in town shopping, I just see Marie or Christina and now Amelia, a trio of women that mean so much to me, yet I can never talk about, never explain that they are a part of who I am.

Lizzie thinks that it’s something else, even at my old age, laughable really, she always was a touch on the jealous side, and I know I need to stop. To her it’s odd behaviour, I understand, and I know it’s doing us no good.

I’m not here, not really, I live in a parallel universe. I’m back there, heartbroken that the love of my life is no longer by my side.

Days after she died, I kissed my tiny daughter goodbye whilst gently wrapping her in the blanket my mother knitted, her name embroidered on the corner in pink, ‘Christina’, Marie’s choice after she’d found out she was due on Christmas day.

I fled my home town, escaped the hurtful comments and disapproving glares and met Lizzie just two months later. It was meant to be a new start and was for a long time. Now I can’t move forward, I’m stuck in the past with no reprieve, no let up. Lizzie’s frustrated sighs are the least of my worries, the picture of Amelia hanging over me, a ghostly reminder of all I’ve lost.

Now it’s Christmas day, I’m here with my family, but not really, on what should have been Christina’s 50^th birthday. The boys are fussing, what is wrong Dad? Even Evelyn, Lizzie’s sister keeps throwing side-ways glances and is unusually quiet. They seem genuinely concerned. Lizzie shakes her head and tuts as I take another slug of whisky.

‘Oh, I forgot!’ she says rummaging under the tree, ‘This came for you the other day, a present from your brother I think?’ My heart rate quickens, my ruse of an estranged brother who’s recently gotten back in touch, the one I write to each month, my only connection to Amelia.

Lizzie passes it to me with an anxious smile, hope in her eyes that this might cheer me up, a wave of guilt washes over me.  The writing now so familiar as I tear open the brown paper wrapping, wondering what on earth could be in the parcel? My fingers begin to shake as I feel soft fabric.

‘Well? What is it?’ asks lizzie, impatience in her tone. I clear my throat but cannot speak as I look down and lift the white bundle from the paper to my face, breathing in the smell of cotton and lavender, taking me back to the day I let her go, I unfold it and there it is, in baby pink thread….Christina.

Above Ground by Yvonne Witter

Last Wednesday via WhatsApp I asked my friend Rowena how she was, and she replied in a low tone “above ground”, we giggled. She runs a travel business in Kingston, Jamaica and travels the world extensively. She had been complaining of feeling tired and needing to offload some of her work to her staff. I think she is struggling with 'letting go', as she built her business from scratch. 

“Hhmm not heard that before" I said, "but it’s now mine too, so when someone asks how I am, I shall say ‘above ground and feeling grateful’”.

I found this quote, cut it out and stuck it in my journal last year.‘I write quicker now because of the panic of death’ Playwright David Hare told The Times that age is a great cure for writers’ block [January 2018]. Well considering that in June 2018 my over zealous GP gave me a prognosis of imminent death due to advanced cancer based on a lung X-ray, a diagnosis that wasn’t based on sufficient medical examination or tests. However, further tests with senior Consultants did reveal that all was not well, and my body was in dis-ease. So, demise is certain as it is for all of us who are ‘above ground’ but in my case not quite so imminent.

I mean after all who knows when we are going to pop off, push up daisies, be given last rites, or just shuffle off. Yes, there are predictors, but for some of us all we have are indicators that our bodies are malfunctioning. Dis-ease, uncurable but contained, dis-ease which wreaks havoc in more ways than the physical deterioration of healthy cells, and the symptoms of which sometimes there aren’t even that many. I know it sounds like hyperbole it must do. I fluctuate between feeling like I am on ‘death row’ to wanting to squeeze the last juice out of every day, if only I had the energy.  It has taken almost a year to stop feeling like its pointless starting anything as I might not be alive to complete it. Or going overseas for too long is a risk, just-in-case.

I was for a while simply waiting, expecting the physical deterioration and subsequent entry to the hospice to await my final hour. I have told my oncologist, on each visit that he is a miracle worker. He is simply the best, I wish I could sing that Tina Turner song to him, well the chorus anyway.

But wait a minute, my trip to the hospice no longer necessary, my energy levels are increasing, my appetite has certainly returned so no more compliments from our image obsessed society that equates weight loss with good health, oh the irony. I can’t lie though I liked the idea of throwing out frocks that were too big and buying a size smaller. You can’t be too thin these days, even if your body is wasting away, who cares? What really matters to the masses is that you are no longer a fatty.

So yes, alongside saying no to anything or anyone that does not bring me joy, or worse still stresses me out or does not make me feel empowered; I have also decided to seek out and prioritize that which brings me pleasure, keeps me calm, balanced and feeling good about myself. I suppose if I had always done that, I might not have grown a quite so dis-eased body.

However, I battle on in the knowledge that being ‘above ground’ is quite significant and whilst I can function on all cylinders I ought to be truly grateful and embrace every opportunity to celebrate each day.

Reasons to Be Tearful by Ian F White

REASONS TO BE TEARFUL.

(Read to the tune of “Reasons To Be Cheerful...” by Ian Dury & The Blockheads.)

Measles, Mumps, Rubella,

Split up with your fella,

Locked up in the cellar,

song sung blue.

Been taken for a ride,

We’ve got nowhere to hide,

Mother of the bride,

Can't be true.

Hannibal on the loose,

too few kangaroo’s,

Just run out of booze,

Balance Due.

Country is in deep debt,

Cat needs to see a vet,

Plug sockets are all wet,

A day to rue.

Car's got a flat tyre,

Billy's not a liar,

Daddy's not my sire,

Tea's gone cold

Russians in the Ukraine,

Lion without a mane,

Lex's kidnapped Lois Lane

Brass aint bold.

Gone to meet his maker,

Street without a baker,

Used up all my data,

Tale untold.

They've all gone and left me,

Beaten up by Bruce Lee,

Sad and melancholy,

My body's old.