‘Very’ short stories – Precisely 60 words

·     Like the rumbling, shuddering and thudding of distant thunder, or the howl of a passing motorbike, other times the chirp of a dawn avion … or the creak of a leather shoe, a lonely door.  Sometimes a lover’s low moan or even the sound of an autumn breeze, always unique, this olfactory utterance, page 528 of Collins English – fart (taboo).

·     The prairie was perfect, the butte beaut, the gulch great … Chad Everitt smiled at his alliteration … and the mesa?  But not everything was Bantam Books perfect.  A cactus splinter on his reins’ hand was giving him gyp … and his new chaps were way too tight. It wasn’t all beer and skittles being a Louis L’Amour paper-back cowboy

·     It started with a kiss and a sharing of ‘Darling’, but ended with a hiss and a lot of snarling.  The passion of youth took them to the stars and beyond, but she was Kirkaldies and he was Warehouse.  The accelerant of lust soon turned to dust, for there was no shared plateau to enable the nuptial anniversaries to flow.

·     Deporting herself on a sunny granite ledge, hair shining like spun-gold, her marshmallow-like form was rubenesque, her hue home-appliance white and demeanour care-free.  Magdalena revelled in the autumnal warmth.  What joy redundancy had brought.  Constraints and conventions were things of the past. Timetables and commitments were for wage-slaves, the work-weary drones. No more, the daily chore of bovine artificial insemination.

·      As Spring sprang, Joy jumped with her namesake. Goats gamboling and blooms blooming always made her borderline-euphoric. Buds budding heightened her alliterative happy state.  Seeing the garden awash with colour brought her to her knees in homage to the marvels of nature.  Ankle-deep in new growth on the lawn, casting her eyes skyward, she beseeched — “Now make the mower go!”

·      “Squeeze the sides Grandpa, then rub your finger up on the front, next put in One, Two, Three, One by tapping the glass — now rub your finger up again, and the icons will be there for you.  Icons are the pictures of the apps.  You’re looking for the one that looks like a phone. Oh it’s gone off — start again!”

· “Hurry up, they’ll be here soon.”

“I can’t get it to start!  You’ve got the longer fingernails.  Go over to the light by the window.”

“Where’s my glasses?”

“On your head!”

“I can’t see the end — or even feel it.  Hang on, yes I can. Bugger, now it’s split.”

“I hate Christmas!”

“Sticky tape didn’t used to be like this.”

·      Why was there no warning?  No training, no filial advice, no collegial help.  There’d been no signs, no general public health bulletin.  The inexplicable memory loss, the breathlessness, the tottery gait, the falls … teeth falling out … the physical enfeeblement… the genuine need of a Magna Mail catalogue for jar opening assistance — The fourth quartile of life.

·      “Hello, do you take gifts for the needy?

“Yes, that is one of our services.”

“Well, I am replacing my pegs. I do my laundry four times a week 48 times a year, using all 25 pegs. Iuse green for spring, blue for summer, red for autumn and white for winter.”

Chloe realised her mouth was hanging slackly open.

·      At 14 he sensed that he was still too young, but adult urges and sensations are strong.  He felt a lifetime commitment was there for him.  He knew from reading, that love was very difficult to describe. There was a tingling sensation in his very being, sometimes a shortness of breath when his thoughts strayed to his new desire — coffee.

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