ISSUE ONE - 10th April 2014

Hello, everyone, and welcome to issue one of Flash Gumbo.

Following on from our previous success with Word Gumbo, we are now focussing on flash-fictions, and what follows will be our first selection of short, short stories for you to enjoy.

We were really pleased with the stories which came in this time, and we're sure you will enjoy them. Please feel free to leave feedback for the writers, they will be pleased to know when you have enjoyed their work.

If you would like to submit your own stories for future editions, please visit the link above, or go to the Gumbo Press website.

In this issue we have stories from:

Neil Campbell 
Catherine Edmunds
Ken Elkes
Daniel Fishwick
Siobhan McNamara
Amanda Mason
Ashley Meggitt
Sal Page
Jason Rolfe
Tim Stevenson
Karen Storey
Stephen Thompson
Stella Turner

And we're sure you are going to love them all.

So, that's it for this issue. The next issue will come along once we have enough stories to fill it, so get submitting, and we look forward to reading your stories.

Calum Kerr & Mike Somers
Editors

Image: © Ben Goode | Dreamstime Stock Photos

‘Temporary Monsters’ by Amanda Mason

“We could go for a walk,” she says.

The cafe is warm, too warm, and there’s a smell, hot grease and vinegar. It makes her stomach churn.

Her hat and gloves sag on the seat next to her.

They’re new.

They itch.

He grunts and picks up his newspaper.

“Shall we, then?” she asks.

Her voice is too harsh and she knows it; it scrapes the walls, claws at the steamy windows, but she can’t help it.

She fiddles with her empty cup, her thumb smearing the lipstick stain, wet and bloody.

He looks up, puzzled; not quite able to remember when she had begun to lose her appeal, when she had begun to reveal her true nature, when he had first noticed her sharp teeth, that vicious tongue.

“Where?” he says.

She shrugs and gestures towards the harbour, its fishing boats tethered, jerking intermittently against their ropes and against the coming storm.

Another grunt.

Her patience, fragile to begin with, frays and splits.

“Well, what do you want to do?” she asks.

He turns a page of the paper, as if he hasn’t heard.

She taps the table with glossy silver claws.

She won’t repeat herself, she refuses to.

“We could go for a walk,” he says, “as long as you don’t complain.”

“About what?”

“The cold, the wind, the sand in your eyes.”

“It stings.”

She can’t help herself.

Neither can he.

“As long as you don’t complain.”

She turns her head away from him and pretends to look out of the window.

She can’t fathom it.

She doesn’t know why she stays, why she lets him prowl and pick and worry at her.

When he folds the paper and stands, she jumps to her feet, fumbling with her hat and gloves.

They let the door clatter shut behind them. They pause as the wind strikes, swift and bitter and tugging further speech away.

It howls.

He takes her by the hand and they turn and make their way towards the bay, past the gaudy shops filled with plastic masks and temporary monsters.

‘The Proposal’ by Stephen Thompson

'You really want to get married?'

'Yes.'

'Do you have a ring?'

'A ring? What for?'

'Because, silly, that's what you do when you propose. You're meant to put a ring on my finger.' She held up the appropriate finger. 'This one.'

He became thoughtful. 'What does it mean, 'perpose'?'

Sighing heavily, she folded her arms and looked away from him.  Panicking, he delved into  his pocket and pulled out a marble. He fingered it, tossed it in the air a few times, held it up against the sunlight. It was his only marble and he was reluctant to part with it but he offered it to her all the same. She slapped his hand away.

'I don't want your stupid marble.'

'It's not stupid.'

'It is.'

'Isn't.'

Without another word she sprang nimbly to her feet and strode away, her pigtails swinging from side to side, one white bobby sock crumpled and slightly lower than the other. He watched her go, in between pulling up tufts of grass, then rose and sprinted after her. Many years later, when they were married, he would tease her about the day she dragged him off to the bushes and showed him her knickers. In reality they spent the rest of the afternoon stealing kisses while their parents picnicked  a few feet away pretending not to notice.

‘The Jump’ by Ashley Meggitt

‘Maddy will do it, won’t you Maddy?’ Tom smiled at the young woman in her cream coloured bikini.

‘Do you think I can?’ said Maddy. ‘I’m not sure. It’s a long way down.’ She looked pleased at Tom's attention.

 ‘Of course you can. Just take a running jump so you miss the slab rock at the bottom.’ Tom strode over to the cliff edge. ‘There,’ he said pointing, ‘look.’

Maddy approached the edge carefully and peered down. Beneath them water swelled up momentarily covering the large flat rock. Tenacious fronds of seaweed, buoyed by the water, floated up like unkempt hair only to fall back as the sea retreated, plastered to the rocky forehead.

‘Maddy, it’s dangerous. You mustn’t do it.’ Alan had stepped forward. He felt the panic rising, swelling like the sea, and it made his voice slightly higher pitched than usual. She mustn’t do it. She mustn’t.

‘Don’t be so wet Alan,’ said Tom without turning. ‘You’ll be fine Maddy. Brave Maddy.’

Alan appealed to Tank.

‘Tank, it’s a stupid thing for Maddy to do isn’t it? Are you going to jump?’

Tank had stretched himself out on the sunny grass.

‘Not on your life. It scares the crap out of me.’ He scratched his bulky midriff. ‘Bloody stupid thing to do I reckon.’

‘I think I might,’ said Maddy still looking down at the slab. ‘It doesn’t poke out too much and I’ve always been good at jumping.’

Alan knew she wanted to impress Tom, wanted him to think her as brave and adventurous as he was, but...

‘Maddy, no, please.’ Alan felt desperate. She didn't see what she was doing. He was going to be humiliated by the very person he so wanted to impress. He could have no claim to her affections if she jumped and he didn’t. She’d think he was a coward. Oh God, he’d have to do it.

‘Just because you’re too scared to jump doesn’t mean that Maddy is. Isn’t that right Maddy?’ Tom smiled at her again.

Alan knew Tom wasn’t interested in Maddy - she was just the trophy. The pleasure for Tom was in the game. Beating him.

‘I’m not scared,’ said Alan, ‘it’s just that I think it’s dangerous, really dangerous. If Maddy gets hurt it’ll be your fault. You’re making her jump.’

‘No he’s not,’ said Maddy, rising in defence of Tom. ‘I was always going to jump. If you’re not scared then you jump. Go on, do it now.’

Tom grinned. Alan could see the triumph in his eyes, mocking him, knowing the game was almost over, knowing he wouldn't jump.

He stood, shamed, drenched in inevitable humiliation. He wanted to scream his terror, his frustration, his anger.

Anger.

He felt that now more than anything. Anger at Maddy for making him prove himself, anger at Tom for having no fear, but mostly anger at himself for being useless.

He ran.

He jumped.

But not far enough.

‘Teach me the Ukulele...’ and ‘Wilfred’s Glasses’ by Sal Page

‘Teach me the Ukulele and I’ll Teach you to Bake’

Sam had spoken to her occasionally but only with others present. The one time he could look at her was when he was playing. He would smile and tilt his head as if he were George. Once he even winked.

One Saturday they’d met in town. She’d said hello but he couldn’t answer. He pretended he hadn’t heard, hummed to himself and scurried away. He wondered why he did but shrugged and accepted it then indulged in picturing the two of them going for coffee. She would choose a cake and he’d look into her melted-chocolate eyes and say the cakes weren’t anywhere near as good as hers. He loved the lemon muffins and buttered malt loaf she brought to church socials.

Sylvia was making a sponge cake. She’d made so many she didn’t need to follow a recipe or concentrate on what she was doing so she could think about Sam. She had dared say hello in town once but didn’t know what to do next so just carried on walking as if that’s what she meant to do. As she wandered into a department store she continued their conversation in her head, safe to do now he was gone. She began to imagine herself and Sam choosing cushions.

She found herself in the bedroom section and the sight of all those mocked up bedrooms made her blush. She wondered if Sam ever sat up in bed practicing. In stripy pyjamas, she decided. She could listen to his strumming for hours. It reminded her of her Dad watching George Formby films on rainy afternoons. The sound of Sam’s playing gave her bats – never mind butterflies – in her stomach. She put the cake in the oven, thought about Sam’s soft-brown-sugar hair and went to look for some jam.

Sam’s sitting on his bed. He’s writing a new song that he wants to dedicate to Sylvia. He writes with green biro. The ink transfers itself to his fingers and the ukulele strings. He keeps working till gone midnight, puts his ukulele down, lies back and thinks about her. He feels the song’s ready, imagines playing it to her but knows he never could. He pictures her in a pink apron, stirring something in a large bowl and licking buttery fingers.

Sylvia’s making her ordinary rectangular sponge cake into an extra-ordinary ukulele shaped cake. It has to be ready for Saturday. Someone said it was Sam’s birthday. The icing has cocoa in it. She’s carefully piping the strings with white chocolate. She thinks about Sam’s fingers on the strings and hums the tune of the song he played last week.

She tries to imagine Sam’s face when he first sees the cake. She thinks he will look straight at her then smile. She must - she will - breath deeply, then she must - she will – smile.

And not run away.

She has something to ask him.

‘Wilfred’s Glasses’

He took the glasses out of their snappy case and opened up the handles or arms or whatever they were called. He reached to the bedside table for his book.

Wilfred loved this book. He’d found it in the charity shop a Saturday-or-so-ago when he and the others had gone to town on the bus with Glenn. The short lady, Billy and Marian. Fifty pence. A bargain. Glenn said to buy it if it was what he wanted.

It had a cover the colour of blackcurrant drink and shiny gold letters on the front. He liked the silky ribbon trapped between the pages that could be used to mark your place. He brought the book to his nose and breathed; a delicious combination of ripeness and dust and a faint trace of shop-smell underneath. Wilfred loved the smell of the PDSA shop.

He flicked the book’s pages with his thumb. They made a nice slapping sound as he searched for a place to start. Wilfred reached the middle and moved his palm across cool dryness. He put the glasses on, nearly poking one of the handle-arms into his eye. It was tricky but he’d get the hang of it. He gazed down at the jumping-around words then focused on the white spaces between.

Glenn had held the door open for them, the others had spread out to examine rows of eyes staring from around the edges and Wilfred had told the optician he needed glasses. For reading, he said, patting his duffle coat pocket, where he could feel the book wedged in and waiting for him. The optician-lady pointed to a big sign with letters and Wilfred read three from the top.

The lady had smiled, nodded to Glenn and decided Wilfred didn’t need to bother reading the getting-smaller-and-smaller blocks of writing lower down. Yes, he was right. He needed reading glasses and did he want to choose some frames? He chose these green ones and they all went to the café.

Wilfred had an Eccles cake. Glenn had to ask for a cloth when Billy’s hot chocolate got spilt and crept across the table towards the short lady’s toasted sandwich. Wilfred was busy thinking about the book in one pocket and the new glasses in the other. As he brushed Eccles-crumbs from Wilfred’s front, Glenn said to leave them where they were till they got back.

Now, sitting on the edge of his bed, Wilfred could pick out the odd letter. There were a lot of ayes, bees and esses and whatnot. He knew most of them. He adjusted the glasses and waited a few seconds. He turned the pages; more blocks with dazzling white between and numbers at the top.

Wilfred pulled the glasses from his face and stared at them. He folded them back up and snapped them into the case. He smoothed the ribbon down onto the page and carefully closed the book.

Wilfred sighed. He’d had high hopes for those reading glasses.

‘No Hero’ and ‘The Job’ by Catherine Edmunds

‘No Hero’ 

I came of age in a time of no heroes, long after the last wagons trundled out west, but you cannot choose when to be born, when to die; you cannot always have the maid with the freckles and the twinkling eyes in the long low Kansas light.

Caroline, they called her.

One day an Air Force boy came striding into town, magnificent, and all the girls stopped but he only saw Caroline.

When I was young I yearned to travel, to move on forward, but the old folk needed help on the farm and Aunt Maggie needed help with the cheese-making, Uncle Ferdinand with the cider, the cousins with God. Next year they said; go on your travels when it’s time, but there never was time; always a crisis, a problem with the soil, a disease in the wheat, milk gone sour, a failure of apples.

Caroline came back. She didn’t say much but something inside had broken.

I’m no hero, never have been. This limping gait didn’t come from anything other than a ladder not fixed soon enough, a fall from the roof of a barn, too much cheese eaten and cider drunk when there was work to be done.

Caro – squeeze my hand, and before this life passes smell the light, feel the chickens scratching out there in the yard, taste the burning fields, and make believe they were set ablaze by a tempest, by lightning flashing, not a rain of death dropped from on high by an Air Force boy – no hero. 

‘The Job’ 

She’d given him a warmer kiss than usual that morning, so David knew that by noon, something would be dead. He braced himself for explosions, poisonings, events posing as accidents.

The September sun pretended to have August’s strength, but it couldn’t warm him as he walked down onto the beach. The familiar crunch of shingle gave way to the softness of dry sand, then the weirdness of the wet, leaving puddles behind, grabbing at the soles of his boots to stop him moving forward. The sea was still too far away. He’d never catch it. He licked his lips. Salt – the taste of Juliet’s lips a memory.

Somehow he got through the day, somehow he managed to gather enough driftwood to craft into a sea creature, part selkie, part Juliet. He wouldn’t sell this one. As he worked, the local radio station’s anodyne drivel about the conference was interrupted with news of a freak accident at the Grand Hotel; the huge chandelier had fallen. The newsreader was unable to detail deaths and injuries at this point.

David went back to the flat. All Juliet’s things were gone. He’d asked her to marry him last night, but she’d been irrevocably opposed to marrying anyone. ‘It’s the job,’ she’d said.

He would spend the rest of his life crafting her likeness out of driftwood.

'Nightlight' and ‘Tomorrow’s Guest’ by Tim Stevenson

‘Nightlight’  

“I’m waiting.” The voice was soft, rasping.

“What for?” Billy asked. He was holding on tight to the edge of his bed and leaning down to peer into the darkness beneath.

“The thing on the other side of the door,” Billy’s monster said.

“There’s nothing in my closet. Mummy shows me.”

“Not that door,” the monster whispered.

“And teddy sees me all the time,” Billy pointed at the baby camera.

“Not. That. Door.” the monster said again as it tried to make itself comfortable amongst the toy cars.

“But that’s my bedroom door,” Billy said.

“Yes. The monster who pulls off legs and wings, laughs while it burns with the lens and uses matches!” it hissed.

“My brother?” Billy asked.

“Is that its name? Brother? Horrible,” the monster chuckled.

“Eddie’s alright. He doesn’t mean it really.”

“Does he pull off your arms?” came the question from the dark.

“He tries, but Mummy stops him.”

“Mummy controls Brother Eddie?” the monster growled.

“She sends him to his room when he’s naughty,” Billy said.

The monster’s voice was very small. “I know,” it said.

Billy asked his first question again. “Why are you under my bed then?”

“No one can see you under the bed.”

“Like when I’m under my blankie?”

“I can see you,” the monster said. “What’s that word, when you cover toys with a sheet and it’s not flat anymore?”

“Lumpy?”

“Lumpy. Little boys are lumpy. I see you.”

Billy thought about this as goose-pimples ran up his arm. “Oh.”

“It’s safer in the dark,” the monster said. “Can’t see lumpy in the dark.”

Billy grabbed his pillow and wriggled underneath his bed.

“No-one can see you now,” the monster said.

In the darkness next to Billy, Eddie’s smile was only teeth.

‘Tomorrow’s Guest’ 

  

“Coming up next we’ve got Archie Russell. Says he’s been missing for three years and was abducted by aliens. Oh-kay. But first, adverts.”

Zach peeled his headphones off and lit a cigarette with one smooth motion. He tapped on the booth’s glass wall with his foot.

“So, producer dude, you ready to rock this?” His lips were the back seat of a seventies muscle car; cracked, leopard-spot leatherette and strange stains.

I was telling Archie the drill. Sit here, talk into that, leave through the door at the far end of the corridor. The green one.

I adjusted the microphone. “Test,” Archie said. “Test test-test-test.” He looked twitchy, as if the words had crept under a filling and were worrying a nerve.

Zach stubbed his cigarette out and raised a finger: three, two, one.

“And were back,” Zach drawled. “With us now we have Archie Russell. Hey, Archie.”

“Hello.”

“So, UFO. Tell me all about it,” Zach demanded.

While Archie stumbled through his story I thought about all the other guests from the back pages of the local paper who’d shown up, said their piece, had their fifteen minutes and were never seen again.

These back page people, where did they all come from, where did they go? Through the green door and on with their lives, I supposed. I’d lived here for years and I’d never seen them in any of the pubs or standing in the street waiting for a bus.

When his story was over Archie sat back, gave a sigh and wrung his hands. He knew his time was up.

“That was fine,” I said. “No problems.”

He shook my hand without a word and walked away. In front of the green door he hesitated, reached forward, twisted the handle and stepped through.

I went after him.

Our security guard stopped me as I approached.

“No, sir. Guests only,” he said, blocking my way.

Zach was shouting from the studio so I left the green door and went back.

“That guy,” he said.

I shrugged.

“You know, the guitar guy. Came in last year with that nine-string thing, said he’d found all those new notes. Can we get him back here to play something?”

I nodded and counted Zach out of the commercials then searched the old guest list. There he was, Oswald Kroll, pagan guitar hero. I called the number and left a message.

After the show I stood in the corridor and stared at the green door. To one side was an office, to the other a wall of glass. It had to be tiny, no bigger than a closet. I put my ear against the door and listened.

There was a sound, almost as if a heavy, rolled-up carpet had been hoisted up against the wall on the other side, and then a metallic scratching, as if someone was carefully stringing a guitar.

I wondered if behind this door was enough space to store all those fifteen minutes, stacked carefully together, thin, waiting.