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LISA
A Cuppa with Nanna
Nanna had said the teapot was haunted. We didn’t listen which is awful but she’d said a lot of weird stuff since pop had died.
“I won’t drink from it. He’s in there!”
“OK Nanna” I poured into a floral cup “You can read the leaves after.” I gulped the weak brew wanting it over as soon as possible. Nanna looked at the tea dregs through freshly polished glasses and dropped the cup.
“He’s left the pot.” I knew there was more to come so felt no relief. “He’s…”She faltered, raised a finger to point directly at me. “He’s in…”
RICHARD
Pop
I’ve always found it surprising that when they interview people in the vicinity, they always say ‘I heard a pop, and then people started running in panic’, or something along those lines.
It’s always a pop though. Never a bang, an explosion, or even a rat-a-tat-tat! Always, a pop.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard shots fired, of every sort, and if there’s one word that I’d never use to describe a gunshot, it’s ‘pop’.
Somehow it just sanitises the whole thing: Makes it family-friendly, almost attractive.
And just maybe, that’s precisely where we’re going wrong?
LIZZIE
The cork popped.
“It’s worth the wait,” he said.
She smiled. Yes, two centuries.
“It’ll taste sour at first.”
She smiled. She didn’t like sour.
“But the aftertaste will be sweet.”
She nodded. She didn’t like sweet either.
In fact, she didn’t like anything except the taste of hatred.
Two centuries. And here he was, oblivious that he had betrayed her many moons ago.
She had used her powers to look different, more seductive.
That green bottle was somewhat beneath her, but it would have to do.
Perhaps then she would be able to taste something again. “Pop! And cheers!”
ED
LUNCH WITH POP
“Hiya, Pop.”
“Hiya, yourself. What’re you doing here?”
“Good to see you, too, Pop. We’re going to lunch today.”
“Brunch? Little late for that.”
“That’s why we’re having lunch, Pop, a late lunch.”
“You ate lunch? Then I ask again, what’re you doing here?
“Oh, Pop, come on. Stop playing games. I know you can hear exactly what I’m saying.”
“What’s that?”
“Alright, Pop, that’s enough. Get your coat and your phone and let’s get going.”
“Where are we going?”
“Tuesdays, Pop. We’re going to Tuesdays.”
“Thought we were going today?”
“Pop!?”
“I’ll shut up and get in the car.”
SERENDIPIDY
Who doesn’t like bubble wrap?
That enormously satisfying pop as you squeeze, twist and scrunch those lovely polythene bubbles: The perfect, therapeutic, stress relief; guaranteed to ease the troubles of modern living.
Who would have thought a simple packaging product could be so beneficial to mental health?
Who doesn’t like bubble wrap?
Me, for a start!
Listening to your incessant popping, for hours on end is one of the most annoying, irritating, stress-inducing sounds that could possibly be imagined!
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Just one more, that’s all it’s going to take.
And the next pop, will be your head!
NORVAL JOE
Billbert shook his head. “I’m not sure I believe you about these Dark Knights. I mean. You said there were some in our homeroom class. They all looked like normal kids to me. How am I supposed to know who’s good and who’s bad?”
Sabrina huffed. “That’s the thing. You can’t tell good from bad.”
Billbert rolled his eyes. “So, I’m just supposed to wait for one of them to pop out from around a corner and say ‘Boo. I’m a Dark Knight’?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Sabrina said. “They’ll take control of your brain and you won’t even know it.”
PLANET Z
Pop had a way of dealing with strangers.
He’d start off all nice and smiles and welcomes.
Inviting them into the house, asking if they wanted something to drink.
And he’d listen to their sales pitch, whether it was newspapers or vacuums or Jesus they were selling.
Encyclopedias were a favorite of Pop.
We had a whole bookshelf full of them.
Just the A book, mind you. Rows and rows of the A book.
And bibles.
And newspapers and vacuum cleaners, stacked up high in the basement.
Like a maze, to the furnace, where we burned up those strangers’ bodies.