SCRIBBLING WREN
Cara
My bag got stolen, snatched last night as I got off the bus but that’s not the moment of change in today’s story. Obviously, it’s a pain, stopping cards, the loss of the money – my tips were in there. And my make up bag, this is the biggie.
Right now, I’m on the bus without a mask of foundation, eyes undefined with liner, squirming with embarrassment not wanting anyone to look.
The juddering window exposes my naked face and I see me. I see me like it’s for the first time and I realise it’s OK. This is my face.
LIZZIE
The vase in the shape of a giraffe was the reason for many arguments in the Employees (the gang) Only room. Some said it was a deer, others a dog, others whatever. Though the “whatevers” would frequently win, she insisted it was a giraffe. She enjoyed being a nuisance, the vortex of all disagreements. When management decided she had to be promoted, the gang threw the giraffe in the garbage out of spite. That’s when they discovered a mic. This is how you go from being oh, so happy for being a nag to… oh my god, I was fired.
RICHARD
Exposed
We found the old camera whilst clearing out my grandfather’s attic. It was in a box marked ‘grandad’, scrawled in my grandfather’s curly script, and we figured from the newspaper packing, that the contents had belonged to his grandfather… My great, great grandfather!
It still contained a roll of exposed film, and my hands trembled at the thought of what treasures from the past it might hold.
“That’s cool!” Whooped my twelve-year old son, snatching the camera from me, opening it, and unspooling the film, holding it up to the brightly sunlit window.
“Nothing on it” he said, frowning.
TOM
Weather Will Kill Ya
There is a rite of passage in Chicago. As a kid your actively bundled by parents to not freeze to death. Deep layers of clothing insured you would make it to at least the age of 14. The winter of your freshman year peer-pressure left you sorely exposed to the elements. No boots, No hat, No scarf. Just jeans and a Letterman leather jacket, not exactly Arctic wear. And worst for the girls, in skirts. We were having none of that and forced both the official and unofficial school dress code into the 20th century
SERENDIPIDY
Don’t believe a word of it!
We don’t sleep in coffins, you can’t kill us with a stake through the heart, we don’t turn to dust when exposed to sunlight, and we certainly don’t have sparkly skin or enjoy a bad relationship with werewolves.
It’s all nonsense.
Except the part about drinking blood.
We definitely do that.
But, none of the rest of it, just to be clear.
We look, sound, act and behave just like anybody else.
We could be your colleague, or neighbour, or cousin.
Even you could be one!
Maybe you should give drinking blood a try?
NORVAL JOE
As Billbert and Sabrina walked from the movie theater to the ice cream shop he kept an eye out for her grandmother. Earlier in the day when she had coerced Billbert to take her granddaughter to the movie she made it clear she didn’t want her part in the activity exposed.
Sabrina smiled at him over her banana split. “I’m glad you’ve come to your senses and see that I am the girl for you, and not that Linoleum girl.”
Billbert dug half-heartedly at his hot fudge sundae. “I’m thirteen years old. I hardly think there’s any girl for me.”