(1000 words) Head Cook and Bottle Washer was the name of the quaint little cafe I’d discovered. It looked empty, but I’d fancied a change from the noisy, greasy clientele, and the even greasier sausage rolls of Kell's. “Here you are, sir.” A girl placed a silver tray onto the blue chequered tablecloth in front of me and transferred a white porcelain teapot and cup onto it, followed by a white plate with a pink rose motif. On it sat a large scone, dotted with dried mixed fruit. Then a small bowl containing butter, and diverse jugs of milk and hot water. “I’m impressed!” Her large green eyes looked into mine with a sincerity that made me feel slightly embarrassed. “Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?”
Tag: 1000 word story
Just the Ticket
(1000 words) We were headed into a green tunnel. On both sides of the path, stretching back many yards, was a wall of burgeoning saplings, mature trees, bracken, vines, beds of nettles - a mass of lush verdant vegetation, flourishing in chaos. Dappled sunlight filtered through the greenery, here and there turning patches of leaves a variegated yellow. Elsa pointed ahead to a row of low concrete columns that seemed to stretch forever along the left-hand side of the path. “What’s this granddad?” “Ha, this was a platform. That’s the edge. Trains used to stop here.”
Monasticity
(1000 words) Monastic-style beers were her favourite. Heavy, sweet, and above all, high alcohol! She peered through the small opaque panes of Oliver’s Beer and Books. No sign of anyone in the small cafe behind the faded yellow door. She pushed it open and a bell rang. Inside was a counter, and behind, shelves upon which stood perhaps twenty dusty brown bottles. Bold fonts on cream and blue labels displayed odd foreign names - Zundert, Achel, Gregorius, Westmalle, all ones that she was now familiar with. Perhaps too familiar? A coffee machine, all shiny bright steel and red levers stood at one end of the counter. The enticing odour of coffee was noticeable by its absence.
Is There Anybody There?
(1000 words) Melt the ice, that was the name of the game. I’d done it myself in guitar classes. Go around the circle, getting everyone, in turn, to say why they wanted to learn the guitar and what they hoped to achieve. This was a bit different though. We had to say why we wanted … Continue reading Is There Anybody There?
What’s in Store?
(1100 words) Waves in Plasmas. I flicked through pages of mind-boggling equations in the heavy hardback book. The Susceptibility and Dielectric Tensors. How the hell could I have understood this stuff? Thirty years later it might as well have been in Chinese! At the sound of muffled hammering, I threw the book back into a box of old textbooks and went out of my storage unit into the corridor. Four units away, a bright light showed under a door. What the hell are they doing in there?
A Merry Dance
(1000 words) It was a dull, claustrophobic December day and flakes of grey-white snow were settling on the terrace behind King’s Antiquarian Booksellers. Maggie Swann, the matriarch of Swann’s Rare Books, crossed it to enter an annexe. Inside, in eerie silence, anonymous leather-bound volumes filled dusty bookcases. At the back was a steel cabinet, housing rows of ancient books, bound variously in leather, suede and vellum, standing incongruously on grey metal shelves. Maggie caressed cotton-rich paper, hundreds of years old, admiring the lettering, still fresh-looking, in rich black and deep red. The books were mainly in Latin, which she left to Sammy, her bearded expert on incunabula.
Voices from the Ether
(1000 words) December 22nd 10.37 a.m. Jenny opened the trapdoor and climbed into a forgotten world. The attic was eerily dark, lit only by the occasional shaft of sunlight penetrating through the roof, in which sparkling dust particles gyrated. Draped furniture in the gloom seemed ominous and ghoul-like. The air smelt both musty and mouldy, like the decaying air-raid shelters she’d played in as a child, cold and silent even on a summer’s day.