Category: Simple Stories

Close Encounters

On By cjx07sterIn Art, Australia, Love Story, Simple StoriesLeave a comment

Teriiska Comets

The restaurant was quiet and somewhat darkened in the twilight.  Two friends chatting, eating out reading the news on the web.

October 2014 – Southern Comets Homepage  – ‘Siding Springs Comet’

“As October begins, you will find the magnitude 9.5 comet ‘Siding Springs’ situated near the stinger of the Scorpion in the evening sky.
Moonlight interferes with viewing until the 10th.
On Oct 8-9, the comet is within a degree of the butterfly star cluster M6. 

On Sunday evening Oct 19th, the now magnitude 10.0 comet and magnitude 0.9 Mars will be separated by less than 20 arc minutes.
From Adelaide, the altitude will be 38 degrees at 9pm, reducing to 3 degrees by midnight.
The brightness of Mars may actually overwhelm your chances to see the comet but definitely try to capture it photographically! ” – Southern Comets Homepage

Continue reading “Close Encounters” →

No Lifeguard – No Diving – No Worries

On By cjx07sterIn Simple Stories, TravelLeave a comment

Hotel’s have rooms numbered so you only have to remember your room number and things are cool.  Actually your room number and your last name.  You have to remember both.

‘I lost my key !’ – ‘OK sir, what room number ?’

‘Ah… I think it’s 337’.. yes.

‘Whats the last name ?’

‘Jones,, perhaps’

At which point you always get a kind of funny look, like you might have forgotten your last name or even worse, you may have forgotten the last name of the person you are hoping lives in room 337.

‘Sir, we don’t have a room 337. Are you sure that’s your room number ?’

So you know when you get older and seen several rooms in two weeks it can get a bit hazy. But you know it’s not that.  It’s really a kind of mild sense of anxiety.

Anyway – having finally recalled the room number and confidently stated your name – you get a new key.

Coming up to the door, however you check again the number.  Its not actually written on the blank key.  So you cannot check it.  If only they had keys like the old hotels where the key had a tag with a number on it.  Easy to remember and you just left it at the desk when you went out.

So you come up to the room and and knock carefully.  A confident person  wouldn’t worry.  Anxiety however leads to a lot of doubt about things and maybe you knock.. just to be sure.  Sure that no one comes out of your probably vacant room.  You finally breathe easy when the green light allows you to go in.

You get your things and decide to go for a swim in the hotel pool.  It’s 5am so no one else, no screaming kids, no anxious mothers, no fitness fanatics will be there.  How futile to try to get fit in a hotel pool of merely 12 yards length.  No.. on arrival the pool is still and quiet.  Not a ripple.  It’s indoor and gradually your anxiety fades.  Start swimming up and down in the well lit pool and after a few laps, you stand to let the now big standing waves subside and the pool to quiet down again.  After a while you notice that the tiles on the side of the pool, the depth marker tiles.  The ones that say 3ft, 5ft,6ft embedded under the lip of the pool edge… those tiles.  They say 6ft, but it’s not is it.  The water is barely 3ft 6in depth and it says 6ft.  How can that be ?  You stop swimming and start worrying. Check the 3ft end.  It cannot be more than 2ft 6 deep.  How could all the engineers and lawyers with all the signs and clauses on the wall, No lifegard ! No Diving !. get it so wrong ?.  There can only be one answer.  Something or maybe even someone is buried in carefully repainted concrete at the bottom of the pool.  Anxiety mounts.  Should you tell the front desk ? No Worries.  You’ll let them know after breakfast. Now what was the room number again ?

 

Story of Rope Hook and Stone

On By cjx07sterIn Simple Stories, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Alone again late, Sally sat at the the laminex table in the hotel room out of I10 on the way through Texas.  It was warm outside and the sun had set some time back.  The phone rang and Sally let it ring for a bit before picking up.

‘hello’ she said.

‘Hi Sally this is John.  Just wanted to let you know I went there, you know, to that place and the cellar door at the bottom of the stairs.  Locked it was.  Couldn’t open it.  Sorry about that. Left the key there.  What do you want to do ? ‘

‘Don’t know.’ said Sally putting the phone down.

Sally sat there feeling tired.  Her face looked fine but then tears started out tracking down and fell onto the table.  She tried to think but then thoughts scattered and she fell into a sleepy lake in the moonlight outside.  An own skidded past silently but screeched down on an eel in the lake and hooked it out like a wet writhing rope with its talons. The own screeched off in the night but turned and came around low over rocks at the side of the lake.  The eel snapped at a stone as it dragged along the shore and suddenly became heavier. Stretching the eel, it suddenly ripped the stone from the earth and the own sped off into the sky. Suddenly the water of the lake felt warm and salty. Sally stood up and walked to the shore and lay down on the sand.  In the morning she woke and grabbing the keys from the table, she went to the shed and picked up the rope and drove out to the house where John had been.  Opening the door she saw a massive hook in the wall to the left, and the stairs down to the cellar at the right. Stretching the rope of the wall hook she flicked on the light and went down to the cellar door.  There was the key as John had said.  Sally tied the rope to the door and went outside again.  Grabbing the rope she remembered the eel and the stone and pulled till her back hurt and the door gave way.  Rushing back in down the stairs she saw a small rock of serpentine greenish gray on the floor just inside the cellar. She picked up the stone and felt all her troubles flow into it.  The troubles created by the stone in the heart of the man she loved.

 

The bookmark reflection

On By cjx07sterIn Love Story, Simple Stories2 Comments

‘Hate that book’ – he muttered – looking at rather than talking to his phone.  Walking faster now he arrived at the bookshop and glanced up.  A woman was sitting there reading a book – he could see through the window – just sipping a coffee and kind of smiling, deep in reading thought.  He thought he recognized the book and one he had recently read himself.

‘Hi’ he said catching her eye on entering the shop.  ‘Hello’ she said carefully looking him over and suddenly not smiling.

‘I loved that….Jane Cenion really knows how to write.’ he said, pointing at her book.

‘Yes, I like it as well’ she said.  Determined not to keep going with this conversation.

—-

‘What are you reading ?’ she asked, quite sure that he probably wasn’t reading anything.

‘Oh – just some dumb book someone gave me.  I hate it.’

‘Oh really ?’ she enquired, suddenly brightening.

‘Ah you woudn’t know it.  It’s called Grimus’.

‘O – I’ve read that.   What else do you hate ?’ – she said.

Well – so he started, remembering at random almost all the books that he hated. Kids books, Celeb Biography, Poetry, History books.  Fiction books with no plot.  Anything so called post modern.  After a while he noticed she’d been taking a list of all the books he hated so much.

‘What are you doing ?? he demanded !’.

“Oh it’s nothing – don’t worry. I’m on a 365 challenge you know.  I’ve found it hard but a focus to read all the books that people tell me they hate.  People love to hate things, you know, different reasons. Even things they start out loving and saying how great they are.  They can end up hating with a passion.   So anyway, I made it a thing to read all the ‘hated’ books.” – she said.

 

Little Black Book - Tersiiska

He sat down now, opposite her without asking.  Looking down he saw a little black book that she put thelist of hated things on.  While sitting there suddenly silent. Lost for words.  She picked up the little black book, pressed a small button and the eBook flashed to life.

‘Look’ she said showing him.

Wow!. An ebook that actually looks like a notebook he thought.

A table of contents appeared and in it he could see for himself.  At least 50 titles.  All books he hated.. but no .. there were some of his favourite books in there. ‘How could anyone hate that book?   ..  I loved that book !’ he said, looking up at her.

‘Yes but I found that now I love all of the books that people love to hate and I love to understand now why the authors had written them.

Suddenly he felt exhausted.  Not only were some of the books those he loved but others things that his friends had said they hated.  All listed and downloaded into the little black book.  Slowly he got up suddenly feeling trapped and claustrophobic, he had to get out of the shop. Walking toward the door he saw his own face in the reflection of the glass door.  Grimus he thought. ‘ Perhaps I’ll read it’. What else did Rushdie write ?.

 

Photo: Tersiiska/Flickr – Copyright 2014.