Introduction
Welcome caller. Once upon a time when telephones were just babes and the world was still clockwork, passers-by, could, on the payment of some pennies, dial a number from this telephone box and hear a young man read a story. (pause) I am that young man, made old, deaf and blind but with a still lingering mouth ready to vent my stories anew. To hear these stories gratis you will need to do as I say.
Return the handset to the cradle. Face into the mirror. Mist the mirror with your breath three times. Like this, (pause) firmly as if to animate deaths breath. (pause) Then, raise the handset. You will hear a tone, a buzz. (pause) You should press one, zero, one and wait and wait. That’s one, zero, one.
Now return the receiver to the cradle. Do just as I have said. Mist, lift, one, zero, one.
I await your call.
The moon plate
After dinner, while sponging the last dregs of gravy with my finger, I observed my plate had acquired, embedded in the porcelain, a facsimile of the moon. Previous my plate was merely that blue and white china still popular among ordinary folk, (I am not one such) titled ‘Willow Pattern.’ A bridge, two doves, stand for dead lovers, you know the scene. Now in a flash the moon, or a dead ringer for such, had swallowed the traditional scene up and lay bloated and resplendent amidst the slippery brown detritus of toad in the hole.
Observing still further I noted a crack. The moon, a mythical bringer of crazy sentiments, had aparted the place where previous the aerial lovers had fluttered and revealed two slices of viciously sharpened porcelain, ripe to strike across my throat and rend me in two worlds, something I feel bound to do. So farewell chaps.
My kite dream
I fly my kite at night. Light, it wraps its thread around the neck of sleeping folk and they drops like buttons into the briny where they float a bit, then sink to meet the flat fish on the slabs that scare me half to death their eyes set atop, unnatural I say but Mother says ‘how much for three flounder.’ The folk gander but not like these slippery critas that stare straight up like grandad in his casket that time he sprung half to life. He smelt like fish to kiss, or they smell like him. You know rot when you feel it. Still hot with life just left. Flounder and grandad and sleeping folk strung to my kite drifting at night.
Down below
Down below is a hole just nice for a small man to stand up. I reckon five and a half foot to be it, after that his head would be popping through and we do not want that, we don’t want that. He was fleet when the clock started and chose to dive in headfirst with his souls flat out funnily. How we laughed and clapped (pause) ‘Like Houdini’ he said. So, we waited ages, any moment he might pop up a mouth full of worms, nails broke from scrabbling. “Herr Mole” we shouted, him being Dutch. Drum roll. (pause). Nah, nix. ‘He’s gone’ a crowd of us went. Then we go for tea. It’s said that he marches, his feet rapping the floor trying to walk back to Dutch.
The trees entreat.
Around and about are trees and hedges and flowers and whatnot. Best regarded as souls, for care must be taken when addressing them as thing, rather than him or her or they. Or so it’s said. It struck me once, in here, that crowds would sing and scream as though needing release. (pause) From where they come? I asked and they answered short and sweet. ‘Look out’ they said which I took to be a warning and hid my head. Till it came to me to observe about. Round from front and side and there they were. Every green ear or eye, limb or throat pressed on the glass giving me warning. For it wasn’t they entreating for release it was I.
Beware the rings
Three rings are a good number. Sufficient to draw attention but insufficient to make irritation or hate. She always rings thrice then stops for silence to pervade and men and dogs to prick up their ears and wonder and wonder “What next?” ‘Will she ring again?’ She rings again. One ring, two rings, I answer on the third. Her voice is liquid. “Wait for me” she says. “Here” I say, a confirmation not an enquiry, and the line dies and dies and hums, with it my breath fades till wrapped in her web I am consumed .
Electric
Everybody knows you can’t hold electric. It’s not like stuff. It’s more like air, or thoughts, it’s just there around us waiting to make you go. It’s good at shooting through things faster than you can say ‘jack flash’ jumping into your head or your hands making you do things. ‘You can’t stop it’ that’s what they say to me. I can’t stop it, the electric just comes whenever it wants and then bang – it’s over. I call it my charge. When I feel my charge. I can’t hold it in. I feel it now and then, and now is when it has to run. So watch it!