Colin Palmer - More Short Stories to Read on a Bus, a Car, a Train, a Plane (or a comfy chair anywhere)

© Colin Palmer, 2018

ISBN 978-83-8126-666-6

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

One of the groups I write for is called Authors’ Tale, a Facebook Group open to all and sundry who write or aspire to be writers. It is not a big group, not a small group, just about right, but what it does have is a core of people who care about each other, who offer encouragement and critique when asked and who support each other in their endeavour to become an artist of the pen (or pencil, or keyboard).

All the stories in this book have resulted from weekly writing prompts delivered through one of Authors’ Tale’s weekly events. Within a relatively short period of time, I found myself anticipating these prompts and doing my damndest to write for whatever the topic was that particular week. They are raw stories, as published via Authors’ Tale, without the gloss and glamour that time and editing provides and are a reflection of the impromptu response to a sudden trigger, the trigger, of course, being the actual prompt.

The stories contained herein have received a little polish, they needed it! But without Authors’ Tale, probably none of them would have surfaced, even in my over-imaginative mind. I have prefaced each story with the actual writing prompt so that you, the reader, can see where the story originates. You can also be the judge of where I’ve taken it. I make no apology for where my mind takes a story, for that is something beyond my control, creative or otherwise. I enjoy the surprise as much as anybody else, except I get the luxury of seeing it first. Yes, this is the process of how I write – an idea festers and takes hold, then kaboom, story!

Thank you Authors’ Tale, you’re an amazing group of people. Thank you too, for anybody reading this, for it means you must have bought this book. If you have any aspirations to put pen to paper, get onto Facebook, search for Authors’ Tale, and tell them Colin sent you. That way they’ll know who to blame! And you never know, the inspiration you receive from being a member might just lead you along the path to discovering your own latent talent. Good luck, and happy reading.

Four! Life wasn’t meant to be this way. Four! It was supposed to be better than this, it should be better.

The first one he understood, and should have learnt from the experience, thought he had – he was young back then, heck, they were both young – childhood sweethearts through high school that everybody said were the perfect couple. Both parents were resigned to and accepting of the fact that the two were inseparable, bound together for life. It seemed the natural thing to do but he knew they’d only done what everybody had expected of them. He’d never mentioned marriage. She hadn’t either, well not directly but there had been a few occasions where she’d hinted, like one of the many times they wandered along the main street, hand-in-hand, she pointing out a ring in the window of the local jewellers, you know, nothing obvious to the manboy he was then! He knew better now.

So why did he do it? Expectation, peer pressure, parental pressure – all of those, after all, it was what everybody else wanted. Oh, and of course there was the sex. It had been the first for both; messy and awkward to begin with then settling into a seeming never-ending series of quickies wherever and whenever the desire was mutually demanding, and the surroundings suitably discreet. It provided no real reason to get married. Ah, but it was the first – short and sweet and full of lessons he would go on to relearn over and over again.

Number two was a surprise. He was still young but on the rebound, and not over the embarrassment of the first short-lived union, so he should have known better but there were extenuating circumstances, or so he told himself. It was payday, and with a full wallet he’d gone out on the town with a group of friends. Like many young people, alcohol fuelled desire, and there she had been on the dance floor, gyrating and swiveling her hips in a suggestive motion he believed was only for him. He woke up beside her the next morning, in her bed, in her bedroom, in her parent’s house. They swapped numbers, he gave his work number and not his home phone, and they passed like anonymous ships in the night.

Four months later, yes four, she rang him at work and asked if they could meet. Her voice seemed bright and there was no hint of reproach that they hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since that one and only night. He vaguely remembered her, and was startled when she walked into the coffee shop a few hours later at the appointed time. She was beautiful, and that came as a surprise to him because he hadn’t even been able to recall the colour of her hair. They exchanged a brief uncomfortable hug and he looked at her over the table with a question fixed firmly across his face. He didn’t have to wait long – she was pregnant! More of life’s lessons learnt the hard way.

He did the right thing, they married. When the baby comes, everything will get better they told themselves and each other. Her parent’s disapproved, his parent’s disapproved, friends – his and hers – disapproved, and he strongly felt it would turn out perfect because they were starting off almost exactly the opposite to his first marriage.

Twenty-four years old, married twice already and this time with a baby on the way. The learning curve was fast – it had to be because they knew virtually nothing about each other. It remained a marriage of strangers however, and when the baby did come, there followed a short period of elation that did bring them closer, even disapproving family and friends appeared to soften. In an instant his perspective of everything in the world had changed because now he had a daughter – but he was still married to a stranger. Then the real father, the biological father came onto the scene, returned from overseas deployment. The baby, his baby, was one year old and no longer his.

Number three happened ten years later and resulted from a blind date of all things! He never thought it would happen again … the bitterness of losing a family, the distrust, the lack of loyalty and honesty had honed a keen edge of self-protection which he believed would never be breeched. He was older and wiser now and so was she, having a failed marriage herself. They took it slow, the show of becoming familiar with one another had no apparent time limit but as the clock ticked, so did she begin to share the desire for a family, something she didn’t have a chance to begin in her first marriage. She explained her fear of menopause and he listened intently with complete awareness of the painful loss of his daughter fresh again in his mind.

After four years, uhuh, four, of dancing around it and in the complete belief they were doing the right thing for each other, they married. He was forty. Four years later, of course four, after trying desperately and unsuccessfully for a baby, they divorced, a mutual decision after numerous visits to doctors, specialists and even IVF clinics.

He thought he was scarred for life but then his best friend brought home an overseas bride. He observed how hard that little lady made the marriage work, always doting on her husband and even when the kids began to come, she still made sure her man was never feeling left out or forgotten. On the birth of their third child, her youngest sister came from the home country to visit. She appeared to be a more beautiful version of her older sibling with the same attention and focus to what was important – her family.