Colin Palmer - Short stories to read on a bus, a car, train, or plane (or a comfy chair anywhere). Includes the novella «Duck Creek»

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There was a time when it had been too easy. Looking back over his scribbled diary entries from the last five years he could see where it had started to slide. No – he could see where the slide had got steeper and accelerated – that had been the past five years. The start, well, the start was something that began at the beginning. Start at the beginning, begin at the start, ‘start at the knees please’ had been the burgeoning insistence from the day you are born, even in the ads for caramel filled chocolate bears for God’s sake.

January 20th, 1995. She said she loves me!! She loves me! Oh my God, oh my God, she loves me! What am I going to do now? What you told her you would do you stupid barstard – love her back. And her front. And the left side, the right side and that gorgeous backside; especially that delicious backside!! She loves ME!!!!!!

‘These same words, their phrasing and their meaning reverberate throughout every journal, their very repetitiveness in such a multitude of individual insertions were perhaps indicative, or at the very least suspiciously numerous, to warrant wonder at the ulterior motive of the author,’ thought the author himself.

‘Whoa, suspicion of what?’ Charlie wondered aloud. ‘Am I not in love with her? Did I not believe in the power of love and what it instilled within my very being each time I wrote those missives? Of course I did, with no shadow of a doubt.’ Wonderingly. ‘No doubt at all. I think?’

September 11th 1989. She forgot my birthday. How could anybody forget the birthday of their partner, their lover, their closest confidante? How could she forget MY birthday? It wasn’t an important birthday per se, as far as birthdays go anyway, I mean it was my 29th so it wasn’t a biggy or anything, but still, to forget? I hated her, oh I hated her, it hurt so much and her lack of excuses made it hurt more. I could have killed her when she got home from work at 8.30 (pm!), because she acted as if it had been a normal day. Like every other day. No phone call at all, so it hadn’t been normal because we usually called each other at least once every single day that we aren’t together. And this had been my birthday, but she didn’t call and my anticipation levels had grown with the day, with each passing minute I waited for that call, and when that didn’t come, I waited for the greeting. Instead she’s home two hours late and she doesn’t even say why. And she doesn’t say Happy Birthday either. I hate her, God oh I hated her for that day – today. She sleeps now, oblivious to what she has done, and not done, but my mood is to dark – I cannot go to her like this. Lying beside her warm body, feeling the smoothness of her skin, seeing her beautiful face, feeling her body acknowledge my own proximity by snuggling back into me, her fingers curling into mine and her vibrant blonde strands tickling my arm that now stretches under her pillow to encase her and raising goosebumps where they rest, reminding me of how much I love her. I don’t want to love her at the moment for I am emotionally drained, but maybe I will go and share our bed for she wakes and searches for me if I am not there soon after her. Goodnight my love. Happy Birthday to me.

Charlie flicked back more pages and then through earlier journals. He marvelled at how similar his handwriting had remained over the years. He returned to the very first entry in the very first book.

September 11th 1985. Got given this diary for my birthday today. Never written a diary before. Don’t know what she was thinking by getting me this. I thought only women and girls kept diarys? Oh well, at least I’ve written in it once and she did give me some other cool presents, especially the lingerie which she looked absolutely ravishing in – and ravish her I did!! Great sex, if not a little chilly out on the balcony on this early spring eve. I love her. Yeah, I do. Maybe I’ll should tell her that?

November 24th 1985. Bitch. I wish she would just go away. Her and that friend of hers. Maybe I should warn him that she’s a bitch? She’ll hurt him too. The bitch. If I was psychotic I’d know the right thing to do in this situation. Rid the world of one disease (the bitch) and save tens, hundreds, thousands, millions from the pain she is putting me through. Nobody deserves what’s happening to me right now.

Charlie slapped the book closed and lowered his head onto his crossed arms as if to stop the contents escaping. ‘I loved you. Why did you do that to me? Why, instead of committing to the folly of pain didn’t you commit to us instead? Why?’

Such a question he could not answer, he was like the perpetual mother with toddlers that always ask the same question, that very same question. ‘Why?’

Dear Diary, I haven’t written to you in over a week because I’ve been away on my honeymoon! Yippee, yeeha, yay! Me, married! Who’d have believed it? Oh yeah, it’s the 21st of October 1987 today, and we got married on the 10th. Great day. Expensive day! Lots of people at the wedding that I (partly) paid to be there and I didn’t even know who they were, and neither did she . Must have been friends or family on her mothers’ side. Oh no, I have a mother in law now! I can put up with having any number of mother in laws after that day. Brilliant honeymoon too and you are not going to hear the details, but let me just say that the sand of those Fijian beaches sure found its way into the most unlikeliest places! I’ve only known her for a couple of years but in my heart, I know I will love her forever. She wrote me this poem in the sand:

I am in love. Forever in Love!!!

Charlie flicked forward over the numerous blank pages which immediately followed that addition he recalled so vividly pasting in on the very first day they had arrived back from Fiji – from their honeymoon. On reaching the count of sixty two he finally located his penmanship once more. Over two months of blank. Two months of the best part of his life, of their marriage, and he had not recorded it. Maybe that was why he was so diligent about doing so now. Good, bad or otherwise, his thoughts were entered without fail and whenever he had departed his home, this study, for holidays or business, any overnight sojourn, the current Diary accompanied him as natural a part of his luggage as his toothbrush. He flicked forward through more pages and then onto the next book, and looked uneasily at where the pages stopped. He held his head low in his hands as he read, both elbows on the desk as if he were still in primary school and somebody was trying to copy the answers from his exam paper.

23rd of January 1995. We had her 31st birthday party last night. It was not fun. She drank too much and she flirted a lot. But not with me. It was only days ago that we were so much in love, but it feels like years. Tonight she looked like she was ready to love anybody except me. Even her parents watched her with a slightly funny look in their eyes. I sat with them a lot so I saw. They left about 1030 pm and she finally noticed that I was sitting by myself. I thought everything would be alright then but it wasn’t. It got worse. She said she, they, wanted to go on to a night club, did I want to come, I had work tomorrow and she would understand if I didn’t want go with them. She was actually telling me to stay home and I was devastated, but as always the loyal and loving husband that’s exactly what I did do. She hasn’t come home.