Flash Fiction: Leila & Samuel

Leila and Samuel entered the coffee shop in silence. He held the door open for her and she smiled, but there was an effort in that face, a trouble brewing along with the green tea. Samuel didn’t notice; he’d already turned away from her and was weaving his way to the counter. Leila followed, distracted by the other customers – what were they doing there? Shouldn’t they be at work? At home? At school? She felt oddly displeased with them, these layabouts, these scroungers. This was her place. Hers and his. All the others could – should – disappear in a puff of smoke. She’d like that. It would amuse her.

But the magic was gone. That amused her too and a real smile stretched itself across her lips despite the sadness of the sentiment. She made it to the counter and ordered her latte, extra vanilla flavouring because she wasn’t sweet enough. Samuel asked for an espresso. He always asked for an espresso. He was always in a hurry. It was one of the things that made her realise how truly unsuited they were to one another. How utterly incompatible. What a terrible match. It was one of the things that made her realise she would have to end it.

Coffees bought, Leila and Samuel sat. He took out a newspaper and laid it on the table, folded. He pressed down along the crease, deepening it, running his finger over it again and again. She could read half of the headline – some boring story or other, she really wasn’t interested. She preferred a book. A love story. A romance. Newspapers were dull, much like the man she was watching, much like Samuel. Still, she was glad he hadn’t actually opened it and begun to read. No matter how many times it happened it still stung. Conversation would be nice, talking like a normal couple, discussing the day ahead, the day just gone, the world in general. It wasn’t going to happen and she knew that now. Because he would open that paper. Once he was settled and she was sipping. They had nothing to say to one another. It had been that way for a while now and she was more than aware of it. At first it had hurt, her heart gripped and ripped away from her as she realised he would rather do anything – anything – other than talk to her, look at her, be with her. But over time it had become the norm. They would have their morning coffee together, in this place, different faces but the same almost embarrassing situation – no words. Maybe a look, but only out of politeness.

No affection. No warmth. Certainly no love.

Nothing.

Leila stared at Samuel as he opened the newspaper – the inevitable – and took a swig of espresso. He grimaced and swallowed, looking pained. It was always the same. She wondered why, if he hated the stuff, did he continue to drink it. She guessed it was habit. Habit was the reason and the ruin of everything. It was the reason and the ruin of them at least. And that was everything to Leila. She drank her own coffee, her teeth aching with the syrupiness of it. She ran her tongue around her mouth, imagining she was wiping away the sugar left behind by the drink, feeling better for it.

Samuel looked up at her, caught her licking her lips and staring at him. He looked shocked, not entirely pleased. Leila realised what she was doing and felt ridiculous, quickly looking away at anyone else, out of the window, down at the floor.

There should not be embarrassment. Not after so long.

Another reason why their relationship was doomed.

Samuel gulped down the rest of his coffee and stood, swiping up his paper and securing it under his arm. He said nothing as he left.

Leila continued to drink her drink. She watched the waitress trot over to where Samuel had been sitting, the table on the other side of the café to her own. Watched her wipe the table, scoop up the tiny little cup, place the chair back underneath. Leila watched as a couple sat down, using paper napkins to dry the still wet table.

She supposed it was time to let Samuel – or whoever he was, she’d named him herself – go. She’d find someone else.

©Lisamarie Lamb 2011

Competition: Photo Prompt

Well, we made it! Over 100 Facebook likes and, as promised, here is a competition for you to get stuck in to. Lesley Galston (http://sloanwriter.blogspot.com/) and Rebecca Emin (http://ramblingsofarustywriter.blogspot.com/) have both recently run flash fiction competitions, and they have inspired me to come up with my own!

There's not much to it - I just need between 500 and 750 words based around the picture above. It can be anything you like, any genre, any subject, as long as the prompt is used somehow. I want people to get creative!

The winning entry will receive a copy of my novel, Mother's Helper, and a £10 Amazon voucher.

There are, of course, rules (no competition would be complete without them...):

1. Please email your entry to mothershelper@hotmail.co.uk as a Word (.doc or .docx) file attachment

2. Please don't put your name on the actual Word document as they will be judged anonymously.

3. It goes without saying, please only send in work that you've written yourself...

4. Please be aware that the winning entry will appear in full on my blog (with full credit to the winner), so if you don't want it published, please don't enter!

5. Closing date is 5pm (BST) on 6th September 2011.

6. I can only accept one entry per person, so please send in your best :)

That's it! If you have any questions, please email the above address and I will try to help out.

Good luck and have fun!

Published: Ether Books

Good news! One of my short stories, 'Somebody's At The Door' has been selected for publication by Ether Books. It's free to download on their site, so if you've been enjoying my flash fiction, why not have a look at a longer piece?

Does everyone know about the Ether app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad? It's a great way to read new authors, and the app is free to download.

Here's the link for the app http://bit.ly/bpvC84

So if you do read my story, please let me know what you think, either here on the blog, or through Twitter (@lisamarie20010) or on my Facebook author page - thanks!

Flash Fiction: Profit and Loss

My name is Danny – named after my waster of an uncle who I never saw because he’s been inside since I was three - and my story starts one day when I was riding from the market where I worked to the nearest bus stop to my house which was still a good six minute walk further on. It had not been a great day. Or rather, it had been a brilliant day takings wise. But profits… Not good. Very bad.

I’d tried speaking with the boss, Ron, at various times over the past few weeks. Tried and failed. So instead of sorting things out, I’d stood there all day, high up above the rest of the stalls, touting my wares in a loud voice (which had got quieter as the day wore on and my throat wore out) and selling out of everything, down to the last mangy prawn, but making no money.

It was depressing. It was disheartening.

Even me, who had failed his GCSE maths in a pretty spectacular manner, knew that in order to make a profit, and therefore run a successful business, you had to sell stuff for more than you bought it for. But we weren’t. Not recently anyway. Ron had taken me to one side on a surprise visit when I was setting up and told me that he was slashing all the prices. Rock bottom. Between us we changed all the price signs and then Ron left me to it. But he had also left his supplier folder, and I leafed through, interested to see how it was done because I harboured the dream of buying the stall from Ron one day, of taking it over as my own. Branching out, expanding. Oh, yes, I had plans all right. I was excited, it kept me going through the dark, wet mornings and the boiling hot days.

But as I looked through page after page of numbers, I realised something. We were selling for less than cost price. We were going down.

I remember the bus stopping and making a move to get off. I made it to the front, paused, turned round to the driver and asked for an extension on my ticket. Just a couple more stops. Ron’s place. We had some talking to do.

Ron was standing by his gate when I arrived. “I’ve been waiting here every day for the past week,” he said, sounding a bit miffed. “You took your time.”

I said nothing. Stared. Must have looked a bit mental.

“Come on, lad,” Ron said. “I take it you’re here about the business. About buying it. I’m doing such a shoddy job and you want to take it on, am I right?”

That wasn’t what I had been going to say. I’d had been going to say that we needed to talk about profits, and ask whether I needed to start looking for another job since this one was going down the pan.

I honest to God heard my brain tell my mouth to say that. Only it didn’t. What it said was, “Ron, I need to buy it. I need to turn it around.” Jesus. I didn’t have more than a hundred quid in the bank and that was mostly spoken for. What the hell was I saying?

Ron was smiling. “Good boy. I knew you’d get there sooner or later.” We went inside, me with my legs trembling and my stomach flipping like an Olympic diver, him with his arm around my shoulders. I was grateful for that, it held me up.

We drank. We talked. We agreed that I would buy the business and pay him with a percentage of the profits until I’d hit his asking price. I signed a load of stuff that he’d had prepared and shook his hand.

So the next day, in a daze, I went to work as my own boss, put the prices back up and sold nothing.

Well what did you expect?

No one was going to pay the new prices after they’d seen how good they could have it.

I lost everything. I’d taken on the debts, hadn’t I? I’d signed for it all. And there were a lot of debts. Seems Ron had been siphoning off the profits for years now. No wonder I envied him. Envied his lifestyle, his house, his car, everything.

No wonder I gave him the out of date prawns. I didn’t mean to kill him, though. And that’s the truth.

On the upside, I have met up with my Uncle Danny. He’s not a bad bloke really.

©Lisamarie Lamb 2011

Flash Fiction: Max

When Max finally opened his eyes the first thing he saw was the cracked yellow lines that were painted on the road where his head was resting. He blinked, testing his eyelids, then he ran his tongue over his lips, testing them too, only it didn’t work as well as the blinking and just caused him to hurt. He couldn’t tell whether the pain was in his tongue or his lips or both. Judging by the rest of him, it was probably both.

His ears were almost working. He could hear people around him and they seemed to be shouting, but the words were blurry and he couldn’t quite make them out. They were loud though. They hurt his head. He thought they were even hurting his eyelashes, and it amused him for a while, wondering how that could be, until he realised he could also hear traffic and remembered (by looking down at the yellow lines) that he was in the road. Which is also where the traffic was.

Panicked, he tried to jerk away, roll onto the pavement, or sit or stand or just move, but he couldn’t do it. What the hell had happened to him? Had he been in an accident, been knocked down trying to cross the street? It seemed likely. Lying in the road, every spare – and usable – millimetre of him aching, burning or downright screaming with pain, people around him shouting… But wasn’t he chasing someone? Something, maybe… He couldn’t remember and it didn’t seem important now.

Someone knelt down by his head. They reached out to him, and Max thought for a moment that they were going to touch him, accidentally hurt him, and his wished he could tell them no, but they stroked his head instead, and that didn’t hurt. Or at least it didn’t hurt much because the comfort drowned it out. He tried a smile, half managed it. The person stroking him noticed and smiled back. “You’ll be okay, Max,” she said, and Max realised it was the girl he lived with. “You’ll be fine. They’re coming to help you.” She paused, sniffed, tried to regroup but instead came out with, “Don’t die, Max, please! I love you, please don’t die!”

Max sighed deeply, even though it hurt. If it was the last thing he did he’d let the girl know he loved her too. He licked her hand despite the pain, and wagged his tail one last time.

©Lisamarie Lamb 2011

Flash Fiction: Two Red Chairs

On the back porch of our house there are two red rockers. They were bought on our honeymoon, a trip to Devon, nearly sixty years ago, and they have been repaired and repainted a good many times since. But always red. Because that’s what made us buy them. The colour. We spotted them in a strange little shop, not quite antiques and not quite bric-a-brac but somewhere in between, and they weren’t new then. We could see the red paint beneath the white, trying to make itself known, as though only we could see it and appreciate it.

They cost us all the spending money we had, and we still had to put a bit on tick – it took us five years to pay it all off in the end. And once we had handed over every note and coin, and signed away a heart stopping amount on top, the man in the shop didn’t want to know, so we had to lug them back up that long cobbled hill to the guest house ourselves. I can still remember the look on the landlady’s face when she saw them in her parlour, a mixture of disbelief and all out fury. She was a harridan, that one, but you and your charm persuaded her to let us keep the chairs there overnight. We worried about them all night, like parents with a newborn, and in the morning we rushed downstairs to check nothing had happened to them. Nothing had.

Because we had spent all our money, we had to cut our honeymoon short and leave that afternoon on a train back to London. The guard promised he’d keep an eye on our pride and joys, for a fee, and we had nothing to give him so we took it in turns trundling up to the luggage carriage and back. When we got home, I stayed with the chairs at the station while you ran off to find your dad because he had a cart we could use to get them home.

Home. Home was with your parents then. We had nowhere else to go, and no money (especially after debting on those chairs) so it made sense, but your mother was strict and was never too fond of me, and she refused to let the rockers into her house. Your charm was powerless against her. They had to stay in the shed in the garden. The evenings we spent out there, just the two of us, a glass of beer and each other, rocking gently, were some of the happiest I can remember.

Hard work and denial and we finally found our own house, and it had a room for the rockers, but I always preferred them outside. You promised me that when we were rich we would have a house with a porch at the back so that the chairs would have their own place. I laughed and thanked you and we smiled about it.

We never got rich, but we did eventually buy ourselves a nice, respectable house with a good sized garden. You surprised me one birthday by telling me you had hired some builders to put up a porch, like the one you’d always promised me. The children – we had three by then – didn’t understand and thought it was the worst present they could think of, but I was more pleased than I think I let you know. I always wondered whether you understood how much that gesture meant to me.

The children grew up, they moved out, they visited occasionally. You and I missed them; we were reminded of those early days when it was just the two of us, and at first it was awkward but soon it was natural and as though years had never happened. We sat on those old red chairs and I don’t think I have ever felt peace like it. Every now and then you reached across and squeezed my hand and for a moment I saw the young man you had been.

But now I sit next to an empty chair, and remember.

©Lisamarie Lamb 2011

Mother's Helper

Well, it took almost nine years of on and off writing, editing, re-writing, more editing, worrying, putting to the back of my mind and re-reading to get here, but here we certainly are - Mother's Helper, my novel (part horror, part crime) is available to buy as paperback or to download!

This one really has been a - cliche alert - labour of love. I wrote it a long time ago, years ago, and then real life came and stood right in front of it, getting bigger and bigger, and I couldn't see it anymore, and soon I wasn't thinking about it (out of sight etc) at all. Then I became pregnant - and bored. And I got back to writing, with the help of an incredibly supportive community on Twitter (you can follow me there, by the way, @lisamarie20010). And my very first job was to tie up some loose ends, which included re-writing and editing Mother's Helper.

There are still many unfinished projects in my TBW/TBE file (To Be Written/To Be Edited), but I'm working through them. I can't believe I left them alone for so long.

It's exciting and scary to have something out there that anyone can read and review, but I'm so glad I've done it. Finally.

And of course, the link, should you wish to have a look, is: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/mothers-helper/15223033

It's going to be on Amazon too, and once it is I'll let you know...