“Mmmm yeah.” growled Steve, posing in front of the mirror. “Mmmm hey good lookin’.” He flexed his muscles, his orange coat bulging and glistening in the lamplight. “Mmmm you’re a tiger, you’re a TIGER!” he ran his digits through his mane and pouted at his reflection. “Mmmm yeah those lady tigers.” He sprayed a mist of scented allure onto his stripes. He formed guns from his claws, and fired them all around at his imaginary aggressors, emulating the sounds of gunshots with his mouth, tail held high.

I saw a rook sitting on the end of my bench. Fair enough, a rook can sit where a rook wants, so long as it acts in a respectable manner, just like the rest of us. I continued to eat my sandwich (peanut butter, cheese, and chicken) and thought no more of it.

“Sarah left me.” said the rook, clearly.

“Sorry what?” I looked round to see the rook. He continued gazing into the morning haze.

“She up and left. I suppose I brought it upon myself really.”

“How?”

“The whole business with… well never mind. Life’s complicated isn’t it.”

I looked down at my sandwich, at the bench and the children playing, at the faded gazebo and the cold river. “Yes, it is.” I replied.

“No matter.” The rook sighed, and took flight.

Alice wakes up, as she usually does in the mornings. She dissolves into the covers. That part isn’t usual. Usually she gets out of bed, puts her dressing gown on, does her hair, puts some toast on, listens to Radio Lincolnshire, smiles at the cat, feeds the cat, eats the toast, does her teeth, and goes out to work. But no, today, just as her vision is clearing, and the songs of morning are beginning to flower in her head, she goes sploosh, and just dissolves. “Well, better call in sick” she thinks. But she can’t reach for the phone, because she has dissolved. She sighs a harrumph. “Shit.” she says.

She sits in the centre. At first she created: she sculpted the mountains and watered the valleys, spun wool and wings and the rhythm of things.

But now her work is done, her children are grown and on their own. She breathes and listens, eyes closed, for she is tired and old. She hears the spin of the seasons, flares of romance and reason, the crash of waves and the gaze of the enchanted, the pain of the eaten and the relief of the sated.

All she needs is to listen, for all they need is to be heard.

Yesterday I ate two grapes without even thinking about it. And then I ate two more. And two more. Then I finished off the packet, without even thinking about it. Now I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking that it was quite a good idea, and that grapes are good for me.

“Have you seen my grapes?” pipes Jude as she walks in the room. Not me, I haven’t seen any grapes.

“Not me, I haven’t seen any grapes.” I say.

“Oh.” she replies. There are few places the grapes could have gone, as we live alone together, with no pets.

“Maybe you ate them?” I quiz.

“Maybe I did.” she quivers. She may be about to burst into tears. She’s not sure if she has memory problems or not. She doesn’t. I just really like grapes.

A fair choice given the circumstances, thought Bobby. In times of scarcity one can’t be picky with these things. He watched as Ruby filled in the horse’s ample hide with vibrant purple.

“Horsey pleased.” exclaimed Ruby.

“Esbut ema hat?” questioned Bobby.

The Great Crayola Shortage of lunchtime most recent had forced them to be creative with their strained resources. Even more so after Pauline ate the yellow. There was now a pink, a purple, a green, and a mostly crumbled blue.

Ruby gazed cautiously as Bobby lifted the green in his little hand. They peered at each other for confirmation, with held breath: there was no going back now. Bobby lowered the crayon, and carefully, silently, adorned the horse’s skull with an emerald bonnet.

He removed his hand, leaving nothing but a handsome pony and four transfixed eyes on the page. They realised in unison what they had accomplished: they had succeeded in creating a work of true intellectual beauty, against a raging tide of misfortune. They both smiled broadly and began squealing with delight.

 

He glared down at the printer – it seemed it had misinterpeted the sunshine as holiday, and decided today was the day to keep its thoughts to itself, as it spewed page after blank page. No juice, no ink! Or invisible words? Rebellion? No, probably not, PC World didn’t sell enchanted printers. Probably. He was on track to be late for a train he could not miss: he gave up on the documents, scrambled his belongings, jumped on his bike and shot onward to the station. He would just have to make up the reading, or find it later, or fake a terminal illness, or something. At the very least, without the distraction of an academic jungle in his lap, he would be able to enjoy the summer’s view.

There’s a bee in the car. I wind down the window to let it out, for we are all fearful of being stung by the bee. The bee remains on the dashboard, it looks like it doesn’t want to leave. Maybe it’s on its way somewhere nice, but it’s a long way, and it can’t afford a ticket on the bee train, and it would get too tired if it buzzed all the way, I think to myself.

“Let me at it!” screams the young one.

“No!” shouts the middle one, let it live!

Maybe if we’re all nice to the bee and just bring it with us, it’ll be thankful. Although if it is a hitcher, will it be able to contribute to petrol costs? Maybe in honey. Probably not. What if it’s far from home, and it wants to escape, but has been immobilised by our fierceness? I think we should let it out.

The sparrow hopped into the open window on the fifth floor. It was morning, and raining, and warm. In the bed on the left of the sill she lay, evidently free of obligation for this particular day, as it was well after 7, and if she had needed to go to work she would have been perched in front of the mirror, constructing her day face. “But maybe,” thought the sparrow, “her alarm didn’t work? Or perhaps she has forgotten to get up?” He decided to play it safe, at the risk of upsetting her slumber and throwing off her day. “Wake up!” he whispered, cautiously. She didn’t stir. He cleared his throat, and sang a little louder, “Wake up!” She shifted slightly under the covers, and muttered, “not today, little sparrow.”

“What would you do if I told you I wanted to go to clown school?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t believe you.” he replied.

“What if I were very convincing?”

“I would say, but you can’t go to clown school, we’re trying to save money, and we need your income as well as mine. It would be like if I decided to just, I don’t know, jack it all in, give my notice to the office, and start making sculptures of dead celebrities out of bread for a living.”

“But what if we could work something out?”

“Would you make a good clown?”

“I think I would”

“Are you funny?”

Sarah picked up a glass of water and poured it over her head, then gurned comedically. “Robert,” she said, slowly.

“What?”

“I want to go to clown school.”

The next morning Robert drove to the grocer’s and bought 20 kilogrammes of baker’s flour.