Plot Medics 

This was a remnant, rewritten and brought into the open.

I’m not sure it was a good idea, but I guess, as with many things, it’s a little too late to change that now.

Works of Art (964 words)

The first punters are coming in now.  I won’t allow myself to look yet.  I smell canapés and perfume, wine and chemicals.

They shriek greetings, but when they look at the walls, they are restrained, quiet, cool.  Still, I smell their greed in the air. The first photographs are only the appetiser, after all.  The main dish will be meat, rare and bloody, and only one, of all of them, will be able to taste it. 

I know all their names.   They have to give them beforehand.  Alicia, my publicist, loves this.  Exclusivity is such a draw.

Adolescent voices wind through the galleries; the gritty windblown shouts of the playground, the echoing babble of the changing room.  There are no actual words;  those are for the audience to supply from the hidden attics of their own memories. 

Attics, of course, are where madwomen are traditionally kept.

Alicia has the talk, she can roll it out like wallpaper.  Transgressive Art, the Aesthetic of Excess, everything the critics purr over.   She drops it when we’re alone; a weird form of trust.  I don’t think she does it with any of her other clients..  “Darling, you know what I think,” she says.  “Self-indulgent crap, the lot of it.  You’re all bloody mad.  But you sell yourselves like nothing on earth; I love it.  And you, you’re the most.”  Sometimes, after the third glass, she leans in, fixes those conker-brown eyes on me like laser gunsights.  “Except the bullshit doesn’t mean a thing to you either, does it?  Tell me, sweetie, what are you really after?”

She tilts her head, with a sort of cynical hope. I just smile.  I’ve never answered yet. 

She doesn’t have to care what I really want, so long as I bring the punters in.  Even for me it’s getting harder, though.  Art meant to outrage has been around for so long, so many envelopes have been pushed, torn, shredded, and binned.  And as Anthony Julius pointed out, you have to try pretty hard to be more shocking than what’s been done by real people, for real reasons. 

But enough still come; hoping for that extreme experience.  Hoping to be lucky.  Hoping to be chosen to see the final part of the installation.  And if they don’t manage that, well, at least their pictures will be in the glossies.

In the first room, among the mirrors, the photographs are crammed, half hidden.  Some are blown up to blurring, others are clear, but fragmented.  Sections of skin.  Near the entrance, most of the skin is marred only by the faint chalkpits of adolescent acne. 

As the audience move deeper, the pictures clarify.  The white line left by a nail-file.  The pallid ridge, punctuated either side by stitches, of a deeper slash made by a serrated kitchen knife.  That picture has a bluish wash, the colour of ambulance lights.

In the next gallery, parts of the body.   Arms like railway junctions, tracked with ridged lines, running into each other.  A breast, half the nipple excised.

The first murmurs of discomfort.  If I were doing this for art, it would be my moment of triumph.

Come in little fishies.  Little sharks. 

The computer beeps.  One of my special guests has signed in.  Tonight, I have something in my net.

I look up at the monitor.

Francesca Lampeter. 

It always surprises me, how much, how little, they change.  She was glossy, streamlined as a thoroughbred.  Now she’s plumped up, but it looks artificial, like a fat suit.  Her hair is still expensively styled; she went to Vidal Sassoon, back then, at fourteen - and anyone who didn’t…well.  But it’s thinner.  Definitely thinner.
The man she’s with is much younger.  Son?  Toyboy?  Gay arm candy? 

It doesn’t matter.  He won’t be allowed in.  She will.

I don’t bother watching the rest.  The monitor doesn’t beep again.

I’ve never had two in one evening.  That would be interesting.  Thinking back, there are only a handful left, now.

I taste iron, in the back of my throat; I manoeuvre the chair into position.  It’s too soon; even if she barely looks at anything, it will take her at least twenty minutes to get through the last gallery.

I wait.  It’s something I’ve perfected.  Pain hums along my nerves like wind in telephone wires. 

Alicia will be coming up to her now, informing her that she’s in luck.  She’ll look surprised, delighted, maybe a little apprehensive.  She might shriek, clap her hands, hug the toyboy.  The rest will moan, sulk, pretend it doesn’t matter.

The Francesca I remember would just toss that head of glossy, perfectly cut hair; knowing that of course she’d been chosen.  Because she was one of the special ones.  Because she was entitled.

I wonder whether this Francesca tosses that thinning mop with the same assurance. 

The doors open with the exact sound of the girls’ changing rooms, all that time ago.  The echoes of laughter, the orange-painted walls; everything is the same.

Except me.

She looks at me, where I sit, naked.  Her face jerks with a reflex of disgust I recognise: she used to look at me in a very similar way.  But back then, I deserved it less: I was just a girl.  Plump, a little spotty, with the wrong clothes, the wrong voice, the wrong interests. 

Now, I’m a work of art. 

She’s looking around, her eyes beginning to widen with something: recognition, panic.  Nausea.

“Francesca,” I say.  I always left my lips, my tongue alone, knowing one day I would be able to speak. 

I reach out with the remains of my right hand.  “So nice, to meet one of my collaborators.”

All I'm going to say about this one is that it's about the importance of an active socks life. (I'm making up for the bad pun I had to sacrifice last time.)

Lefty Turquoise (784 words)

My socks have wriggled off my feet in the night again. One has escaped all the way to the end of the bed, the toe poking out beyond the duvet, a vibrant turquoise against the dark red cotton.

"Where the hell is my other sock?" I throw back the duvet cover impatiently. The troublesome pair in question are thick and knee-length and going a bit slack in the elastic.

"Maybe it just hopped off on a little socky escapade," says David, knotting his tie. "Look for it later. You'd better get up or you'll be late for work again."

"Wouldn't that be a tragedy?"

David plants a kiss on my cheek and scoops up his bag on his way out. A few minutes later the front door slams.

Perhaps David is right. Perhaps the sock in the bed, I'll call it Righty, is happy slumbering in the second drawer down in the chest, or sometimes fulfilling its purpose by keeping my foot warm at night. Perhaps Lefty has become bored with the pointless routine, the days that trundle by, with only the occasional outing to the space under the duvet. Lefty is longing for adventure. They are ski socks, after all, and I haven't been skiing in years. I can see Righty reaching out of the bed after Lefty as he wriggled away, calling out, "Come back you fool!" Or maybe, "Take me with you!"

I join the ant file of commuters on the trail to the station, and I am nearly there when I escape from my thoughts and see that it is a beautiful day, even in suburbia. It's one of those free-gift April days, wrapped up in shiny green and blue and hot enough to make my jacket burdensome. It is a day for icecream, and sea breezes. As I step onto the London-bound platform, a flash of turquoise catches my eye, disappearing down the tunnel that leads to the south-bound trains.

I bolt after it, hope swelling up inside me. I can see nothing in the tunnel, so I run on, up the stairs to the other side, just as a train pulls up. The train is going to Brighton. After a second's hesitation, so am I. If I'm seeing blue flashes it means another migraine on the way, so no point in going to work anyway.

When the guard comes by, I tell him I jumped on the train on a whim.

"Good for you love," he says in a bored voice. But he sells me my ticket without a penalty.

I am right. It is a day for icecream. It is a day for buying a dress and changing in the shop, for taking my discarded suit to the pebble beach and jumping on it. For letting salt wind tangle my hair, for catching the sun across my nose and cheeks, for paddling in icy water. There is something turquoise floating out in the sea, but I am squinting into the sun, and it's too far out to wade and look. Instead I dig myself a comfortable hollow in the sun-warmed pebbles and watch the clouds float by and I wonder what the hell I've been doing with the rest of my days.

I don't go home until it's dark. I have to reluctantly reclaim my suit jacket because it's getting cold.

"Where've you been?" says David, hugging me. "Are you ok?"

"I had a day off. If my sock can have an adventure, I don't see why I can't."

"Cup of tea? You can tell me all about it."

I follow him into the kitchen. He puts the kettle on and rattles around with cups and spoons.

"I found your sock, by the way," says David. "It was outside the front door. It must have got tangled up with my bag."

"Was it wet? Sandy?"

"It was lying in a puddle. I've put it through the wash. Are you sure you're ok?"

"Just the same as usual. Unfortunately."

The next morning on the train to the office, I think over my day off. A little holiday from sanity, perhaps. It scares me how much I want to believe that Lefty was out there with me. I find myself thinking of buying teddy bear eyes and stitching them on, making him into a sock puppet. Or buying more wool, unravelling and reknitting him into a scarf so I could take him out and about. I finally decide that I'll leave Lefty exactly as he is. But I'll leave the sock drawer open, and the topmost window in the bedroom. And I'll keep my eyes peeled for what might happen next, for any free gift that comes my way.

This idea, or something like it, has been hanging around for a while – the worst thing about finally getting it on paper was the fact that I actually had to watch some Jerry Springer. Not sure I watched enough of it to get the feel quite right – but there are limits to what I will do for my art.

Show and Tell (982 words)

"Aand heere's your host!"

"Gunnar! Gunnar! Gunnar! Gunnar!"

Gunnar Bateman surfed onto the stage, cresting the roaring applause.

"Today we’re going to meet Darleen and Chet. They’ve been married some time, and Darleen claims that Chet has changed. That the same things that attracted him about her, he doesn’t like any more." Oooh, from the audience.

"Chet says Darleen isn’t acting like a proper wife, like a proper mother. Who’s right? Who’s at fault here? Let’s find out, shall we? Let’s hear it for Darleen Lubowski!"

Darleen was blonde, toned, tanned, pumped, glossed, and cantilevered. She swayed up to Gunnar on vertiginous heels for her air-kiss and slid into one of the chairs with catlike ease.

"So, Darleen. You and Chet have been married for how long?"

"Ten years, Gunnar." She had the voice of a gin-soaked angel.

"You told me that you were on the verge of a divorce. Why is that?"

"Well, I’ve always attracted men."

Woooo and a few, "You go, girl’s," from the audience.

"He said he liked that," Darleen said, pouting. "He said that I was the first sexy woman to go for him. But now, it’s all, ‘don’t wear that, Darleen. We’ve got children, Darleen. What will the PTA think, Darleen?’"

"Well, let’s hear Chet’s side of the story, shall we? Here he is, Chet Lubowski!"

Chet blinked his way onto the stage, leaning forward as though the applause were a high wind. Scrawny, with big hands and a bad combover, he looked at least twenty years older than his wife. Out in the distance, a bulb popped, and the tech crew hurried to deal with it.

Gunnar shook Chet’s hand, gestured him to his seat.

"Can you tell us a bit about your marriage?"

"We married pretty young. Darleen was always kinda wild. That’s was OK. But we’re older now. I just think she should, you know, stop trying to look like she’s sixteen. And stop flirting with other guys. We got three beautiful kids. It just isn’t right."

"Are you saying I don’t love our kids?" Darleen started up, eyes flaring.

Chet glared. "Do you?"

"Don’t you dare accuse me of being a bad mother!" She turned to the audience. "I just about brought them up by myself, they never see him!"

Oooh!

"I work hard!"

"OK calm down," Gunnar said. "Now, Darleen, you’ve got something to tell Chet, haven’t you? Something you think will help explain everything?"

"Yes, Brendan."

"Why don’t you go ahead."

Chet’s lower lip started to shake; he got that rabbit-in-headlights look. The audience leaned in, hungrily. Darleen stared straight ahead, glowing. "Chet, you always said you thought I was a sexy woman, now, you don’t like that about me any longer. But it ain’t gonna change. I’m a succubus."

Woooo, from the audience. Chet blinked, gasped. "You…you bitch! You never told me! All these years, and…no wonder I lost so much weight! No wonder I was tired all the time!"

Darleen crossed her legs, endangering several marriages out front, and shrugged. "You never had it better, Chet. Lots of men would be grateful."

Ooooh, the audience moaned.

"Besides, I never complained. Did I ever complain about your little secret? Hmm?"

"Oh don’t you dare," Chet said. "My friends watch this programme!"

"And you never had the guts to tell them," Darleen said. "I married a man with no guts. I married…" she drew the pause out like a pro, "a gremlin."

"You - bleep!" Chet launched himself out of his chair. One of the legs collapsed, and the stage crew whipped another chair into place, while security – a burly priest and even burlier ex-cop, both armed with water-pistols loaded with the show’s special mix of holy water, silver leaf, crushed garlic and obscure West African herbs – grabbed Chet. One of the water pistols exploded, drenching the front row of the audience, causing screams, howls, and a disturbing bubbling sound.

"Look at that!" Darleen shrieked, leaping up, pointing a trembling, perfectly manicured finger. "That’s what it’s like living with you! I never had a TV last more than a week! We pay more in insurance premiums than most people earn! And you complain because I look good? Well bleep you, Chet Lubowski! Bleep you and the kelpie you rode in on!"

Gunnar strode out front – stepping around the remains of one of the more drastically drenched members of the front row. "Let’s hear from our audience. You, sir?"

The sir in question was large, and hairy, and had a snout. "Seems to me she can’t help it. I mean, hell, I was coming home to that, I’d be grateful. In fact, I wouldn’t leave the house."

Chet lunged for him, and was restrained. Darleen smirked and waved her fingers. Another bulb exploded.

A large woman with a terrible perm and tusks said; "Once you’re a mom, you gotta change. You can’t act like a high-school kid no more. Lady, you need to get serious."

"Oh yeah?" Darleen said. "What’m I supposed to do? Pretend to be someone I’m not? Dress like you, maybe?"

Oooooh! Flecked with a few miao noises. The large woman headed thunderously for the stage, and was hauled back.

Gunnar got the nod from the wings. Time to wind up. He made a ‘quiet down’ gesture. "We all think we know somebody when we marry them. But do we ever really know them? And can the secrets at the heart of a marriage ever be something we should keep? Until next time; don’t you go changing." He’d used that line for years, and he wasn’t altering it now, however much the lycanthropy rights society complained.

In his dressing room, he found a message lying next to the mirror.

Great stuff. You bastard.
Odin.

Gunnar – aka Loki - grinned to himself. He’d found his niche. He was a god at peace with himself, if not with anyone else.

This story got started as I was falling asleep and a bad pun on flowers/flours popped into my head.

Although the bad pun got me started, in the end it had to go. (There's an anecdote in Robert McKee's "Story" about the screenwriters who started with a body behind the sofa, wrote the whole film round it and then realised it had become irrelevant.)

The Baker's Bargain (981 words)

Tom had half an hour to spare to try a new recipe before he opened the bakery. He had a whole rainbow palette to work with: pastry and dough, fruit peel and flesh, juice and jam, seeds and herbs, honey and treacle and custard and chocolate. He could spend a lifetime finding the perfect combinations of substance and flavour. It was a wild, gusty spring morning that made him think of freshness; he’d try cinammon rolls with cloves and mint. The clock’s hands whizzed round as he measured and stirred. When the rolls were in the oven he phoned Anna around the corner. She was always up at sunrise.

The bakery door opened, letting in the tinkle of a far-off bell. A slender young woman in a bright green velvet coat blew in, a smattering of sleet skipping around her shoes. The smell of cut grass filled the shop.

Tom smiled. “Hello again, Flora," he said. "Let me guess. A dozen honey cakes?”

“They are so very good. And such kind service. Perhaps one day I will be able to offer you something that you like as much.” A blush burned Tom’s face. He avoided Flora’s lime green eyes as he took her money.

The door banged open again and Anna limped into the bakery, leaning on her cane, a box tucked under her other arm. Her brown hair was tangled, her cheeks whipped pink by the wind. Mud stained the knees of her jeans. Flora smiled at Anna as she passed. Anna glared her out of the shop.

“That was a fey,” said Anna. “Most of them have got a sweet tooth. One day she’ll come in here and offer you a bargain. Don’t take it. The fey always trick you on the price.” She tapped her cane irritably.

“The fey. Right, I’ll be careful.” Tom hurried round to take the box. The honey from Anna’s bees had flavour that stretched for miles. He was willing to put up with some New Age nonsense for the sake of his cakes. 

Anna sniffed. “Do I smell cloves?”

“Yeah. One of my experiments. Want to try?”

Anna clambered up onto a stool at the counter to eat the warm roll. “Not a success, this time,” she said. “But my teeth feel nice and clean now.”

“I have these ideas. It’s always so clear in my head, and then I try and it doesn’t work.”

Anna smiled. “That’s the nature of experiments. Sometimes there’s happy accidents too.”

“I wish it would turn out how I imagine it. If I could just got the proportions right...”

“You will. Knowledge requires sacrifice and all that. Remember the cheese and chilli scones?”

“I'll give you some to take with you. Looks like you’re busy,”  he said.

“You caught me sorting out the raspberry canes. It’s new moon, the best time for planting.”

“You don’t seriously believe all that stuff do you?” Tom blurted. “I mean, new moons, fairies, aren’t you a bit old for all that?”

Anna slid off the stool. “She will come back. Whatever she offers you, the price is always too high. Don’t have anything to do with her. You can drop my payment through the letterbox.”

#

Flora did come back, when the weather was all blue skies and warm breezes. She ordered her honey cakes and said, “Perhaps I might offer you better payment than money.”

“Er...”

“Be bold, Tom. Many things are possible.” The scent of flowers drowsing in sunshine flooded over him. The wooden floor of the bakery creaked and groaned as it thrust out green shoots. Flora smiled at him, her lips as red as the depths of a rose.

“Surely, you must have one heart-felt wish?” she asked.

“Yes. I want to be able to bake everything perfectly, every time.” Tom blinked in surprise as the wish leapt from his lips. “I want the flavours to come out just as I imagine them.”

“Your wish is to have every bread and cake and pastry turn out exactly as you plan?”

“Yes. Although, I was told, there would be a price...”

“My dear Tom, I am offering you payment. How can there be a price?”

#

Tom woke tangled in the trailing ends of a nightmare. He felt drained and woozy as he began baking, but his loaves and pastries were better than ever. He made the cinnamon, mint and clove rolls again, and phoned Anna.

“It’s perfect,” she said. “I  knew you’d get it right.”

“They came out exactly as I imagined,” said Tom.

#

Tick tock, every day perfect loaves and pastries. He set the oven too high, he put in too many spices, he left the flour or the yeast out. It didn’t matter. Every new recipe turned out exactly as he imagined it. No surprises. No happy accidents. As he baked, his mind imagined a lifetime of tick tock, idea to realisation, no matter what he did or didn’t do. The clock hands crawled. Every morning he picked up the phone to call Anna, and changed his mind. After a fortnight, she came to the bakery anyway.

“You took the bargain, didn’t you?” she said.

“She said there was no price!” Tom wailed.

“Tell me exactly what was said.”

When Tom finished, Anna said, “Oh, that old trick. She’ll be back to offer to take it away, for a price. She’ll ask you for something like one blink of your eye. And you’ll think ‘What harm could that possibly do?’ And that blink will happen at the very moment when you need your eyes wide open, and then, wham!” She waved her cane. “You'll be bleeding in the gutter. I'd learn to live with it, if I were you.”

“How?”

“She wasn’t that clever.” Anna patted his hand. “If you can’t be a baker, find something else to cook. Now, I must get back to my bees.”