5 More Minutes

“Jamie your shoelace is undone. For God’s sake put the box down and do it up before you break your neck!”
“Yes Mum.”
I could hear the gentle mocking in his voice when he said that, like its some hilarious little joke that I still act like his mother. He could be 52 with four kids and a pension for all I care, I’d still tell him to do up his bloody shoes. He handed me the box and bent down to do it up. The tip of his tongue was clenched between his teeth and he carefully watched what the laces were doing. I could almost hear him saying “loop it, swoop it, pull”. He’d always been slow with learning how to do his shoelaces. We tried it all: the bunny ears, the squirrel and the tree, one of those giant cardboard shoes with laces to practice. He ended up wearing Velcro till he was 13.
He stood back up, sweeping his fringe out of his eyes. He’d always had big eyes, from the day he was born. The midwife brought him in and handed him to me and as he woke up he batted those long eyelashes at me and the blueness of his eyes took my breath away. In all his school pictures from primary school he reminded me of a caricature with his sticky out ears, big blue eyes and grin that was always missing at least two teeth. Then he went to high school and started growing his hair and forever covering his eyes with that bloody fringe. I told him countless times to cut the damn thing off but he always kissed his teeth and said “it’s fine, Mum”.
“Much better” I said, handing him back the box. He turned around to take the box out to the car, his jeans holding on to his buttocks for dear life as he walked. “Jamie, love, you need a new belt; that one you’re wearing doesn’t seem to be any good.”
Taking the hint, he steadied the box on one hand and pulled up his jeans with the other. Once he’d gone around the corner, I turned and went upstairs.
His bedroom door was wide open and the room looked neat tidy, two things it never was when he was in it. One large open box was in the middle and piled high with books and toys and little trinkets: the stuff he was leaving behind. I picked up a plastic cowboy from the top of the pile; once upon a time it had been his favourite toy. It all started when we took him to see Toy Story in the cinema and having a toy cowboy or astronaut as your best friend became ‘cool’. Before then he had never even given the thing a second glance and suddenly it had to sit with him at dinner, bathe with him and sleep with him. He had tried to write ‘Jamie’ on one of the boots but he could only fit in the ‘Ja’. The cowboy didn’t stay a favourite for long: his Dad bought him a Playstation for Christmas and so anything that wasn’t on a television screen was no longer worth playing with. I always joke that that Christmas was the day I lost my son to the Five More Minutes syndrome. He’d be playing that thing from the moment he woke up till when he went to bed that night, which he always tried to extend by turning his big brown eyes at me and whimpering, “Five more minutes?”
Bathing went out of the window: it took up too much game time. So did haircuts, fresh air, homework and friends. At mealtimes I would yell his name up the stairs, only to hear the faint response “I’m coming mum, five more minutes!” and his dinner would be stone cold by the time he came down. In a matter of days my sociable seven year old turned into an obsessive recluse. It took about 8 months for the novelty to wear off and he went back to playing football with friends and maintaining personal hygiene, but the Five More Minutes syndrome stayed. Throughout his teens those three words became an automatic response to my every command: get out of the shower, do the washing up, go to bed, tidy your room, walk the dog. It was also the excuse for anything that he didn’t want to stop doing: playstation, computer, television, girls. When he was 15 I let him bring his girlfriend round for the first time. She was a tiny blonde twig that barely came up to his shoulder, although by that time he towered well above just about everyone we knew, including me. He took her hand and led her up to his bedroom and I faced the inner struggle of not thinking about what they were doing. A few hours later I yelled up the stairs that her Dad had come to pick her up, to be met with the grunt “five more minutes, mum.” Heaven forbid I should ever know what they needed five more minutes for.
“Mum?”
Jamie was leaning in the doorway, his eyes moving from me to the cowboy in my hands in confusion. I too looked down at the cowboy in my hands. It was dirty, dusty and had a broken arm. I lifted one of the feet to see the very faint traces of “Ja”. I sighed and put it back in the box.
“I was just remembering when you used to be in love with that toy. You were about 7 and we went to see toy story, remember?”
“Oh God Mum, don’t start going down memory lane, I haven’t got all day.”
“Oi, cheeky, don’t talk back.” There was that smile again; Funny little old mum who can’t help but nag. “Is that everything now?”
“Dad’s just setting up the Satnav for the journey. It’ll probably take him ages, he still can’t work it.”
I nodded and smiled weakly. “How long is going to take to get there?”
“About 2 hours. The campus is in the middle of nowhere but there’ll be loads of traffic with all the people coming at the same time. The country lanes are gonna be a friggin’ nightmare.”
I nodded and tried to smile. “All ready to go then?”
He looked around his room, put his hands in his pockets and nodded.
“Think so, yeah.”
I looked at his face, happy, confident and determined: he was ready. I covered my face with my hands.
“Aww Mum, don’t cry” I felt his arms around me and wrapped mine around him, burying my face in his chest.“S’alright, you’ll see me soon.”
I sniffed, pulled away and sat on his bed. “I know, I know. It’s just not easy watching your little boy grow up and leave.”
Jamie stayed quiet for a moment, looking at me awkwardly. He’d only ever seen me cry once, when his grandma died. He came and sat on the bed next to me.
“Remember when we went to Blackpool and you lost me at the Pleasure Beach?”
I laughed and wiped my eyes.
“You ran off after the man with the balloons. We were worried sick looking for you for hours and then when we came to pick you up from the lost and found office you were sat on a chair licking a 99 with a balloon hat on your head, happy as Larry.”
“I wasn’t for long after the arse-whooping you gave me!”
“Yeah well you never ran off again, did you!”
We both sat laughing. His laugh was deep and slow but I could still hear the high –pitched giggle in there. I put my hand on his and smiled at him. He pulled me towards him and hugged me.
“I’ll miss you Mum.”
An impatient yell came up the stairs: “Jamie! I got the Satnav working, let’s get going!”
I held Jamie tighter and yelled,
“Five more minutes!”

Lungfuls Of Air

Her sister, Osila, opened the front door armed with two shopping bags and wiped her feet on the faded welcome mat. She watched Osila leave the bags on the table and walk over to her. Osila tilted her head and asked her how she was but she didn’t respond, she had returned to watching the fish tank. Osila sighed, put the shopping away and started cleaning.
Osila wiped the surface around Jacob’s last meal which was growing new life by the kitchen sink. Osila wouldn’t dare move it. Nor would she open the curtains. After dusting the final wedding photo and placing it back onto the mantelpiece, Osila went over to her one last time to tell her that she would be back next Wednesday and left, shutting the door behind her.
At the noise of the door shutting, the goldfish flitted to the other side of the tank. The sound came at the same time every week but goldfish have no notion of time and little memory so the shock of sound panicked it. That was one of the good things about goldfish, she thought. Without memory they could experience every trauma life could throw at them and have no recollection of it moments later. Then again, without time the goldfish wouldn’t know that it would all be over in 15 seconds. Perhaps to the goldfish it never seemed to go away. After all, her presence no longer fazed the goldfish so it had to remember her somehow.
She bought the goldfish with Jacob when they moved in together. They were the only ones in the pet shop and she could understand why. The paint was flaking off of the walls, the natural light was blocked by the hutches outside and a teenager was smoking at the counter. She pulled her coat tighter around her and grabbed Jacobs hand. He kissed her forehead, told her it was fine and squeezed her hand. They walked down the aisles, their free hands pointing out potential furry candidates. At the end of it was a long dirty aquarium that lined the back of the shop. Jacob bent down to look into it and pressed his finger onto the glass. She bent over to see what he was pointing to and smiled. The goldfish was perfect.
Now there were algae on the tank. She leant over the arm of the chair and picked up a cloth from the floor. Dipping her hand inside the water, she rubbed it away. Dropping the cloth back where it was, she sat back upright with her lugs tucked into her chest, her arms wrapped around her thighs and chin resting on her knees. When did it get there? She didn’t know. All she knew was that it wasn’t there and then it was.
She had noticed that the more time she spent with the goldfish, the more this seemed to happen. She tried to remember how much time she had spent with the goldfish but she couldn’t. Osila always said she came on Wednesdays, but when were Wednesdays? The darkness that smothered her and the goldfish meant that day and night and summer and winter and past and present had all rolled into a seamless eternity and with no time to age them, she thought, they would live together forever.
Osila opened the front door armed with two shopping bags and wiped her feet on the faded welcome mat. When Jacob met Osila for the first time, she could remember Jacob going to get them all drinks and Osila leaning over and whispering that she never knew horticulturalists could be so funny. She knew Osila meant white men. Jacob returned with the drinks and told Osila they weren’t unless they’d been smoking their plants. She felt Osila watching them as Jacob then put his arm around her, rubbed his nose against hers and kissed her.
She watched Osila leave the shopping bags on the kitchen table and walk over to her. Osila tilted her head and asked her how she was but she didn’t respond. Jacob had his hands over her eyes and kept telling her not to peek. Giggling and squealing she told him she wasn’t. Jacob asked her if she was ready. He removed his hands and revealed their garden, which he had been working on ever since they moved in. She told him it was beautiful but he had better be ready to keep it this way because she certainly wouldn’t be. Wrapping his arms round her waist and looking into her eyes, Jacob convinced her that he had created it so it wouldn’t need a lot of work. It was his very own Eden, he said, and he was the God. Then he kissed her on the forehead, told her he loved her and left for a drink with friends.
After dusting the final wedding photo and placing it back onto the mantelpiece, Osila went over to her one last time to tell her that she would be back next Wednesday, but she wasn’t listening. The night Jacob had gone for a drink, she was woken up by the phone ringing. Then came the drive to the hospital, the waiting room, the police officers, the morgue, the funeral directors, the phone calls, the crematorium, the wake, the apologies, the courtroom, the journalists and the empty house. She went home alone but Osila had promised to come on Wednesday. Taking a final look out of the garden window, she locked all the windows, closed all the curtains, pulled Jacob’s armchair over to face the fish tank and sat down. The Doctor that Osila brought over said she had developed agoraphobia from depression, but she hadn’t. She just didn’t need the outside company. She had the goldfish right here.
Osila left, shutting the door behind her. At the noise of the door shutting, she raised her head with a start. The goldfish didn’t flit; it hadn’t even moved. She unfurled herself, stood up and placed her hands on either side of the tank, looking into the top of it. The goldfish was floating upside down, dead. When had it died? She didn’t know. All she knew was that it had been alive and then it wasn’t. Her eyes widened, her nostrils flared and her breathing quickened.
They were meant to live together forever. Cold water slopped onto her bare arms and feet as she lifted the heavy tank and lurched it against the wall. The glass shattered, the water splattered and the goldfish’s lifeless body, so small and pathetic, fell among the dust and spiders carpeting the floor.
They were meant to be together forever. She knocked the photos off of the mantelpiece with a sweep of her arm, overturned the wooden kitchen table, picked up one of the matching dining chairs and hurled it with all her weakened might across the room where it hit the thick red curtains, smashing something glass on the other side of them and bringing the curtains crashing to the floor.
Strong white light blinded her and she threw her hands up to shield her face. The glittering rays reflecting off shards of the broken window had formed a warm halo around the window pane. She lowered her hands, her chest heaving with exhausted dusty breaths and her petrified brown eyes transfixed on the scene before her. She began to walk towards it, stepping over smashed images of her and
Jacobs wedding day along the way, her feet ignorant of the glass ripping at her soles.
She reached the window. Lavender bushes wafted their scent under her nose. Thick ivy climbed the garden walls and it’s waxy green leaves had begun seeping in through the broken window. Red poppies dotted among bluebells billowing in the breeze while bright dandelions and armies of daisies adorned cracked paving stones only just visible in the overgrown grass, leading to a large apple tree.
She placed a hand on the knob of the garden door and turned. She stepped down onto the paving stones, the wind whipping her baggy cardigan away from her thin frame so the sun could bless each pore of her skin. She stepped carefully through the tangled weave of flowers, her fingers stroking the petals while the stalks tickled her thighs. She stopped in the middle of the garden.
She could see him now, brushing long blonde curls out of bright blue eyes and holding out his hand,
“Nice to meet you, I’m Jacob”
She took his hand, noting the comforting grip and smiled,
“Ejira.”
“Interesting name, does it mean anything?”
“Believe.”
Turning up her head in submission to the heavens, the sun kissed her forehead and Ejira took a lungful of air.

Robyn

The Stranger

Darkness gave Privates Howell and Fischier the cover they needed as they slowly made their way through the muddy field towards the truck. Bent low, they silently signaled to each other, deciding who would go where. They both knew what they had to do. They came closer to the truck windows, to see the snoring target behind the wheel. One on either side of the truck, they reached the half-open windows. Fischier raised his pistol, aimed and shot. Howells body fell silently, but the sound of the bullet woke the slumbering soldier. Seeing Fischier at the window, pistol still raised, he cried out in shock and began pleading in German. Fischier placed a finger on his lips, but left his gun raised and now aimed at the beggar's heart. On the fall of the last echo of the soldiers last cry, Fischier nodded and walked away. The German soldier stuck his head out of the window to watch the stranger make his way back across the field, a look of shock, confusion and a hint of relief spread across his face.

Robyn xxx

23/12/2008

Nursery Rhymes: REWRITTEN!

here is a short story i wrote, based on a children's nursery rhyme. See if you can guess which one...

Humphrey jumped as high as he could, but he barely peeked over the crowds shoulder. After several unsuccessful attempts, he huffed and curled his pudgy fingers into a ball. His cheeks were stained red, his once neatly combed hair had jumped out of place with him and one of his thick woolen socks had slid down to reveal a dimply knee. Humphrey cast one last jealous look at the other children waving from the towers of their fathers shoulders, before turning and walking away.

A few hours later, Humphrey moped his way home, thinking of how badly he had wanted to see the parade of soldiers leave. He ran his stick along the brick wall, enjoying the scratching noise and vibration beneath his fingers. His uneven solo was joined by the orchestra of mechanical stomps ad the dull clash of tin. Humphrey searched wildly about him for the source of the music, and settled a pair of determined eyes on the brick wall. He skimmed his fingers over the coarse barrier, searching for a grip. Desire and hope hoisted him slowly up the wall and before long, he reached the top. His eyes flew frantically, trying to take in every atom of the scene before him. The King's men marched past, pride etched into each stride, none noticing the small fat child sat on the wall.

No longer content with simply watching his heroes, Humphrey turned to climb down the other side and join the soldiers. He was only a few inches down when a piece of brick broke away from under his foot, and both Humphrey and the brick came crashing to the floor. Pain shot through Humphrey faster than enemy bullets. He turned his tearful gaze towards his fellows, his cries imploring them to help the fallen soldier. A few of the fathers among them gave him anxious looks, but Humphrey knew they would not come. They couldn't leave the line, even if they had wanted to. They had to go.

Robyn xxx

18/12/2008

A Night To Remember

Here is our first article sent in by a reader!!! Here Sarah has sent in her true story....

I was meeting my best friend Tom with my boyfriend, Raj, and we were going to hang out in the local park while it was still light. When we saw Tom, he asked Raj to go buy some cigarettes down the road for him. Tom and I waited, wondering what was taking so long. Raj returned with the cigarettes after about 20 minutes and his mood seemed to have taken a terrible turn: As we made our way to the park he walked ahead punching bins and other nearby objects with a face of thunder but still not saying a word to Tom or I. Instead he called someone on his mobile was yelling at them down the phone, although Tom and I weren’t close enough to hear what he was saying. I tried many times to ask what was wrong but he just replied “nothing” so I gave up and stayed away from him and his terrifying temper.

By the time we reached the park, I was furious with him for being so moody and ruining the evening, so I stormed off towards home. Raj chased after me and asked me why I was storming off. I told him I was sick of his mood and gave him one last chance to say what was wrong with him. He stayed silent for a minute, looking at the floor, before saying quietly “Some Tamils sparked me.”
Now I had no idea what “sparked” meant and assumed it meant that they tried to start a fight with him. I now became angry with him for not telling me about it earlier and again stormed off after arguing about it with him. Tom went over to Raj and they began to talk about what had happened. While I had the moment to myself I realised I was being unfair and went over and hugged Raj to apologize. Suddenly, Raj became very heavy in my arms and I realised that he had collapsed.

Tom came running over yelling
“Raj, where does it hurt, Raj?” Tom helped me get Raj to lie on the ground and I put my jacket under his head. I was terrified as I still had no idea what had happened to him. As Tom kept telling Raj to look at him and keep his eyes open, I asked Tom what was going on, as he seemed to know. He said that the Tamil guys had hit Raj around the head with a baseball bat until a shopkeeper came out and chased them off. After that Tom and I sat trying to figure out our next move. We had no idea what injuries he had gotten and every time we mentioned “hospital” or “ambulance” he would try to sit up, exclaiming,
“no, no, no, don’t, no” until we soothed him and got him to lie back on the floor. After about an hour of us deliberating, Raj sat up with the assistant of an apprehensive Tom and myself and began looking wildly around him:
“they’re here...I can hear them.”
We were sat in an open green and could easily see everyone around us. We were alone. Despite us continually telling him that we were alone, he just kept repeating
“They’re here... we have to go...they’re here.”
He stood up, swaying a little, and began walking towards the park exit, grabbing my hand and still looking around me.

Raj walked me home, still swaying and saying a jumble of words rather than sentences, and refused to let me go with him. Tom assured me he would look after him, and he closed the front door, I rushed to my laptop. Instinct told me that if I couldn’t find out what was wrong through the hospital, I would through the internet. I knew it wouldn’t be the same but at least it was something. I found a website listing symptoms of head injuries, and called Raj to get him to answer yes or no to which he had. He had ¾ of the symptoms for a severe head injury and the cure was to seek medical advice immediately, but no matter how I pleaded, Raj refused. Instead I spoke to him until 3am to ensure that he wouldn’t get concussion and not wake up. Before I allowed him to hang up, I made him promise to call me at 9am. Before I fell asleep, I closed my eyes and prayed like never before:
“Please, please let him wake up tomorrow. I beg you. Please.”

I was up at 7 and sitting and waiting for his call. At 9am on the dot, my phone rang: “hey babe.” I laughed pure relief at the sound of his voice and a coherent sentence.
“You ok?”
 “yeah...my head hurts and I can’t remember anything but I’m ok”
After a few more minutes of checking he was ok, I made him promise to go get checked out at the hospital as soon as possible.
“Sarah, I need to tell you something”
“What babe?”
“Those guys. I knew them. I haven’t seen them for two years, but I know them. They killed Kumal, my cousin.”
And so began the relationship changing conversation of Raj’s past. Two years ago, a Tamil gang stabbed and killed Raj’s cousin Kumal in a fight in front of him. Raj had always blamed himself, but I had never fully known why, until then. A few months before Kumal had been killed, he called Raj asking him to help him in a fight against a gang of Tamils. Raj went and during the fight at least 5 guys were kicking and beating his cousin. Raj had no idea what to do and started panicking, until Kumal cried,
“Look in your bag”
Raj quickly pulled off his bag, saw what his cousin had put in there, grabbed and ran at the group, thinking of nothing but saving his cousin.

“You stabbed someone?” I looked at him with a face of pure disbelief. He had always been a weapon hating peace keeper, and now I understood why, although I wish I didn’t. “Did they die?” Raj shook his head, staring at the floor. I watched him for a moment, taking in the pure guilt shame and sadness that had ridden his body and watched the tears drop slowly off the end of his nose. He stabbed someone. But he was not a stabber.

A few weeks after the incident, it was in the news that the Police had arrested a Tamil gang in East London and since then, crime had fallen by 65%.

Sarah, 23

Return

He was going. He retched at the appearance of two guards in the doorway, both at least 6"2 with arms that could rip a baby in half, and faces that looked like they would. He had no choice but to go with them, though he was far from ready to go. He went, the docile prisoner, all the way to the prison gates, gently shifting the sharpened razor that was concealed in his fist. The guards stopped and turned towards him, and he could handle the anticipation no more. His adrenaline sliced the blade across the guards arm, doing little damage but causing massive commotion. He was beaten with a truncheon and frog marched back to his cell. Ron gently stroked the bars of the cell door and gazed lovingly at the dingy bunk and dirty toilet. He was home.