Tales From The Town #239: Not The Last Day

“What’s wrong Claire?’ Agnes asked, opening the curtains at 10 minutes past ten exactly.

“Nothing,” said Claire.

“Well, you can’t stay in bed all day,” said Agnes. “The sun’s out.”

“So?!”

“So stop grumping and get up,” said Agnes. “You like the sun and you like the summer holidays.”

“I don’t,” said Claire. “The sun makes me sun burnt and the summer holidays make me bored.”

Agnes was still trying to think of some counter argument to those irrefutable facts when Claire interrupted the silence all on her own without even waiting for something to disagree with.

“And anyway Daniel said yesterday was going to be the last day ever and then it wasn’t,” Claire said. “He said there were going to be explosions and implosions and there weren’t any AT ALL!”

“Maybe they cancelled each other out…”

“Shut up Mum,” said Claire. “I’m already furious enough without you making it worse.”

She threw her hairbrush on to the floor and then crossed her arms over her chest and stared balefully round the room like some sort of fairy tale princess. Albeit a huge and particularly angry fairy tale princess. Maybe Goldilocks if she finished up by shouting at the bears until they all moved to the mountains.

“You’re furious because it wasn’t the last day ever?”

“YES!” Claire said. “I was looking forward to not existing AT ALL!”

“And what would that have achieved?”

“NOTHING!” shouted Claire, who wasn’t entirely sure what she was upset about anymore, she just knew that she was. “Urgh, fine, I’ll get up then. But you have to let me get an ice cream from the ice cream van.”

“Do I?”

“In fact you have to let me get TWO!” said Claire. “Otherwise I’m coming straight back to bed.”

It was, Agnes realised, going to be a long six weeks. It always was.

__________

Notes:

1. Written on July 17th, 2026

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!

Tales From The Town #238: The Last Day

“Yes!” said Ethel, as the bell went for lunch. “We can go home now…” She paused for maximum effect. “Because it’s the last day!”

“The last day EVER!” said Daniel.

“No it’s not,” said Claire. “It’s the last day of school.”

“The last day of school EVER!” said Daniel.

“The last day of primary school ever,” said Claire. “We still have to go to the stupid big school next year.”

“I can’t wait,” said Tina.

“Because you’re an idiot,” said Claire. “Urgh, you’ve ruined the entire summer holidays Tina. I’m going to be thinking about that big stupid school all the time now. I bet they make us do homework. And schoolwork. And clubs.”

“You only have to think about it until the end of today, Claire,” said Daniel.

“Why?”

“Because then everything’s going to explode!”

“What?”

“And then IMPLODE!”

“No it’s not.”

“It is!” said Daniel.

“But why?” asked Claire.

“Because it’s the last day,” Daniel said, doing a handstand to celebrate. “I already told you that.”

“And how?”

“EVER!” Daniel explained, upside down.

__________

Notes:

1. Written on July 17th, 2026
2. In surprise that it’s the summer holidays already
3. Only about six months into this year’s infinite summer

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

Tales From The Town #237: The Many Months Of Summer

Claire hated the months of summer (or at least the months of summer which coincided with school (which was at least two thirds of the months of summer (and even more if you included May (and the nice two weeks of September (which Claire definitely did))))).

__________

Notes:

1. Written on May 23rd, 2026

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

Tales From The Town #236: Secret Secrets

The cat knows things nobody else does. You could call them secrets, if you wanted to, but they’re not really. It’s just that the cat pays attention to stuff we never see. There’s things outside our windows we can’t even imagine.

_________

Notes:

1. Written on May 23rd, 2026

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

Tales From The Town #235: Sunday Afternoon Family Entertainment

“Look at this,” said Daniel in a general invitation to everyone around as he stood on top of the hill in the middle of nowhere and then fell down the hill, all the way from the top to the bottom, in a series of strangely inelegant rolls.

“Any idiot could do that,” Claire thought to herself, distinctly unimpressed but too hot to actually bother articulating her unimpressedness.

Ethel, who was on her best behaviour today because her birthday was approaching and she didn’t want to give anyone any excuse to not buy her all the things she was currently dreaming of them buying her, somehow stopped herself from replying to Claire’s unsaid insult, “Well why don’t you, then?”

“Because,” Claire would have replied, but she was still too hot, and also now too thirsty. “I’m not an idiot.”

“She never said you were,” Tina didn’t even say to herself, let alone the others, because she was composing a poem about something, anything, that wasn’t the hill they were standing on, or the sun they were standing beneath.

“Yeah, but she thought it,” Agnes soundlessly mouthed to herself while she unpacked the picnic and swatted imaginary flies away from the food and put plates over the glasses of juice to ward off potential wasps.

“We all thought it,” said Daniel, out loud, and out of breath, having followed up falling down the hill, all the way from top to bottom, in a series of strangely inelegant rolls, with falling up the hill, all the way from bottom to top, in a series of surprisingly elegant rolls, which everyone had missed because they were too busy bickering, or dreaming of bickering, at least, because it was too hot and too close to their birthday and too boring and there were too many flies around for them to actually bother bickering today (or at least until later, when they were no longer in the middle of nowhere, but approaching the edge of somewhere instead).

“Anway,” said Daniel. “Look at this!”

__________

Notes:

1. Written on May 23rd, 2026

__________