Tales From The Town #205: Grounded

“I can’t believe we’ve all been grounded,” Claire said. “It’s so unfair.”

To emphasise her point she picked up the pillow off her bed and threw it on the floor and then stamped on it, glumly, while somehow also glowering at the others as if it was all their fault. Finally she collapsed back onto her bed and then rolled over backwards until she was sitting up against the headboard, which was kind of a weird thing to do but she did it anyway just because she could and no one could stop her.

“We’re not grounded, Claire,” Ethel said, from her perch on the window ledge. “You’re the only one that’s grounded.”

“What are you all doing up here then?”

“I’m doing my homework”, said Tina, who was sat at the desk they all shared but only she ever really used.

“Well that’s just stupid,” Claire declared.

“I’m doing a handstand, said Daniel, upside down and up against the wall.

“No you’re not,” Claire declaimed. “It doesn’t count when you lean against the wall. That’s cheating and you know it. Everyone knows it.”

“And I’m gloating,” said Ethel, as she leapt from the window ledge onto her bed and then from her bed onto Tina’s bed and then onto the other window ledge on the other side of the room without ever touching the floor.

“Floating, more like!” said Daniel as he backflipped out of his handstand and onto his feet.

“Shut up, Daniel,” Claire exclaimed. Then she straight up shouted, “And that wasn’t a backflip at all! You just sort of fell over.”

“No one said it was a backflip, Claire,” Tina said.

“Someone did,” Claire claimed. “I heard them.”

“No you didn’t,” Ethel said. “No one said anything about flipping backflips. Except you!”

“I still heard them,” said Claire. “In my head. I heard them quite clearly in there.”

“Heard who?” Tina, Ethel and Daniel all asked in eerie simultaneity.

“Them!” Claire shouted. “The one’s I can always hear.”

“Maybe it was Mum,” Tina suggested.

“Or Anna and Oya,” Ethel shrugged.

“Or the dolls,” said Daniel.

But it wasn’t them, was it, Claire? It wasn’t any of them at all.

__________

Notes:

1. Written on February 13th, 2025

Tales From The Town #203: Thirteen Moments In May

1. Bank Holiday

It was so busy it was like an anxiety attack. Mums and dads, kids in packs, dogs having snacks, babies causing traffic jams in their two seater prams, on May Day, at the beach and in the park and all the way through the town.

The only way to escape was to swim out to sea and dream of quiet, some isolated bay without even mermaids to bother you.

2. Antoine

Antoine hovers in the record shop, a weird certainty that he bought this exact same CD the last time he was here, last year, every year.

He buys it again, just in case he’s wrong.

3. Ethel

Ethel knows that lying is wrong. But she also knows that it’s surprisingly fun.

4. Claire

Claire looked at her feet. Black leather shoes with a silver buckle, ice cream melting off the toes and onto the lush red carpet in the hallway. In time, this memory would become divorced from the moment, exist purely as an image so vivid her mind would return to it time after time for years. Red, white, black, as pure and lurid as the detail in some Baroque scene.

But right now all she could do was stand as still as can be, hold in her tears, and try not to howl out her fury and despair into the empty cone she still held in her hand.

5. Selene

Selene dreams
of spaceships
and satellites

of loneliness
and sadness
in endless utopian fields.

Disconnected memories
of the moon
and the stars

Little postcards
from the distant past.

6. Lucy

The sun shone. The wind blew. Occasional spring showers throughout the day. It was the perfect weather to stand at the end of the pier and brood.

7. The Cat

The cat stretched out in the sun, yawned, rolled over, and stretched some more.

8. Lucas

Lucas smiled at everyone that went past his mirror. He didn’t have to, but he did.

When you were a ghost, you could be as disconcerting as you pleased.

9. Eleonora

On the way home from work there was straw all across the road, and when the cars drove past it swirled and moved like waves leaving ripples in the sand. An image so oddly beautiful it seemed at odds with the mundanity of the rest of her day.

10. Daniel

Daniel was doing handstands and ignoring the news that he was no longer a boy, because of course he was a boy. He knew.

11. Tina

Upstairs in her room
Tina plans to write
the tiniest
poem
ever

12. Agnes

Her presents were mostly things she didn’t really like and already had. Her cake was a chocolate caterpillar, out of date and stale, so crumbly it was almost impossible to slice. There was no wine.

But no one argued, and no one cried, and only a couple of things got spilled all over the floor, so she counted it as one of the more successful birthdays of her entire life.

13. Bank Holiday

It was so busy it was like an anxiety attack. Mermen and mermums, merkids in their merpacks, merdogs having mersnacks, merbabies causing traffic jams in their two seater merprams, on Mer Day, out at sea and under the waves and all the way across the entire ocean.

The only way to escape was to swim in to shore and dream of quiet, some isolated cove without even humans to bother you.

__________

Notes:

1. Written in March, April and May 2025
2. Except for a bit that was written in April 2023