Phillip Grizzell - The Creative Book of Ten Best Short Stories

THE

CREATIVE BOOK

OF

TEN BEST

SHORT STORIES

2011

Creative Fiction

First published in 2011 by

Creative Print Publishing Ltd.

Copyright

Copyright to each story rests with the author of that story.

The Introduction is copyright to Creative Print Publishing Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN-978-0-9568535-5-4

LIST OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The short story has been round since the beginning of time, told by people sat around fires in the evening spinning their poetic tales. It was a matter of bringing people together as a community to share in the pleasures and passions of a tale well told.

What of this collection?

The stories within come from many countries, we chose the stories we believed to be worthy of this collection, and paid no attention to their origin. Nevertheless, the authors are from the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia.

While reading this stunning collection, you'll quickly fall into the feeling that youre there, sitting comfortable round the community fire, the skies are clear with bright stars, you can almost smell the sweet, hypnotic aroma from the smoldering fire, then drawn deep within the tales unfolding.

Sit back and enjoy.

Creative Print Publishing Ltd

Our Neighbourhood

Alice Slater

Our Neighbourhood

Everyone in our neighbourhood knew Lucy, the working girl with the thick berry-coloured scar. It stretched across her throat, from ear to ear like a sliced melon. It was never quite hidden under the layers of cheap cover-up she piled on. Eventually I think she stopped trying to hide it altogether. I suppose it pays to be known in that line of work.

We saw her walking to town at dusk, her thin ankles strapped into stilettos that clacked against the pavements. We saw her in the supermarket, squeezing peaches between manicured fingers. I always made the children look away. Im not a prude, but certain things are difficult to explain and are best kept away from young ears.

When her body was found, battered and broken on a grassy verge just outside of town, there was no particular moral furore. If anything, I suspect some of the elderly residences of our neighbourhood were secretly pleased to have one less whore strutting the streets, but thats just my opinion. She wasnt local and she had no family nearby, so it wasnt really our business to worry anyway. She wasnt our problem: just another bag of loose morals, attracted to our neighbourhood from one of the grottier suburbs. The scar that lassoed her throat proved she was trouble.

When the next one turned up, an unknown wretch with an addiction to methamphetamine, there was very little media interest. She had been throttled in her bedsit, two gloved hands wrapped around her lily-white neck. Everyone assumed it was one of her clients, a dirty deal gone wrong. When she was eventually identified as Maureen Clyde, the local paper ran an article on page twelve, but no one I knew read it. The paper speculated upon a potential connection between Maureen and Lucy but, apart from their wicked trade, the two cases had few similarities.

These girls of questionable moral fibre, they come to our neighbourhood and think the streets are paved with gold. Their sort are always trouble and trouble self-perpetuates. If it didnt happen here, in our neighbourhood, it would happen elsewhere. We werent concerned about our little neck of the woods earning a name for itself.

During the summer fte at the primary school, a third was found by dog walkers on the other side of the river. She had been stabbed in the chest, her left ventricle pierced. She bled to death, alone in the middle of the rec.

Number three was younger than the others, a baby at just sixteen. That, and the violence of the murder caused quite a stir, I can assure you. My husband in particular became quite withdrawn. His sleep suffered and he lost his appetite. I chided him for frightening the children. Sophie was too young to understand, but Michael noticed the change in his father, and it doesnt do well for a boy to recognise weakness in his primary role model.

Summer was quiet, and it seemed as though the murderer had given up his plight. Sophie rode her first bicycle, a bit of a late starter, but she lacked confidence. Michael had his first shave, running a razor over his soaped peach fuzz under my watchful eye.

It didnt last, the domestic bliss. We were struggling to keep up with the mortgage payments, and I was working harder than ever to make ends meet. With Christmas approaching, we didnt have the funds to provide the children with the kind of holiday theyd come to expect: glittery cards for all their classmates, a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, stockings crammed with goodies, a tree that grazed the ceiling, its branches laden with trinkets and chocolates.

I was working so hard, I didnt have much time to put into our marriage, but despite that, I still managed to perform all my wifely duties, even the unmentionables, with the kind of regularity expected by the average male libido. I administered love, care and affection, as well as allowing him access to the more exotic orifices on special occasions, like birthdays and bank holidays, yet he continued to seem withdrawn, and I wondered if there was somebody else. He insisted it was just the spat of murders. They worried him, he said.

I found out the hard way that he was right to worry. It was about eleven thirty on a Friday night. I took a mini cab, even though its only a ten minute walk. Its not safe for a lady to walk the streets late at night, even in our neighbourhood. The concierge didnt bat an eyelid as I walked through the hotel reception, perhaps because I only wear designer suits to work. I like to give a very particular professional impression.

The client was white, middle-aged, a sufferer of erectile dysfunction. I suspected he just wanted a bit of female company and at 200 an hour, I was more than happy to oblige. I managed to coax an insipid erection from him, destined for an inevitable flaccidity before it was even half stiff.

We spent the last fifteen minutes talking about gardening techniques whilst I pinched my nipples and writhed on his lap. He tugged himself into an orgasm that hardly seemed worth the bother, but its not my place to judge. Men do have some terribly unorthodox methods of getting themselves off.

The other girls were street urchins, drug addicts, scum. I was none of those things. I was a business woman. I worked for myself, at the best hotels our neighbourhood had to offer.

Like the villain of a horror film, he pulled a knife and held it high above his head. It flashed towards me, but he missed, instead slicing through the peach of my cheek. Blood splashed onto the pillows, and I screamed. Footsteps thundered down the hallway and, in a panic I suppose, he ran.

The scar goes from just below my left eye right down to my jaw.

Everyone in our neighbourhood knows me now.

The Wisdom of Fools

Daan Spijer

The Wisdom of Fools

His Worship, Robert Anthony Dewcliff, sits behind his large desk in his private chambers, behind the East Beach Magistrates Court. He is leaning back in his chair, his hands clasped, except for his index fingers which form a steeple; this he taps against the tip of his nose as he contemplates a photo in a plain timber frame on his desk.

The subjects of the photo are dressed formally, as if they are about to go to a ball. It is an obvious studio shot, with a painted background of a formal garden.