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For this month’s comp tell a story of some building work with some kind of mix up. The wrong site, the wrong builder – anything you like.
Deadline midnight 31st July.
300 words
Right man for the job!
Half eight, overnight ice on the inside of the windows, me already double Aran-wrapped, my phone rang:
‘Missus Blake? Morpeth Builders. We’ve a cancellation. Can come and have a look at your chimney today.’
‘That’d be great. There’s some sort of, of … blockage. The boiler’s broke, so lighting a fire the only way to keep warm.’
‘No problem, Flower, we’ll sort it. Be there in half an hour.’
‘Thank you.’
I presumed they had the address. My teeth-chattering message on their answerphone a bit incoherent. I was pissed off. Every time I’d suggested lighting a fire, Kev, my husband, said to wait: ‘It’ll need checking first. Bird’s nests … whatever … Could set the chimney alight .’
I’d reminded him a couple of times. There’s snow forecast. And you’re away next week –‘
‘Soon as I get back. Promise.’Well. Snow had fallen and, as I’d warned, the radiators stayed cold. No chance the boiler’d be looked at for a fortnight. Okay for him, in a hotel (and his bed likely all the warmer for whoever he shared it with.)
I’d not rung the builder Kev usually asked – a mate of his whose work was shoddy – but gone for one a neighbour recommended: ‘Owned by a retired cop. Through injury. But his team are all experienced.’Turned out ex-cop experience more relevant than brick-laying.
Took two minutes to reach and retrieve the blockage: five one-kilo blocks of cocaine, wedged tight. My shock evident enough to declare my innocence. Kev’s blustering attempt to blame me; the cop, whoever, for framing him, cut no ice. Not that there was any now. [271 words]Hi Janette – feel free to tidy up! I see no reason why software idiosyncrasies and confusions therefrom should affect anyone’s chances in the monthly comp.
I haven’t yet read your submission so I won’t know what you change. I think you can delete the original post if you wish.
The Mausoleum
… The star broke down as wife Stephanie’s casket was taken into the mausoleum. The stone masterpiece, testament to their love, could have been fashioned by Wren …’
Justin Mallory’s architect had also been proud of the secret panel to facilitate re-entry: stone-clad, freed by hidden lock and latch. Justin pocketed the key. He swiped away the online report then turned his phone light on the casket.
‘Of course I gave you the grand finale they expected of me. I’m Romeo! You, my Juliet!’
He gazed around the crude interior. ‘But this monstrosity, it’ll soon be forgotten as will you. Wren? This pile of shite went to the cheapest quote, after I drove him down. “We could cut corners, no-one would ever tell.” And muggins was right, wasn’t he? The reporters couldn’t. Just as I’d claimed I hadn’t noticed the mark on your back when your gobby friend spoke up. Hell, that took some acting out, but, jackpot! The cancer had already done its work.’
His thumping on the casket echoed around the claustrophobic chamber. ‘How dare you out-pose me? Every event. Posturing while I, Justin Mallory, stood back to wait for you! My fault, I suppose, for choosing the best arm-candy. Who. Should. Have. Known. Her. Place! And here it is! Cancer one, Steph nil, rotting while I move on –’
Justin turned in horror at a sonorous grating, in time to see the panel slide shut. He clawed at the seam, preened nails tearing, cursing that corner-cutting had included an interior handle, and the levelling of the site to ensure the moron’s stupid panel held firm. Air vents? Corpses had no use of those, or chargers for dimming phones.
Dimming phones? Justin scrambled for it.
His scream took no acting. It fell upon dead ears anyway.
298 words
July monthly comp reminder – three more days to post an entry 🙂
Tell a story of building work that suffers some kind of mix up. The wrong site, the wrong builder – anything you like.
Deadline midnight 31st July.
300 words maximum
Fallen
I messed up.
In the worst way.
The building site was wrong. How could I have made such an amateur mistake? Because I was an amateur, that’s why. No man who has spent his life in the Alaskan mountains could know how to build in the Caribbean. And not a simple house, but a castle. The mosquito bites on my back provided evidence this was my maiden journey to the islands.
My construction partner stood before me in tears, the knot in my gut tightened. Her crying was the steepest cost of my choosing the wrong site. She looked like her mom, four-years-old and already with the same cute dimples.
I embraced her tiny sobbing body, shielded her from the sight of our collapsed sandcastle. “It’s okay, we just need to build farther from the sea.”
The deceitfully gentle sound of the ocean easing onto the sand and rolling back out taunted me.
I pointed toward the sand fifty feet from the treacherous sea. “We’ll build there.”
My daughter, body still shaking with weeping and ginger hair frazzled by the wind, looked towards the spot. Stopped crying.
Phew. Crisis over.
She gazed at the pile of sand that was our castle less than a minute ago; and resumed her weeping.
Crisis not over.
“I liked our castle,” she mustered between her sobbing.
“Me too, but we can build a new one.”
She shook her head.
“Build one like our home.” I wiped the snot dribbling from her nose with the back of my hand.
She smiled. Nodded.
“Let’s go.” I held my daughter’s small hand and guided her away from the sea.
An hour later, we would be beaming as we admired a replica of our home on the sand.
Word Count: 291 excluding title
Brutal
Graham was beside himself. Furious, speechless, incandescent with rage. They had demolished the ancient well in his garden, thrown the centuries old stonework down inside, and constructed a former which showed their intention to pour footings a full twenty metres from where the summerhouse should be. He leaned forward and peered down. All sorts of rubbish in the shaft along with those beautiful carved rocks. It would cost a fortune to pull them out. He’d make sure the animals paid for it all. Ah, but it would never be the same. A reconstruction not the real thing.
Then he slipped.
He dreamed of his success. Planning permission for a Brutalist structure in a Knightsbridge garden had been tricky. His impassioned presentation on the inherent truthfulness of the materials and the utilitarian design had swung it, he felt. The thug of a builder had looked around the garden of this former rectory. ‘Honesty was invented in the 1950s then?’ he asked.
Graham woke up.
How on earth had he fallen so far? Wedged amongst the rubble in a sort of u-shape, his mouth was packed with what he hoped was soil. Pain radiated from his neck where his head was twisted skywards. He could see a chink of light far away.
The builder was back.
Graham’s relief was replaced with terror. He couldn’t speak and he was stuck fast. His feeble moans were drowned by the clatter of a distant machine and the sound of something metal being dragged nearer.
‘Course, he’s right in a way. I love the pouring of concrete. It’s wonderful stuff. I love the feel of it—the wobble as it’s smoothed, the unexpected perfection when the form is broken off. It’s a shame to cover it over with a building.’
Something wet landed on Graham’s cheek.
300 words without title.
<p style=”text-align: center;”><b>Behind Closed Curtains</b></p>
‘Jimmy look, that rude electrician is back!’ Marjorie adjusted her glasses and squinted towards the bungalow. ‘And he’s wearing that t-shirt again, you know, the orange one with large red letters saying Bog Off You Nosy Neighbour!’ She poked her tongue out in the general direction of the bungalow. Jimmy snorted and scratched his nose.‘Look. He’s pointing at me!’ Marjorie grabbed the navy blue curtains and pulled them across the window. A cloud of dust fell onto the faded red and gold carpet. She sniffed but didn’t smell the staleness which hung in the air from the curtains.
The shrill of the telephone made her jump. ‘Oh my goodness. Not again’
‘Shirford 792413, hello. Who is this?’ The line was silent, ‘Are you actually my bank?’ Her heart thumped. ‘Just leave me alone!’ she shouted. ‘I’ve had enough.’
Her hands shook as she pulled out her hearing aids. ‘I’ll show you I’m not a nosy neighbour and I won’t answer that phone agan.
She stomped to the kitchen. ‘Jimmy breakfast.’ Marjorie poured some pellets into his bowl then picked up yesterday’s bottle of sherry from the drainer. ‘As my Jack would have said, it’s never too early.’
Jimmy wagged his tail as he stuck his nose into the stale pellets in his bowl.
She took a swig from the bottle and then wobbled. ‘Goodness, the sherry’s already working.’ She giggled, ‘Bottoms up to the electrician!’
Safe behind her navy curtains and deaf to the world, Marjorie poured herself another sherry.
‘Here’s to nosy neighbours.’ She raised her glass.
Later that day the headline of the Shirford News read:
Local electrician dies in a horror fire when a bungalow being renovated is burnt to the ground.
Marjorie, slumped across her kitchen table slept through the sirens.
What terrific stories. So much horror too. I began to wonder if the topic of building work had raised deeply traumatic memories!
@clebs ‘Behind Closed Curtains’ is very atmospheric, rich in detail and perfectly titled. I felt a few words could be cut, such as the second mention of Jimmy’s bowl, and I wasn’t sure if I got the story’s message. Was Marjorie’s house the one meant to be renovated? Did it catch fire and the electrician die trying to rescue her? I’m sorry if I’ve obtusely missed the point. Overall I liked the story a lot.
@athelstone ‘Brutal’ is another great title, the play on the word. The use of dialogue to describe pouring concrete is brilliant, nightmarish and emphasised so effectively in the last line. It sent a shiver like horror in a Hitchcock film. My only small criticism was what I felt were a few unnecessary words: ‘with rage’; ‘then’; ‘with terror’. But I’m not going to forget this story. It could give me bad dreams 🙂
@alex ‘Fallen’ is another wonderful title full of meaning and potential meaning. The father’s emotions as he tries to do his best are palpable. I think “She looked like her mom, four-years-old and already with the same cute dimples” would be better turned round to, “Four-years-old and already with the same cute dimples, she looked like her mom” to remove the suggestion that mom is four years old. I wasn’t sure if I was meant to find the final sentence chilling but I did and thought it worked very well, making a good story a memorable one. I also felt the story could work well at a slightly longer length if you wanted to show more of the father’s emotional situation, for example – maybe how he feels about his partnership with mom and whether he has any worries there? Only a suggestion, it’s good as it is.
@Janette ‘The Mausoleum’ is a wonderful mix of horror and humour. I love the ironic reference to Romeo and Juliet. I like the clever use of the first paragraph that sets the scene so economically. There’s further background detail worked into the story without feeling rushed. I thought some cutting would be beneficial, such as “This pile … him down” which is beautifully, and to my mind better, expressed in the dialogue that follows it. I thought “claustrophobic” could go too. Overall I’m impressed by how much you’ve portrayed in 300 words. Very enjoyable.
@sandradavies I loved the humour and irony in ‘Right man for the job!’ The voice is very good. My only criticism is that I felt there should be a full stop after ‘Arran-wrapped’. Otherwise I think this is a perfect story. The ending achieves that difficult thing of being a surprise but perfectly logical and I couldn’t find any words to cut!Congratulations, @sandradavies and over to you.
@ Libby, thanks for the feedback. It was a great prompt.
I enjoyed all the entries and how varied the stories were.
@Sandra, congrats!
Wow, Libby, and thank you, a big surprise, especially as I’d already identified winners 1,2 and 3 and, my laptop having died and been taken away, and only having my ancient, over-full and steaming one, I wasn’t checking as often as I have been. I’ll try and come up with something as interestingly challenging as the last few have been.
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