Shall we go again? Feeling warmed up, limber and ready for action?
OK, 250 words please. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY words only.
Your prompt? No one should feel this happy…
Points to remember –
Make every word count. Carefully chosen details can convey more than long descriptions. Make your title pull its weight!
Post your piece with title and your name/pen name in the comments section
If you would like to offer feedback to other writer’s – do so respectfully.
Make sure I can contact you at the end of the challenge if you’d like your work promoted here.
Deadline for posts is the 21st of JUNE
Heidi James 
Safety
by Matthew Beswick
No one should be this happy in the club, with their mother. It wasn’t always this way. When he came out there were tears and harsh words. She told him she didn’t want him to go to hell. It hurt a lot when she said that. But they’ve grown in love. It has mended all their bonds. He’d confess now that he was an asshole as a teenager too. A lot of his friends, even those around him, don’t see their parents. Some Dads even tried to beat the faggot out of them. But they love his Mom. They accept her and dance with her all night.
They found their shared passions over time: Music, dancing, Hugh Jackman. She spent her youth in the music venues of the sixties. She hung out and listened to Nina and The Beatles. For a time she was a back-up singer with the band of the moment. As he grew up she sang to him all the great songs from that era.
Now they are dancing in the club to more modern tunes. She still loves music, even though she thinks the current singers and bands lack talent and creative autonomy. A beat is a beat and they dance to it freely. After all, they’re amongst friends. They’re with his LGBT brothers and sisters and she feels as safe as he does.
This illusion is shot through with bullets. She is amongst the first to die. She covers him; in love, protection and blood.
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SHIRLEY ROSE, BY FORD DAGENHAM
The hospital corridors smell of toast, shit, detergent. Eight AM, level B, walking to the office. Shirley Rose up ahead. I don’t call out morning.
I watch.
In wonder.
Her hair is down. Always. Loose curls bob like a child’s. She is forty-odd. Only up close do you see age in her freckles.
She skips. Actually skips. Eight AM Monday and she is skipping. Not continually. That’s madness. But skips bubble out of her impossible to restrain.
She’s an eternal child like out a storybook.
In the office we make coffee, moan, stretch out on chairs. Everyone firmly on the wrong side of the weekend. Shirley Rose has decaff, stands, bounces on the balls of her feet. Perpetual motion, watching.
Shirley Rose’s mother-in-law is ill. She will visit her tonight, maybe for the last time. Her solitary teenage child is a worry, the school needs a chat. Family deaths have piled up on her this year. She’s talked openly about them but only when asked. Even her tears are positive and broadcast that life should never be sad, ever.
Her laughter grows on itself, laughing because she is laughing, and that too is funny. She is a marvel. An example. We are all protective of her.
She is laughing now, for no reason, at me.
Her joy is an unbreaking spring that must never bend too far.
‘How the Christ is she so happy all the time?’ Is a chorus we sing like dawn birds.
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Fusilli ala creme by Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou
‘It creates ice up to fifty percent faster than any other brand,’ my son slid his fingers along the dispenser of his new side-by-side fridge, as if bringing a new invention to the light. His wife-to-be-very-soon was serving fusilli ala crème, a broad grin on her face. They certainly needed more cream. It was like chewing a girl’s heavily gelled locks.
‘Does it have a water filter too?’ I asked, not out of any interest but in order to avoid quenching his enthusiasm.
‘Of course.’ He beamed. ‘Advanced water filtration removes all pharmaceuticals.’
Although I am averse to cats, particularly to those who fix their eyes on you as if you owe them a life-long debt, I was thankful that the one they’d adopted as a pet seemed eager to consume the scraps of food I chucked under my chair.
‘Why didn’t you use rigatoni instead?’ I asked my daughter-in-law-to-be. Markos eyeballed me. ‘I mean, these are delicious too, you’re a great cook, of course.’ He sat down and tried – with little success – to fork food into his mouth.
What’s all this fuss about these new fridges and the tons of ice cubes they spit out, anyway, I thought. They’re too noisy and you end up with your cola watery and smelling of rancid cheese.
‘They could certainly do with more cream,’ I glimpsed at Markos, the cat crunching and coughing under my chair.
To my surprise, he placed a soft palm on my shoulder and said, ‘Only Mum can make rigatoni ala crème so well.’
My only son finally getting married, I thought. No one should feel this happy.
‘Oh, don’t say that,’ I said and had a second helping, hoping the cat hadn’t choked to death, not until my plate was empty.
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I’m loving these pieces… rich, detailed and thoughtful…. wow
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Adult Bubbles
by Stavroula Sanida
‘No one should feel this happy by buying chewing gums. I mean no adult’, she cast a tasteless look at me and hid her face behind the book. 10 STEPS TO HAPPINESS. Such a stale and odourless title.
‘Seriously?’ I dared to ask after a short pause. ‘How can you give me advice? You only experience feelings through pages! Is this what adults do?’.
‘Oh, come on sis! Stop behaving like a child!’.
‘Stop treating me like one!’ my complain found its verbal way out.
I said goodbye and drove home. I opened the cupboards. Small boxes were shining in front of my eyes. I took the green one out. Kiwi. A flavour for soothing. I prefered chewing gums than smoking. Actually I did smoke. And a lot. Definitely a teenager’s behavior. Long time ago. No packet of cigarettes in my bag now. Little colorful boxes gave new scent in my life.
It was my playful obsession. I liked exploring new flavours, different packages. I did so every time I visited a country. I named each city after a chewing gum scent. Paris was banana, Amsterdam was strawberry, Istanbul was cherry.
The city where I lived would not taste like anything. It was a pile of dried peel of apples. What a sour savour!
Not for me! My life was a bubble gum. Stretchy, fruitful, aromatic, naughty, joyful. I was proud of my bubbles. My sister would think otherwise. After all, she was fragrance-free.
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Of Princesses and Dragons
No one should feel this happy while stomping upon a crown. But it was fucking heavy. Gloria wanted to throw it in the garbage. She couldn’t. Princesses must not slouch, must not put their elbows on the table while eating and they surely must wear their crowns at all times.
The King, decided to lock her in a tower of the castle, red dragon as her guard, princes fighting for her rescue, the kingdom as a reward, etc.
A safe way to marry Gloria. No smart fellow would do it voluntarily.
She was furious. Her worst nightmare: a damsel in distress.
She did not need a bloody Prince Charming.
Sleeping Beauty had been waiting too long, only to find out that her prince was actually in love with her cousin, Luke. The story of her friend, Cinderella, was an illusion, as well: her prince had gambled away all their money. They were broke, now. Cinderella had to start cleaning her stepmom’s house again while her ex-prince started working at the local diner to get by.
Gloria had to rescue herself.
She tried washing her hair with a special shampoo– but who was she kidding? Her great aunt, Rapunzel, had just found the perfect wig.
Suddenly, it hit her. She would do what she knew best. She would be rational.
Gloria made some tea and invited the dragon for a little chat.
They made a deal.
She was free. And still single.
This must be heaven.
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