"Right," I said this slowly too.
"So, I thought to myself, why bring heavy buckets of water to the armour, when I could take the armour to the water," he explained.
"Where does my horse fit into this, squire?" I prompted.
"Well, you see, I needed someone to help me carry the heavy armour, and who better than someone who carries it on a regular basis. So, I put the armour on your horse, grabbed a bucket and a rope, and took your horse to the moat. You know, so I could use that water," he clarified.
"And how did the horse end up in the moat, squire?"
"Well, we, ah, kind of slipped on the muddy bank, sir. Both me and the horse - right into the moat," he admitted shamefully.
"I see. Then why are you here, hiding in the gatehouse, instead of helping get my horse out of the moat?" I demanded.
"Sorry, sir, but I was so scared you'd skin me alive that I just bolted and hid here," he squeaked.
"Squire, can I ask you a simple question?" I began.
"Oh course, sir."
"How are you supposed to clean chainmail armour?" I asked.
I think a lantern lit up over his head. "Oh! By putting it piece by piece in a bag of sand, and then shaking the bag, sir."
"So why didn't you do that?" I queried.
"Oh, oops. I, um, forgot, sir," he replied.
"What happens when chainmail armour gets wet, squire?"
He looked mortified. "Oh dear – I forgot all about that, sir. It rusts, doesn’t it?"
I laid a hand on his arm. “Look, squire, honestly, this is not the end of the world. Although the armour is probably ruined, I can get the armourer to make a new set. The important thing is that you are okay, as will be the horse once they pull him out of the moat."
Squire Anthony looked at me incredulously, "What - you're not going to skin me alive, sir?"
I ruffled his hair, "No, Anthony. I know you're clumsy and don't listen so well, but you'll get there eventually. Besides, you remind me of myself when I was a young squire..."
"Really?" he said keenly.
"Yes, but not that much. I never put my master's horse in the moat!"
Contemporary Short Stories
The Only Message They Heed
“Thanks for the lift, Mikhail,” I said.
“Don’t mention it, cousin. Welcome back,” he grunted.
“You’ve changed,” I said, aware that a permanent scowl now marred his once jovial features.
“A lot happened while you were at uni, Alexei, it’s not the same world…” He broke off as his phone rang. He flipped it open while keeping the other hand on the wheel. “Mikhail…What? Again? Don’t these people learn?...No, no, I’ll deal with it…No, stay put--I’ll come to you. You’re near the bridge?...Fine, see you in ten.”
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“Nah, just a bit of house cleaning to take care of. It’ll only take a few minutes--then I’ll drop you home.”
With a near inhuman display of mechanical precision, Mikhail drove off the highway and followed a dirt road into Vojislav Wood. Uneasiness spread through me like a malevolent cancerous growth. Who was this stranger beside me? What had happened to the carefree, fun loving prankster with whom I had spent my youth?
Mikhail drove off the track into the small clearing to the left of the bridge that spanned Vojislav River.
Three people awaited us in the clearing. Two unkempt, rugged young men held a woman with a dark complexion between them. Tears stained her dust-caked cheeks. Gnawing doubt blossomed into fear.
Mikhail took a pistol from the glove box. “Come or stay, don’t care either way. Just don’t get in the way.”
While at uni, I had heard rumours of bad things happening out here near the border. Jumping out of the 4WD to walk beside my cousin, I tried vainly to reassure myself that he could not possibly be part of such insanity.
As we drew closer, I realised that the men were not restraining a woman but a teenage ethnic girl. She had probably been using the wood as a shortcut to get home from a part-time job. Her eyes widened at the sight of the gun.
“Kneel down and put your hands on your thighs,” Mikhail snapped as he chambered a round.
Whimpering helplessly, she shook her head.
Mikhail pressed the gun against her stomach. “You can have it in the guts or the back of the head--your choice.”
I stepped forward. “Mikhail, you’re freaking me out! Let the girl go.”
Deadpan eyes met mine. “I told you not to get in the way, Alexei.”
“What has she done to you?” I demanded.
“These ethnic filth take our jobs and our land--and spread their insidious religion everywhere they go. If we don’t act, our heritage, our society, will be destroyed.”
“Violence is not the solution, Mikhail.”
“It’s the only message they heed, Alexei.”
Desperate to find a solution to this problem, I was suddenly struck by an uncanny but unmistakable resemblance between this girl and a certain photo in our family album back home. Although shocked by this revelation, it also gave me strength. I pushed the gun to one side.
“Back off, Alexei,” warned my cousin.
Ignoring him, I lifted the girl’s narrow chin. “Your great-grandmother, what was her name?”
She looked at me blankly.
“Come on!” I all but shouted. “Your great-grandmother was famous. Tell us her name!”
“Asiya,” she stammered.
“Tell us her whole name!”
Her dark eyes darted about frantically.
“Come on girl, think!”
“Shamil! Asiya Shamil!”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Mikhail jolt as though struck.
“Recognise that name, cousin?” I said, refusing to relinquish my grip on the gun.
“What?”
“Do you recognise the name?”
“Yes, damn you! She’s our great-grandmother. But this girl…related to us…how did you know?”
“Because I can see her resemblance to our great-grandmother. However, that’s not important - what is important is that this girl is our cousin,” I concluded.
“Your great-grandmother’s one of them?” one of Mikhail’s comrades asked, aghast.
I was unsure whom Mikhail hated more at that moment, the girl, or me.
Drawing the girl from the slackening grasp of her captors, I put my arm around her protectively. “Come, cousin, I will walk you home,” I said to her.
“Don’t make me shoot you too, Alexei!” Mikhail threatened, aiming the gun at me now.
“Don’t you get it, Mikhail? Do you have any idea what you’ve been doing with all this ethnic cleansing? If you go far enough back through the generations, you will find that our two nations share the same ancestors--we are all cousins! You’ve been killing your own family!”
I escorted the girl safely to her home.
The Waitress
“Hey guys, that cute waitress Natasha isn’t here today!” protested Henry as we took our seats in Bill’s Diner.
“Huh?” puzzled Jase in all seriousness. “Don’t we come here for the food?”
After a pause, we answered as one. “Nah – for Natasha.”
Nothing was sacred to my friends, they sent up everyone and everything in a way that kept me amused for hours.
“Oh please tell me she’s not Natasha’s replacement,” Henry pined as a middle aged waitress headed for our table.
“May I take your order?” she asked. Her speech impediment and inexpensive hearing aids reminded me of Megan, a deaf girl I had met at the gym two months ago. She was the cutest thing to walk the earth so I had finally asked her out. She had responded by inviting me to have dinner at her folk’s place tonight.
“Whoa, what’s wrong with your voice, lady?” Jase piped up.
“I’m deaf,” she replied.
“Sorry, what was that?” Jase asked.
“I’m deaf,” she repeated patiently.
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“Sorry, what was that?” Jase asked again.
Tom lost it, “Oh man, Jase, you’re just too good!”
“I’m d…” The waitress trailed off when she saw my friends laughing. Obviously hurt, she frowned at Jase.
“Do you want to order, young man?”
“Toasted cheese and tomato sandwich thanks,” Barry announced.
The waitress turned to face Barry, “Sorry, again please?”
“Man, what is this? We have to say everything twice now!” he snapped so rudely that I jolted visibly. I hoped no one treated Megan this way. “I said I’ll have a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich!”
“Hit me with the chicken schnitzel,” declared Jase.
“Sorry, did you say chicken?” she queried somewhat hesitantly.
“Oh man, buy some proper hearing aids.” Although spoken softly for our benefit, I was horrified to see the waitress watching Jase’s lips and not his eyes. “CHICKEN SCHNITZEL!” He practically shouted.
Covering my mouth with a menu, I gestured to my friend, “Be careful, Jase: she’s a lip reader. And she probably can’t afford good hearing aids – they’re nine thousand dollars a pair.”
“How would you know that?” he shot back.
“Ah, I just heard it, that’s all,” I muttered, too embarrassed to let on that I was dating a deaf girl.
“If she read my lips, too bad. Maybe she’ll get the hint and get another job. Then these idiots can hire a waitress who can actually hear the customers!” was his comeback.
Seeing the waitress on the verge of tears, I quickly changed the topic by giving her my order.
It was six that evening when I reached Megan’s house.
Nervous at the prospect of meeting her parents, I rang the doorbell. And then almost died when the deaf waitress, sporting tear stained cheeks, opened the door. “You! Haven’t you and your friends done enough damage today? Do you know how hard it is for a deaf woman my age to get a job?”
“Look, ah, I’m so sorry for the way my friends behaved today, but you must have noticed that I didn’t join in?” I objected weakly.
“They’re your friends, and you spend time with them of your own choice, yes? That means you’re as bad as they are,” she said angrily.
I wanted to protest my innocence, but she was right. I chose to spend my time with those guys, and chose to delight in their sarcastic wit. A sobering thought suddenly occurred to me – was I becoming like them? “Look, um, I should have stuck up for you by telling them to back off. Or perhaps walked out on them.” But was too scared to risk losing their friendship.
“Why are you here?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.
That should have been my cue to disappear, but instead, I put my foot in my mouth. “Um, does Megan live here?”
“Megan? You know my daughter?” Comprehension dawned on her face. “Oh no, surely you’re not that new boy she’s been seeing?”
“Ah, um, yes. Look, I know I look like a heel right now, but can we please…”
“That’s enough! I forbid you to see Megan ever again!” The door slammed in my face.
My mobile had the audacity to intrude upon my despondency as I headed back to the station. However, when the caller ID revealed the caller to be Jase, I returned it unanswered to my pocket. Sorry Jase, if I’m to have any chance of making it up to Megan and her mum, I think it’s think it's time I found myself some new friends.
Okinawa
“You should not have brought him here, little sister,” admonished the petite Japanese woman.
“It is time my husband met my family, Momo-chan,” Sakura protested.
Sitting cross-legged across from the two women, Richard Oliver did not let on that he was able to discern the gist of their conversation. He went through the motions of sipping his green tea in an abortive attempt to hide his discomfort.
“You have dishonoured our family by marrying this gaijin instead of one our own people. May I ask why--were there no Japanese men in America?” Momoko pressed.
“Richard was very kind to me--to many of our people--when they put us in that internment camp during the war,” Sakura explained while stealing a glance at her husband. “During the three years that we were incarcerated, he brought food and medical supplies to the camp every other week. Because of this, and since he paid for these himself, he earned his own people’s contempt. I think he suffered as much as we.”
“If his actions brought him dishonour, why did he persist?”
“It is because of what his God Jesus says in their book, Momo-chan--that if you visit a person in prison, it is the same as visiting Jesus in prison,” Sakura clarified.
“That makes no sense, why would their God be in prison?”
“The concept is alien to us, I admit. Richard-san explained it this way: the Christian God is pleased when a person shows compassion to another who is in need. It was during these visits that I came to know, respect and love him. We married after the war.”
Momoko’s two young daughters skipping into the ramshackle wooden room derailed the conversation. Upon spying the large American man towering over their mother and aunt, they fell back shrieking, “Gaijin!”
“Konnichiwa, Nanako-chan and Yuko-chan,” Sakura said quickly to reassure them, “I am your aunt, just back from America. This is Richard-san, my husband. He is your uncle.”
“No!” cried one girl, “He cannot be our uncle--he is a gaijin!”
“Tell him to go away!” added the other before both fled the room.
“Gomen nasai,” Sakura said to her husband, embarrassed by her nieces’ shameful behaviour.
Although wounded by their words, Richard reassured her in English. “No need to apologise.”
“So sorry, Richard-san. I should not have brought you here,” Sakura whispered back.
Momoko rose. “Please excuse me, but I must prepare lunch.”
* * *
A fit of coughing from smoke seeping under the door woke Richard in the early morning hours. Leaping from the futon, he shook his wife. “Wake up, Sakura-chan, there’s a fire!”
Upon opening the door, they were horrified to see that a fire raging in the kitchen had spilled into the hallway, cutting off access to the back of the house. Beyond the flames, Richard could just make out his sister-in-law and her daughters cowering against the wall, with no avenue of escape.
Darting back to their room, the American snatched two woollen blankets. He handed one to his wife and girded himself with the other. “Go outside and have the blanket ready!”
With that, he flung himself through the fire, paying no heed to the flames that caressed his feet and arms. Upon reaching the end of the hallway, he picked up one girl and placed her on her mother’s back. The younger one he put in her arms. Then removing the blanket from himself, he wrapped it around the lady and her daughters.
On many past occasions, Richard had questioned God’s judgement in giving him such a large frame. Now, finally, he understood why. Without difficulty, he scooped the diminutive Japanese lady and her two daughters into his burly arms, and ignoring a fresh fit of coughing that racked his chest, charged headlong back through the fire.
Fleeing the house to enter the cool night air outside, Richard stood still while his wife used her blanket to smother the fire from his clothes. Disregarding his injuries, the large man then set the precious bundle he carried carefully upon the road.
As Momoko and her two daughters emerged from the makeshift cocoon, they examined the American from a completely new perspective.
Drawn by the commotion, fire and smoke, dozens of neighbours came rushing over. Some looked on while others rushed about collecting buckets of water. Several children pointed to Richard and shouted, “Gaijin!”
Although they still clung to their mother, Momoko’s daughters shouted back as one, “He's not a gaijin, he's our uncle!”
Sci-Fi Short Stories
She Danced Alone
I don’t know what drew me into the
nightclub, having never set foot in one before, but the Tokyo subculture fascinated me. And as I was to fly home tomorrow, this was my last opportunity to study it. All the same, I felt conspicuous. Not because I was a plainly dressed eighteen year old exchange student, but because I was the only guy in the club drinking straight orange juice.
That’s when the Japanese harajuku girl came in. Petite yet knockout gorgeous in that dark purple white accented Gothic Lolita outfit with knee high boots. Her glossy black hair framed a doll-like heart-shaped face. I watched, mesmerised, as she came over to the dance floor. She was so close that I could have reached out and touched her shoulder.
She began to dance, seemingly oblivious that she danced alone. However, it was the way she danced that caught my attention. Her movements were unnatural, almost mechanical; yet at the same time eerie.
Becoming aware of her awkward, uncoordinated dance steps, those around her moved quietly away. Meanwhile, several young men with outlandish hairstyles surrounded her, gawking as though she was an exhibit at a freak show.
“Henna no,” one snarled. She’s weird.
“Okashi na,” said another. She’s strange.
“Baka da yo!” the third affirmed. She’s an idiot!
On impulse I slid off my stool. Slipping between them, I took the girl’s hand and led her towards the exit.
“Doishite?” Why? She asked, confused.
“Those guys were mocking you,” I stammered in broken Japanese.
“You are saving me?”
“I guess so.”
“Ja, arigato.” In that case, thank you. She was smiling now.
We made our way to a coffee house two floors up. I picked the seat facing the window so I could see Tokyo’s neon illuminated buildings outside. She sat opposite with her back to the window.
The floor, no, the entire building, began to sway from side to side, gently at first, then with increasing intensity. Did they slip something into my juice?
Dreams Forsaken: and Other Short Stories Page 2
