Great Short Stories

by Stan Mason

  Mother’s a schoolteacher although she wasn’t employed at the college I attended. I think I’m one of her biggest disappointments in life. She expected so much of me and there’s no doubt in my mind that she feels let down. It’s not my fault. For some strange reason, information never seems to stick solidly in my mind. I try very hard but it just isn’t there. My time in class was spent drifting, dreaming about what life could be like, matters of love, and very young girlie thoughts. I was a very immature student always attaining about fifty-five per cent of the marks in examinations. Very mundane, I have to admit, but it was the best I could do. Somehow, whenever examinations came along, I tended to freeze up solid. My mind would turn to mush, unable to absorb the questions, which meant that I was unable to offer reasonable answers. After it was all over and I relaxed, my mental capacity returned to normal and my emotional stability became re-established. If I were allowed to retake the examination there and then I might have been able to pass with flying colours but it was never to be. Mother sees it in a different light. She cannot understand why I flunk out but both she and I have to live with the results. Even worse is the fact that I have a brother who recently passed out of university with honours. It’s really sad that he’s so clever and I’m such a dork. He’s now on his way to become a stock-broker and I really don’t know why he had to go to university just to follow that career. After all, it’s really just selling stocks and shares for investors, nothing more. My mother had much higher prospects for both of us I’m certain. When my brother and I were both very young, about the age of eight and five, the family went on holiday and we paddled in the sea. A woman sitting on a deckchair near my mother asked her our ages. ‘My son, the lawyer, is eight. My daughter, the doctor. is five,’ returned my mother. This proved to be wishful thinking because look how we turned out. A stock-broker and a layabout unemployed overweight dork!

  On the matter of weight, I now have to admit I’m three stone heavier than I should be. Mind you, when I go to the weighing machine in the chemists in town, there’s a chart telling you what weight you ought to be with regard to your height. I don’t mind saying that they’re way out of line. They’re absolutely crazy! I’d be a scarecrow if I took their advice. I’ve tried to diet a thousand times but it never seems to work. Firstly, I started with the lettuce diet where you chew the green leaves and a few carrots and stuff for lunch and dinner, having eaten a reasonable breakfast of fibre and fruit. It worked and I lost weight... as much as over half a stone but the hunger pains soon attacked me in full force and my will weakened faced with very little resistance. Suddenly, all the weight came back and I found myself many pounds heavier than I was before I started. Then I tried the walnut diet with the same result, followed by a whole series of different diets which proved to be a complete waste of time. Is it my fault that my body doesn’t burn up the calories as fast as they should? Sometimes I think I might have glandular problems but in my heart I know that’s only an excuse. Yet look at my friend Claire who’s only eighteen even now. A year ago, she was about the same weight as myself and decided to batten down the hatches. She practically starved herself... which is really the only way to get the weight down... I mean, if you don’t put anything into your mouth you’re bound to lose weight. Unfortunately, she did it for too long. After three months, she still considered she was too fat yet she had lost nearly two stones. Instead of steadying herself with modest meals, she continued to diet fiercely and lost even more. Without warning, she began to feel dizzy and on one occasion actually collapsed. The doctor diagnosed her problem as anorexia and everyone, except Claire, realised that she was in deep trouble. She couldn’t stand the sight of food and whenever she ate anything she would put her finger to the back of her throat forcing herself to throw up. Consequently, no food was getting to her stomach and she was weakening herself day by day. She was admitted to hospital where the nurses put her on a drip. Gradually, but only gradually, she hauled her way back into the real world and put on some weight, but even now she’s still affected by the trauma and eats only small amounts of food. The ultimate result is that she’s as skinny as a scarecrow but what a horrible way to suffer. And it was all self-inflicted. I’d rather be overweight as I am than have to go through all that. They say that thin people live longer because the extra weight takes effect on the heart but I doubt whether the pundits really know what they’re talking about. Naturally, if you’re many stones overweight it’ll affect your body in the end but, if you follow the advice on the weighing machine in the chemists, you’ll be so spare there’ll be nothing left of you!

  Now that I think of it, I’m not completely useless. I have a unique talent with regard to cooking. Somehow, whenever I stand in a kitchen with lots of food around me, my whole attitude changes and my mind concentrates on creating new dishes and serving up old ones. Casting modesty aside, some of the dishes I make are absolutely superb. I don’t know where the talent comes from because no one in our family has ever been a professional cook and, to tell the truth, my mother isn’t a very good one either. Subsequently, I make many of the dinners which the family enjoy each evening. Not that mother would allow me to become employed as a cook in a restaurant. No way! She’s far too high-minded for that and wouldn’t want me to descend into such depths. But I enjoy watching the family devour some of my favourite creations which include Hungarian goulash, ragout, lasagne, bouillabaise, kedgeree, and a variety of fish and other dishes. Perhaps, one day, I’ll sneak out and get myself a job at a decent restaurant and then tell my parents what I’ve done. What could they do about it then? I mean, I’m eighteen years old and have a life of my own. The trouble is that I’m just a shy, ordinary person with no ambition in life but I have a great deal of respect for my parents, far more than most people, because of our close family association and the fact that, in our hearts and because of the nature of our background, we still consider ourselves to be Europeans rather than Britons. Well who can blame me? I mean to say, all my grandparents came from different European countries, so what does that make me... a kind of mongrel I suppose. Sometimes I envy those people in the world who can claim they’re All-American or All-British, or anyone who can feel they can be proud of their nation... the one in which they and all their ancestors were born in since the effluxion of time. It isn’t fair on someone like me who cannot feel that way. Perhaps other people consider me to be lucky because of my heritage, After all, I can support Portugal, Holland, Russia, Rumania and England in the World Cup Football competition. But I’m not particularly interested in sport so I don’t see it in the same light.

  Sometimes I stand back and ask myself what I really want in life. Just one solitary thing which would satisfy me, like winning the lottery or finding a man to fall in love with who would love me back with equal passion. When I think hard about it, there’s only one thing I truly wish for. I desperately need to pray to God to ask him to turn me off. You see, it’s a kind of curse. I’ve been talking non-stop since I was two years old and sixteen years of constant prattle is about enough for anyone to have to tolerate. I’m never conscious of the fact that I don’t stop talking. Similar to the poem of Tennyson’s brook, friends may come and friends may go but I go on for ever. Quite truthfully, I want to be normal like everyone else. I’ve alienated my parents, my family, my friends, and everyone who knows me because I can’t keep my tongue still or my mouth shut for more than a few seconds. No one else can get a word in when I’m around. So, God, if you’re really up there in the firmament in Heaven, there must be some kind of a switch somewhere. Will you please use it and kindly turn me off? Getting back to reality, I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to you about collections, which I’m an absolute sucker for, raffles, which I can’t resist, my love for bingo, my hobbies which includes reading passionate love stories, spending money on clothes, although I don’t really have a lot to spend on them, the way I feel about pets, my hatred of computers, and my total abhorrence for drinking, smoking and drugs. On drinking al
one, I think that people who serve drinks to underage children should be put behind bars. However, before you finally leave me, there’s just one more thing I want to say to you...’

  The Tree

  Stanislaw Polanski was born in a shack in a little village outside Warsaw in Poland. Not surprisingly, he emanated from basic peasant stock. It was a place where men worked the fields for long hours each day while women did the cooking, washing and all the other household duties. His father tall strong man who ruled the family with an iron fist. Subsequently, the young Pole’s attitude and ideals were extremely Slavonic and while he held views which were democratic in his mind they had a tendency to be fixed, prudish and extremely Victorian in style.

  He had emigrated to Britain only two years earlier, on his thirty-eighth birthday and very shortly set his sights on a pretty relatively young barmaid by the name of Melanie Phillips who fell in love with him at sight. It was difficult to understand the reason why she felt so romantic about the Pole because he was short, stocky, not very attractive, with a shock of ugly black hair. He had a tendency to grunt most of the time, and displayed the most shocking table manners which he brought with him from his native country. He had no plans in mind to marry after he had settled down in Britain but after a whirlwind romance he decided to tie the knot and they soon were wed in the local church, setting up home in the cottage Melanie owned in the village. It is sad to record that this was the good part as far as the pair were concerned. As the axiom goes: “marry in haste, repent at leisure”, and that’s exactly what they did. Shortly after the wedding, she began to discover his true stodgy impassionate unrelenting nature and learned quickly to dislike him intensely despite the fact that she was still romantically in love with him. The result of this strange relationship invoked a long series of arguments between them which became so serious that they often bordered on the edge of them battering each other to death. Any other couple would have separated but Melanie was a Catholic and her religious beliefs denied her such an option. One may have expected them to mellow in time but as time elapsed the situation did not improve. Melanie was a normal village girl who would have made an excellent wife for any man, but the Pole seemed to sport different ideas to everyone else. He still judged women by the way his family acted towards them in the old country. This view did not mean that he relegated them to a secondary position in life. Quite the opposite. He recognised the need to give his wife a multitude of presents and also provide the needs which only a male could supply to a female. For example, if Melanie mentioned the fact that she needed a new dress, he would go out and buy one for her. The only problem... and it was a major problem... was that he would choose the size, the colour and the pattern himself without taking her with him so that she could select one for herself and try it on for size. When he arrived home, he would proudly show his prize to his wife but he could never understand why his generosity was so sharply rejected. She was stunned when he presented her with a new dress which was so gross in colour and fashion that her grandmother wouldn’t wish to wear it and quickly made her views very plain to him indeed. However, such reproaches seemed to have no effect on her husband who some days later went out and bought her a pair of ugly flat shoes which she wouldn’t be seen wearing if she were dead. And so the game went on with him being forceful in all that he did and her rejecting everything in which she wasn’t involved. Subsequently, the arguments grew fiercer and fiercer as time went on until they both arrived at the point of despair.

  They drifted on in this way for a while, arguing, fighting, snarling at each other, and generally getting on each other’s nerves. Then eight months after the wedding, Polanski hit on an idea which he hoped might calm them both down. He decided to arrange a holiday and went to the local travel agent to book a hotel on the Costa Blanca in Spain for the two of them. Naturally, he failed to discuss the matter with his wife and presented it to her as a fait accompli. They were going on holiday. He had booked it, he had paid the deposit, and that was that! She didn’t mind his actions on this occasion. She adored vacations and the Costa Blanca at the end of June was an ideal place to go. There was only one problem. She would have to accompany a miserable husband who never involved her in anything he did. As far as she was concerned, she would have loved the marriage to end there and then. In her eyes, for all his supposed generosity, he was a monstrous Slavonic slob and she wished that some miracle would happen so that she could be well rid of him.

  The Spanish resort was ideal for tourists. It was a holiday filled with sun, sand and good food and, for a while, calm existed between the volatile husband and his angry disappointed wife. But, as anticipated, the tranquility only lasted for a short time. A day after they arrived there, Polanski went out and purchased a white plastic dress for his wife. It was an awful-looking garment with high shoulders, reaching almost to the ground, with a tight black belt around the waist.

  ‘I bought this for you because we’re going up to the cliffs tomorrow morning,’ he told her. ‘If nothing else, it’ll keep the wind off your back. I’d like you to wear it.’

  It was all too much for her to bear... beyond toleration! He had gone out and bought yet another dress for her without her being with him. Now he was insisting that she wear it. Yet another order; another unwanted present; a further decision made by him as to determine where they were going the next day. There was never any discussion to ask her what she wanted to do. Always a fait accompli! It was too much! By now she was too tired of his attitude to argue with him. It was far easier to simply give in. On the following morning, she climbed the cliff behind the hotel with him wishing that she could push him over the edge and get rid of him for ever swiftly and expediently. However, she knew in her heart that she could never commit such a heinous crime.

  The incident happened when they reached the precipice overlooking the sea. Below stood a number of large sharp rocks about eighty feet down, looking savage and hungry as the gentle waves moved between them. Melanie was extremely angry at having to wear the white plastic dress. First of all, the sun was fairly harsh and the material was starting to make her perspire. Secondly, the dress was far too long and the black belt was short, biting tightly into her waist. They had only just got to the top of the cliff when the subject of the dress became yet another fierce argument between them. They savaged each other, almost spat in each other’s faces, shouted at the top of their voices, and, in the end, Polanski lost his temper, threw his arms in the air, and stalked off along the ridge in a fury. What did the woman want from him? He always bought her the loveliest of presents! New dresses, new shoes, new curtains, different objects for the house, but she never appreciated anything! Nothing at all! How could someone be so ungrateful when their loved one tried to please them by bringing them such lovely things? It was beyond anything he could understand. He felt like pushing her over the cliff and be done with her but he knew that despite all his faults it was beyond him to do so. He was still in love with the woman despite their differences. In due course, his anger subsided and he turned to face his wife from the distance but, to his astonishment, she wasn’t there. At the spot at which she had been standing there was a tree of the same height. He blinked twice to make certain that his eyes weren’t deceiving him and shook his head violently as if he were in a dream trying to wake up. However, one thing was definite; his wife wasn’t there. In her place there stood a green conifer. How could that have happened? He tried to recollect the previous situation in his mind. Was the tree there before? If it was, he hadn’t noticed it. He moved to the edge of the precipice and looked down at the vicious rocks below in case his wife had fallen over the edge. No, there was no sign of her having tripped and gone over the top. It seemed absolutely incredible but the fact was that she had been turned into a tree. He stood quite still for over a minute, his mind in a turmoil. How could such a thing have happened? It was impossible! He looked over the precipice again to make sure for a second time that his wife hadn’t fallen over but th
ere was no sign of her body below. After a while he turned his attention to the conifer. Melanie was five feet six inches tall. He estimated that the tree was exactly the same height. Not only that but, unlike most conifers, it assumed the shape of a human-being. Furthermore, he was positive that it hadn’t been there when he and his wife arrived at the top of the cliff. There was no doubt about it, she had been turned into a tree by some spirit or phenomena for reasons which he couldn’t explain. The problem now was to find a way to get her back but he realised that such a feat was way beyond his knowledge or ability. On the other hand, their relationship was so battered by their differences, it was opportune that she disappeared at this particular time to allow him to live his life alone... or at least until he found another woman who appreciated him. Nonetheless, questions would be asked at the hotel as well as the village back home when people discovered that she was missing. It was his duty to inform the police and the authorities of the incident although he was at a loss as to how he could put it to them. What was he to say? How could he tell them she had been turned into a tree by some unknown spirit or force? They would think him crazy. However, as far as he was concerned, that was the truth and he was forced to stick by the story. Almost certainly they would search the bottom of the cliff and find her body laying there somewhere. It had to be! If not, she was a growing conifer standing proudly at the top of the cliff!