Short stories
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Short stories
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The Wave is a story based on an actual event. Some years ago on a windless April morning when the sea was flat calm three great rollers came up the Channel, the first one was so big that it over topped the Chesil Beach and flooded the Cove Inn through the third floor windows. The
Wave Bringing kids up in
a pub isn’t easy.
You’re trying to be a mum and to keep the customers happy at the same
time. Of
course the kids get a bit neglected, but The Sailors Rest was right on top of
the beach so there were compensations, fishing and swimming, that sort of thing.
We got used to the gales and were always well prepared with sandbags and
shutters before the wind started screeching in the chimneys and the waves began
to pound the top of the beach, but the sea will always surprise you.
I had given up trying to get Mike out of bed in the mornings.
‘Teenagers are all like that’ said my mother ‘You were just the
same. He’ll
grow out of it and then one day you’ll go in and find another head on the
pillow beside him and nothing will ever be the same again.’
It was a day none of us will ever forget; a warm sunny April morning, sea
flat calm and not a breath of wind.
I had opened all the windows to air the bedrooms, even the attic where
Mike lay with his eyes screwed tight shut against the light.
I was round the back in the kitchen so I didn’t see it coming.
Seems there had been a big storm in the Atlantic.
Three great rollers came up the channel, absolutely silent, getting
higher and higher until they reached our beach when the first reared up, a huge
wave so high it over topped the pub and flooded the house through the attic
window. I
raced upstairs, my feet squelching on every step, slipping and sliding on the
seaweed that had come in with the wave, to find our Mike still in bed, just as
my mother had said, with another head on the pillow beside him.
She never said it would be a fish!
Ant hills are amazing well ordered communities that fascinated me when I was a child but when they threaten to take over your house something has to be done. From an ant's point of view it must seem like the end of the world. Armageddon We
have been in this refugee camp for a month now.
It is a terrible place, mud ankle deep, full of the sound of crying
children, no one has enough to eat and there is only one stand pipe for every
hundred families. They have come from all over.
Some have primitive tents; some have dug themselves tunnels into the
banks around the camp. We’ve tried
to dig latrines but many just squat and relieve themselves where they are and
the stench is appalling. At least we
are alive and we can dream and work for a better future once we have found the
others.
It wasn’t always like this. We
used to live in a fine city with wide clean streets.
It was a well ordered society where each one of us had a purpose,
everyone had enough to eat, everyone was employed. Central Control saw to
everything and we were happy. Life was good and we were confident that it always
would be, until the day of the earthquake. The
maternity unit was at the top of the city near the warmth of the sun and felt
the first tremor. Suddenly the walls
fell in and the floor cracked. Midwives
were running everywhere carrying newborns to safety. The top section of our
citadel was destroyed but Central Control took charge and we rebuilt deeper into
the earth. I and some of my term
mates had just been trained to fly so when the order came to scramble a squadron
we were detailed off to join the unit. We
were above ground when the hot rain came. Steam
and scalding water from on high destroyed all we had known.
There was a great silence and then we heard a voice like thunder high
above us. © Carenza Hayhoe August 2007
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