Mouseman – extracts
Beech Brothers
Another day at Beech Brothers. MM trudges through the big green doors and makes his way upstairs to the office.
It’s like any other Tuesday morning. Worn lino, that fluorescent glare, the angels rummaging through their bags to find change for the coffee machine. But it’s not. He turns towards his desk. His coloured pens are in the wrong pot. His middle drawer hangs open, and despite the initials taped to its back – in red, for Christ’s sake, in BRIGHT BLOODY RED – his hole-punching machine has vanished. Could it be a mistake? Oh no. Fat Bastard’s pissing about again.
A face is smiling up from his desk, a circle outlined in paperclips with multi-coloured elastic-band hair, a mouth of red-topped drawing pins and sky-blue stickylabel eyes that will leave unshiftable smears of glue. And rosy felt-tip applecheeks. Like burglars who not only steal your stuff but have to crap on the carpet too.
Mouth to Mouth
MM entertains himself at home.
MM picks up his bag and his mug of tea and swings the door to his bedsit open. It looks and smells just as it should, like a room that has been empty all day. But it feels as if something has just stopped moving. Probably nothing, after all.
After making a couple of slices of toast, he sits in the armchair with his feet up, his tea on its little mat beside him, and waits for the evening to unwind. Nothing to do but kill time. Till bedtime. Read the paper? Watch TV? He turns it on, returns to his chair and waits until the screen has cleared.
A woman in nurse’s uniform stands in a room with plain white walls, rows of coloured bottles on shelves and a frosted-glass window. She looks at the bottles vacantly and pretends to be writing on a clip-board. The door opens, and a man with dark hair, a white coat and a stethoscope comes into the room and approaches her.
Roseanna
Although he hasn’t phoned anyone, MM is standing in a phonebox at the corner of Silver Street.
He’s about to open the phonebox door and wander back to Mrs Flynn’s, when his eye is caught by a card on the wall. It’s pinned between Rely On Rab’s Cabs and Housewife Gives Expert Stress Relief and written in fancy lettering, like a party invitation. He’s sure he’s never seen it before. At the bottom is a phone number, and above it
Lonely?
Need to talk?
Call me!
Nothing else, just the words and the number, stuck on the phonebox wall beneath the emergency services poster. He shifts the receiver from hand to hand and reads the card again. And again. Lonely? Need to talk? Uh-huh. And what does he have to lose, after all?
Sign up for the Writing Idol newsletter!
The Writing Idol newsletter includes interviews, occasional free stories, extracts from my work in progress and other exclusive content. It only comes out once a month, and it’s easy to unsubscribe. New subscribers receive a free copy of one of the stories shown below. Choose which one you’d like to read and click on the cover to sign up now.
Who’s a lad to trust, when even his best friend has his own agenda?
Colin is terrified of having his hair cut, especially at Butcher Barnet’s. He’d much rather go with his best mate, Dezzie, to the Merrie England Amusement Park. Luckily for Colin, Dezzie comes up with a foolproof plan…
The Merrie England Conspiracy is a comedy about friendship, trust, betrayal… and local politics.
Love, betrayal and a beautiful carrot. What’s been going on in the garden?
Morty is worried. It’s hibernation time, and this year he has to face it alone. Without food to sustain him through the winter, Morty’s future is looking bleak. But he hasn’t lived to a ripe old age without having a trick or two up his sleeve…
Talking Tortoise is a dark comedy about the struggle for love and survival.