It was a day like all the other days. The sun shone. The clouds moved. And I had decided to go for a walk. It was a very hot day, so I decided to sit near a café in the park, specifically near a table that had two pretty girls engaged in a conversation. I ordered a coke, and an ice cream and sat down, placing myself in a non-chalant position, staring out into the distance slightly to the left of the girls.

It was as if this position was magical, like Zazen, and would attract the attention, of other women, intrigued by the man whose body was contorted into a position of intellectual curiosity, or so he thought. While I took a chunk out of my ice-cream, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a very large Bee that was on the other side of the café courtyard. My body froze, remembering the many fatal encounters I had had with Bees since my childhood.

It was hard not to take them personally, but when they all looked the same, after a while you start to think it’s that same Bee that has been following me all my life. As if it has a personal vendetta. So you can understand the whole body-freeze thing. He was back. It was personal. But for now, he was bothering the other guy in the corner, and I watched with sympathy knowing what was about to come.

At first he would whisk the Bee away with his hand. Big mistake, as this was guaranteed to make the Bee even madder, even crazy. Within a couple of beats, you guessed it, the guy flips out his other arm, hoping this would do the trick, but it never does. If he had any sense, he would just sit calmly and do nothing else, and the Bee MIGHT leave him alone, but he did what was expected, and heads started to turn.

What should have been a mild nuisance was about to turn into a performance, as he predictably flung out both his arms in an attempt to thrash the Bee away, not realizing that this was exactly what the Bee wanted. It’s his world. He can flip, fly, manoeuvre, really quickly, but the man had thought brute strength and pride would do, but now the Bee was about to step things up like Muhammad Ali.

The man was now failingly his arms around like a drunk ballet dancer at the Bolshoi Ballet. The Bee started jabbing him from the left, and then from the right, as the man stood up and flailed his arms around like a helicopter. Everyone was watching him with that pained look on their face, but also excitement, as not much else was happening that day. I even managed a smile, glad that today the Bee had chosen someone else and not me.

I even managed a look at the girls across from me. Not a victorious smile but more a, ‘gosh how awful, fake humility smile.’ They offered raised eyebrows and then turned back to the performance, only to the watch the man dancing of into the distance, arms outstretched, but the Bee was nowhere to be seen until I then spotted it coming for me. He had not forgotten. The other guy was just the warm-up act. I froze as all the memories of previous fights came back to haunt me.

The café crowd had zoned in on the flight of the bee and its trajectory back to me, and I knew it would be just a few seconds before the Bee would be on top of me. I was stuck in my non-chalant position. Right-leg over left. Left elbow on right-leg with thumb and fore-finger holding my head in a composed position, looking out into the distance. My heart started to beat wildly as the Bee got closer, and I knew that I had to act fast or I too would look like a prize chump.

Without any thought. At least I don’t think there was one, and if there was it must have been quick. I quickly dashed away in three specific strides, right from that composed position, and managed to get behind the café shed. I had out foxed the Bee, and I was hoping he would have turned on someone else by now. I tried to calm my breathing down and thought about leaving until I realized I had left my bag and ice-cream by the table.

I shuffled along the side of the café walls to peak through a gap in the panelling, and it appeared that the Bee had indeed left, but how would I get back to my seat without anyone realizing it? I had noticed behind the café compound a large warehouse with a glass partition in the ceiling, and quickly looked around for a heavy stone. I spied through the gap in the wood and tried to work out the trajectory of the distance, and knew there would be a gap between me throwing the stone, knowing if it would have worked, and having to run around in the hope that it would have. It could all go wrong, but I had nothing to lose, and the Bee had gone.

Grabbing the stone, I pulled my arm back and threw it with all the energy I could muster and then waited about three seconds. Just as I expected, I heard the crash, followed by a mild gasp, and I quickly ran around. As expected, everyone was looking the other way. I sat down at my chair, and put myself back into the same position. Eventually everyone carried on talking, and I finished my ice-cream. What a day that was.

These are some excerpts from my short stories above so you can get a feel for the absurdism, insight and humour.

Behind The Bedroom Curtains

She pulled the curtains back ever so slightly and peeked out onto the cobbled streets. She stepped back from the curtains and looked the other way looking out for anything suspicious. Things out of place. Signs or symbols that might hint at a good or bad day ahead. She stepped back from the windows and then retired into her armchair sofa. The rest of the room was dark, and all the other curtains were drawn. It was eleven o clock in the morning and the sunlight outside was begging to be let in but that couldn’t be done until 12 o clock.

Dasein

Michael slammed the phone across the room and it smashed into a trillion pieces. And the trillion pieces smashed into Michael. Each single piece was a single piece of time. A milli-second. Or less. One piece lodged itself into Michael’s eye which allowed him to see closely that single piece of time. And the single piece of time said to him,

‘Dasein!’

Lost Boy

I rushed to the door and opened it slowly. I walked outside and breathed in the fresh cool air. I stayed close to the door to stop me from falling over the edge. I looked further down the road but that had been sawn off too. It seemed so far that all that was left of the world was my house and say one or two metres of the earth in front of it.

Suckered

Despite looking like lizards, the Lizurethians had a strong female shape, even the men. It was a bit like crossing an Anaconda with Beyonce Knowles. Mara was powerful, sexy, and very strong. She held up her three-fingered hand to Malcolm. The palm of her hand was covered with mini suckers which opened giving a slightly mild sigh.