In Amber

Sunday morning I was baking pancakes. I had the mix ready and started pouring it into the warmed up frying pan, small and slightly undercooked, just how I like them.

Feeling decadent I decided I’d have them with strawberry jam instead of the usual maple syrup. I opened the jar and took a big dollop out, smearing it all over my pancakes, making sure not to leave any corner uncovered. Time to dig in.

A mosquito was buzzing around the kitchen, probably attracted to all the heat and light. I felt it buzz beside my ear and shooed it away. However, the mosquito was momentarily spellbound by the redness of my jam, a gooey red blood ready for him to gulp down greedily. Swooping down, he fell in, sinking into the jam as if it were quicksand, planted there as a trap.

I was about to finish my last pancake when I noticed what seemed to be a small mosquito so I left it on the side. It had too much jam on it anyway. I placed the plate on the counter, too lazy to wash it straight away.

Meanwhile, the mosquito was stuck, initially thriving to escape, but having realized it was no use, ceased to struggle. He was stuck in the redness as if in his own blood. A cruel death he thought, but caused by his own idiocy. The jam hardened and thickened, leaving him incarcerated as if in amber, only to be chucked into the drains later in the day, making his way through the sewers, landing somewhere, but where?

An unlucky photographer

In front of a small chapel in Cyprus, a photographer was waiting to take pictures of the bride and groom when, without warning, they burst out yelling at each other. The marriage hadn’t taken place yet.
Inside, their friends and family sat, anxiously awaiting their return in order for the ceremony to proceed.
Outside, the photographer paced back and forth, already thinking he wouldn’t be able to take any photos and consequently wouldn’t be paid. How would he explain to his wife that he’d been away all day but had received no payment? The last few months had been rough. Not as many people were getting married, or maybe they just didn’t want him as the photographer and, to save money, asked their family to take the pictures.
The couple continued to argue beside him, but he wasn’t listening to a word they were saying. It never even crossed his mind that if he had attempted to speak to them, soothing and calming them, they might have recognized that their argument was petty, hug, make up and go back inside the chapel. Alas, the photographer continued to pace side to side, overcome by his own problems. 

in The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & other stories by Tim Burton

Sugar's in Danger

There was once a ship named Sugar. Its crew was searching for a sandy beach where they could stay until the tide came in, just so they could restock the ship.

As the sun was setting they sighted the perfect spot. ‘Land Ho!’ called the sailor in the crow’s nest. They set up camp on the most remote part of the island in order to avoid danger for as long as possible. However, after being there for a while they realised there was none, so they set up permanent camp to regain their strength after the long and gruelling journey they had endured.

Rebecca was five and she always forgot to brush her teeth. Her parents weren’t usually around to tell her to do it and it wasn’t that she was a dirty young girl, she just forgot to do it.

One night she began to feel one of her teeth ache, but didn’t tell anyone so as not to worry her parents, especially as when she inspected her teeth she couldn’t see anything odd. Even so, that night she again forgot to brush her teeth.

Meanwhile, the crew had found some precious minerals in the island’s sand, so they had begun digging, when all of a sudden the area under their ship caved in, leaving it deep in the island’s interior.

The next morning Becca awoke with a searing pain in one of her teeth, and with tears in her eyes ran to the toilet to look at them in the mirror and, this time, she could see a little black spot on one of her back molars, and seizing the opportunity, decided to wake her mother, who was still home. On waking, she was startled at her daughter’s face covered in tears and felt, at the same time, guilty for not paying as much attention to her as she knew she should. She jumped up and scheduled a dentist’s appointment for that afternoon.

When there, Rebecca was told she had a cavity, so the dentist began drilling and removed what seemed to be a small object, which to him looked like a small ship. Puzzled, he presented it to the young girl, as a token for her bravery.

The crew after having descended into the pit to try and get their ship back on the water, began thinking that setting up camp had been a bad idea. Some of the men were trying to climb back up after having reached the conclusion that the ship was permanently stuck, when all of a sudden it was lifted away, as if by magic, and the space above them was promptly covered up, immersing them in darkness. The crew was doomed to never see daylight again.

A chocolate friend

I have a friend who is a witch. Her face is of white chocolate and her cape and hat of dark, mixing the sinfully low in nutritional value and the densely full of flavonoids and antioxidants.

I decided to go out for a walk with Minerva, as I decided to call her, in the palm of my hand, switching her from one to the other when they started to get sweaty, enjoying the moment to lick up her remains, as if cleaning up the mess she had created with her potions.

After hours in the sun, however, there was nothing left of her except a small dark circle on my left palm, as if she had finally perfected her disappearing spell and left only a small puddle where she had once been.

 When I got home I had a look in my chocolate box to decide who I’d be taking out the next day, and decided on a milky brown prince, thinking that maybe he would be a gentleman and wouldn’t leave me by the end of the day.

Mistaken

I smiled at you because I thought that you
Were someone else; you smiled back; and there grew
Between two strangers in a library
Something that seems like love; but you loved me
(If that's the word) because you thought that I
Was other than I was. And by and by
We found we'd been mistaken all the while
From that first glance, that first mistaken smile.

Vikram Seth

Death Wish

Can birds have a suicidal objective in life?

They swoop down into the streets,

low among the passing cars,

like torpedoes with a goal;

They twirl around in the air,

weaving feverishly between the cars,

only to vanish like greased lightning.

A death wish would explain why

looking back

I can no longer see them,

only dark marks on the tarmac.