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Here is my second installment of excerpts from Betwixt The Cup and The Lip; my lipogrammatic* novel in 26 parts. The first installment can be found here. Please feel free to make comments or suggestions; I'm open to any ideas you might have. And if you're a publisher and you would like to publish this collection, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me. You can find my contact details here.
* A lipogram is a piece of text that contains 25 letters of the alphabet by omitting one.
Warning: This book is not suitable for anyone under 18 years old. The excerpts that I publish on here are family friendly (ok, they're probably PG if I'm being honest), but some of the completed stories contain graphic scenes unsuitable for children.
Jason
To be honest, I
don't know why I'm writing you this note.
I have too much to say to you but I don't think I can do it face to
face. In truth, I have no idea what I'd
do if I saw you right now. You know I'm
not an aggressive person, but this time you have managed to push every one of
my buttons, so a note is the best way of communication for me at the moment. You make me sick.
My hand is
shaking. Maybe from the vodka or maybe
from seeing you, seeing you. I can't
even bear to write it. That image of you
and him, you and him, YOU AND HIM, is repeating over and over
in my head. What possessed you? In our marriage bed? Did those vows mean nothing to you?
It sickens me to
think that you'd treat me this way. Goes
to show that I didn't know you as much as I thought I did. And to think that I'd emptied my heart to
you. You knew about the others who
cheated on me, and you promised. You
stared deep into my eyes and promised that you'd never treat me that way. Do you even know what the truth is?
Oliver
Was that the last
time I saw Sarah? Well, no it
wasn’t. At that time I was so confused. I needed to know what was going on so I went
to her flat the next day. There was no
answer so I waited outside the newsagents on the corner because I know she goes
there a lot. She came and she bought
another pint of semi-skimmed milk. I
caught her eye and her face changed. I
went to speak to her but she interrupted me.
“If I see you around here again I will personally break both your kneecaps,”
she hissed. “But Sarah, I love you,” I
said. “My name isn’t Sarah,” she snapped
and shoved me out of the way.
How did I
feel? Well, I felt sick to my
stomach. She’d never spoken to me like
that before, ever. We hardly ever had
arguments, and if we did they were so minor that we wouldn’t even raise our
voices. We have a special relationship,
Mr. Telfrey. Not many people are as
lucky as us. I’ve seen so many
relationships fail because people are with the wrong people. They think they’re in love but it’s only an
infatuation with their idea of what marriage should be; two people tolerating
each other’s negative points and pretending they’re happy to save face. But it’s nothing like that, Mr. Telfrey. Those two people shouldn’t even notice the
negative points. They should be so
wrapped up in love that the negativity doesn’t have room to rear its ugly head. And that’s how we are; Sarah and I.
Did I leave her
alone after that? Well, yes and no. Mainly no really. I didn’t speak to her but I went to see her. I watched her from afar. I knew she went to that newsagents quite
often so I would walk past there a few times a day.
Didn’t I have to
go to work? Well, my boss had been
extremely kind and allowed me to take some time off to try and sort things out
with Sarah. He could tell that my mind
wasn’t on my work and thought it would be a good idea if I took some paid leave
to sort myself out. To be honest, I was
very tired and took the leave without a second thought. Since all this started with Sarah, I haven’t
been able to sleep properly. I keep
waking up in the middle of the night. I
have such weird dreams where they seem so real at the time but when I wake up I
can’t remember anything. Sarah’s always
in them; I know that for sure but the rest fades away as soon as my eyes open. I wish I could remember something.
Cedar
It
wasn’t like all those others you hear of.
No. This one was different and I
think it is due to how different I am.
They knew. I know they knew. They must have known. They wouldn’t have forgotten. No. We
only wanted to stay for a short while.
It was a fact finding mission, searching new ground for new resources. It was all in the name of knowledge and
learning and experimentation. Never harm
though. We never intended to hurt anyone
or anything. We tried to remain
unnoticed. Others like the
attention. They like to jump around in
full view, having the photos taken. We
kept ourselves to ourselves, only removing items that had many duplicates. The things we could not take, we watched and
noted from afar. The others would remove
anything they wanted and experimented with them and then would return them when
they were done. Yet those who were taken
would have traumatised minds from the whole situation, and we consider this
harmful so we do not do it. No. We live lives of respect and expect it in
return.
So on
one journey, we came to track the growth of one of the millions of plants that
exist, and although learning is fascinating, it can get slightly tedious when
looking at the same plant or a similar plant night after night after
night. I only wandered a small distance,
just to see something different. I guess
it was curiosity that drove me. I wanted
to look at something that wasn’t on the list; perhaps find something new that
no-one else had found prior to my discovery.
I’m sure I wasn’t gone for long.
No. Not long at all, yet when I
returned to the experimentation area they were gone. They had left me. Something must have interrupted them and in
the rush to get away they must not have noticed that I wasn’t there. It wasn’t their fault. No. I
shouldn’t have wandered off. I waited
for a while just in case they returned that same night. Unfortunately for me, the sky was clear.
I
have looked in the sky, night after night for many years, ever since I was left
here, waiting for my family to take me home.
Yes,
my real family. Not those elderly people
who live in my house. They called
themselves my parents, yet I called them my carers. They were kind enough to look after me while
I wait for me real family to return to take me home. However, for some reason, they were convinced
that I was their real son rather that someone they found in their garden one
night. Perhaps they couldn’t have
children of their own and I came along at the right time. I do find it strange, though, that they
didn’t take me to the police. I mean, if
you found a tiny child in your garden, you’d think it was slightly strange,
wouldn’t you?
Beth
Oh my
goodness. That woman’ll get a fork
stabbed through her face soon.
The same as
usual. Mrs. Look-at-Me. Mrs. Know-The-Lot. Mrs. Never-shuts-up-even-though-other-people-want-to-talk-and-are-fed-up-of-her-bothersome-tone.
She’d sat herself
down on the floor, as per usual, and spread all of her papers all over the
carpet. You know how small that room
becomes when there are more than two people there and there were four of us by
then. The photocopy queue had already
begun to form and there she was, sprawled out so that everyone had to step over
her to get anywhere.
Angela came
through on her hunt for a cup of tea. She
can’t start her day unless she’s had her tea.
She’s very fussy about that. Val
doesn’t even move. Angela’s rush caused
her to stumble over Val’s bags and all of Val’s papers are knocked all over the
place. Val then got angry at Angela and
then huffed and puffed more than she already was. So not only do we have to look at her fat
arse on the floor, we have to hear her too.
Angela poked her tongue out at Val but Val doesn’t see. Everyone else laughed so Val started to make
more of a racket. No one else can be
louder than her. Were Jesus, John Lennon
and Bob Marley to walk through the door, Val would make sure that people
overlooked them and turned all eyes to her.
Val does all she can to keep the focus on her.
Angela was over
by the kettle and before she had a chance to ask the other members of staff
what they wanted, Val yelled, “Black, one sugar, thanks Ange.” Well, Angela hates the name Ange and she
hates that name even more when someone she can’t stand calls her Ange. Some hand gestures followed from Angela but
Val hadn’t seen those as she was too busy on the floor. Angela made her own tea then stepped
carefully over Val, even though everyone knew she wanted to pour her extremely
hot tea all over Val’s head then put her boot through Val’s face.
Oh she can be
that bad. She can be that bad and
worse. Val then got up and left all of
her crap all over the floor. She barged
to the front of the photocopy queue.
“These pages need
to be enlarged,” demanded Val, as she held a book above her head.
No-one moved to
help her. She’s so rude. She never says thanks when you do help her,
so people pretend they don’t know how the photocopy apparatus works. And the fact that she pushed to the front of
the queue annoyed everyone and made them not want to help her at all. She turned and looked at me, as though she
expected me to pander to her every beck and call. She drummed her thumbs on a bookcase shelf
and glared at me. That was the gesture
to tell me that the enlargement was to be done by me. The photocopy apparatus’s not hard to
use. You follow the commands on the
screen. All the commands are easy to follow. ‘Press that button’ then ‘press that
button’. A baby could copy were they to
read and follow the commands. So Val
stood next to me; her arms were folded and she watched my every move to make
sure the enlargements were done to her standards. Her eagerness just made me go slower. She rolled her eyes and drummed her thumbs
louder, and that made me stretch and yawn and turn the pages of her book at a hedgehog’s
pace.
Eventually, all
the pages had been enlarged and she snatched the papers out of my hand; no
remark of thanks or gratefulness. Then
saw that Angela held a mug of tea.
“Where’s my tea,
Ange?” she demanded.
Angela kept her
eyes focussed on her newspaper and slurped her tea.
“Ange? Where’s my tea?”
Angela turned the
page and coughed.
“Angela?”
“Yes Val?”
“Where’s my tea?”
“Oh, were you
after a cup of tea? Couldn’t have heard
you. All the hustle and bustle here makes
all the sounds merge so can never work out what people say.”
Christine
Sorry, anyway, once
I’d finished tidying the cupboards I emptied the washing machine and realised
that everything in there was his. I just
sat down in the middle of the utility room floor and burst into tears. I was surrounded by his damp shirts and
trousers and I just wanted to bury myself in them but his smell had been
replaced by lavender and jasmine fabric conditioner. I stuffed them in the dryer, poured myself a
glass of sherry and set to scrubbing the floor.
I needed to occupy myself with something, anything, and put some alcohol
in my system at the same time. I could
hear his voice, "Christine, what on Earth are you doing? It's 11:30 in the morning and you're already
pissed as a newt." I'd heard him
say those exact words on more than one occasion, but we were a lot younger
then.
When they dryer
had finished, I pulled out all of his clothes and threw them into a bin
bag. I then went upstairs to the bedroom
and started to empty his cupboards and drawers.
I couldn’t bear to have his things around me anymore. He was gone and it was silly to hold on to
everything. I didn’t truly believe that,
but I was angry and scared and confused, and if I hadn’t gone through his
wardrobe I wouldn’t have found his diary.
Something was telling me to go up and there and sort his clothes
out.
I wasn’t on the
hunt for anything to start with. I was
just pulling out jumpers and ties and anything of his I could find. Then at the top, on one of his shelves I felt
a tin box. I was actually a bit scared
to open it at first. I didn’t have a
clue what to expect in there. I sat down
on the bed and held the box in my lap fingering the edges. I closed my eyes and winced as I opened it,
as if I was expecting it to explode in my face, or at least have some giant
comedy worms jump out.
It was just
papers, all handwritten. Some with
scribbles on, drawings, maps, diagrams, lists, diary entries. I then felt really naughty, as if I’d found
my Christmas presents that my parents were trying to hide. I glanced over my shoulder and even shut the
curtains before I started to read the papers.
Listen to this
one.
Wednesday 14th
May – Doug told me that the card game would be at The Mad Dog and Parrot at the
top of the high street. I’d never been
to a card game before so I was really quite excited to get the chance. Since marrying Christine I’ve not really had
friends of my own so it was about time that I did. He said that I should go to the bar and
request a pint of ale. He said not to
say anything more. He said that the
barman would then say, “Toad’s Testicles or Gutbelcher?” to which I’d have to
reply “I’m allergic to nettles.” I thought
this was a bit of a strange procedure, but he told me that it was a private
party and only a select few had been invited.
The password, as he called it, was to ensure only those invited would
get in. Doug said that once I’d given
the password the barman would then open up the bar and guide me through to the bottom
of the stairs leading to the residence above the pub, which he did. I’d also have to give him one of these
strange medallions, which I did.
He left me at
the bottom of the stairs and told me that I would have to find my own way up. It was actually a bit creepy, but I heard
Doug’s voice which made me feel a lot better.
When I got to the top of the stairs, a man was standing there. He was wearing white robes and no shoes. He held me by the arm and led me along the
corridor into a large room, modestly decorated with paintings of very
stern-faced men. I saw five men sitting
in a line behind a long table covered in a white and red tablecloth. Around the edge of the room were more men wearing
white robes and no shoes. Now, I haven’t
ever been to a card game but I was sure that they weren’t supposed to be the
same as this. It then started to feel a
bit odd. Doug was one of the men sitting
behind the long table and he was wearing white robes similar to the men around
the edge of the room, but his robes were covered with gold embroidered
patterns. He was also wearing a turban
type hat, as were the other four men sitting alongside him.
Lynda
(I'm afraid I can't post any of this story; it's a bit too rude.)
*****
Stay tuned for more stories.
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