Handle With Care

Alfie really fancied Emma, and he was quietly confident that she felt the same way about him. Their kissing and fumbling had become quite intense of late, and Alfie felt sure that it was time for him to make the next move. He had no reason to doubt that she would respond in a mutually satisfactory way when he did so.

With Christmas approaching, this seemed to be the ideal time to act. A visit to Ann Summers produced a suitably lascivious gift of sexy lingerie, which he intended to suggest that Emma wore when she came to his flat the night after Christmas.

To seal the deal, he wrote her a long letter full of details of the naughty games that he hoped they would play when she succumbed to his wicked plan. He had quite a vivid imagination when it came to such matters, and his letter could leave Emma in no doubt as to what she could expect.

Early on Christmas morning, Alfie slipped round to Emma’s house with the present in his arms. He left it on the doorstep rather than knocking on her door, which he thought would add to the element of surprise. He simply labelled the gift “To Emma, the Most Gorgeous Woman in the World”. The X-rated letter, tucked inside the parcel, had ended with “call me on this number when you’ve read this.” He just had to go home, sit back and wait.

Alfie’s Christmas looked like being a lonely one this year, after his wife had left him in February. He therefore fervently hoped that Emma would call him sooner rather than later. It would be great if they could spend as much time together as possible today. Perhaps she would arrive soon after she had had her Christmas dinner and would then stay over? He therefore had an agonizing wait for his phone to ring.

But nothing happened. His phone stayed silent all day, apart from one annoying call from what sounded like a much older woman than Emma who said that she needed to make a delivery to him and wanted to check his address. It amazed him that some of these companies kept going even on Christmas Day.

But the call he really wanted just didn’t happen. Maybe he was wrong? Perhaps Emma didn’t feel about him the way he felt about her? Were the sexy undies over the top? Could his raunchy letter have turned her off rather than on? There was only one way to find out. He had to phone her.

Her tone of voice when she answered was far from encouraging. “I’ve blown it”, he thought. “I went too far this time”.

But that was not the problem at all, as it soon became clear.

“Not even a card”, Emma said. “I thought you might remember me on Christmas Day of all days.”

He was flabbergasted. So she can’t have opened his present. Could it possibly still be sitting on her doorstep? But there was clearly more to Emma’s negative thoughts that just his apparent neglect of her.

“I’m really worried about Granny”, she said.

“Granny?”

“Yes. She stays with us for a few days at Christmas every year, but this time she’s been behaving very oddly. She’s 85 and I’m afraid that she’s starting to go a bit doolally.”

“How come?” Alfie asked.

“Well, she went downstairs this morning to let the cat in, and she’s not been the same person since. She rushed straight back to her room, and when she came down for breakfast there was a very strange glint in her eye.”

“How do you mean, strange?”

“It’s hard to say. I thought I knew Granny pretty well. We’ve always been close – I was called Emma after her, by the way – and that expression on her face … Do you know, it was almost like I think I must look after I’ve been alone with you sometimes.”

“How is she now?”

“I don’t know. You see, she’s disappeared. I don’t know where she is. I heard her using the phone earlier on – I couldn’t catch what she was saying – then about half an hour ago she said she had to go to her room to change all her clothes, and now she’s gone out. What am I going to do?”

“I’m, sorry, Emma,” said Alfie. “I’m going to have to call you back. There’s somebody at the door.”

© John Welford

A Racing Uncertainty

To say that he woke with a start would not be strictly accurate, mainly because he was quite certain that he was not awake at all. There was, however, a start involved – in particular a starting pistol that went off with a loud bang and started the runners in a huge race.

The race in question was the 2019 London Marathon, and Joe appeared to be one of the
competitors.

But how was that possible? As far as Joe was concerned, he was asleep in bed a long way from London.

Also, he had no memory of ever having entered the London Marathon, let alone bought a pair of running shoes or a singlet and pair of shorts.

Come to that, he did not have the slightest interest in running. He had never been any sort of athlete – always last in running races at school and in later life he could rarely be bothered even to run for a bus. There could only be one explanation. He was having a dream.

As dreams go, this was a pretty realistic one. He was surrounded by hundreds of other runners and he seemed to be keeping up with them quite well. For somebody who had never done a day’s training for road running, this was not proving to be too difficult, although he could certainly feel every step as his feet hit the ground with a solid thump.

Ah, but this was a dream, wasn’t it? That meant he should be able to run really quickly, or maybe even fly. I’ll try flying, he thought, and waved his arms in the air. He failed to get airborne and prompted a cry from a close neighbour of “Mind what you’re doing, Mate, you nearly had my eye out there.”

This won’t really be London of course, he thought to himself. Round the next corner he was going to see the Pyramids, or the Statue of Liberty. But what he saw was another long street stretching into the distance, filled with thousands of runners just like himself.

But they won’t all be like me, will they? he pondered. Some of them will be dressed as camels or post boxes, and some of them will be joined together as Chinese dragons. But this is a dream, so if I see a unicorn it’ll be a real unicorn, not some pair of idiots wearing a unicorn costume.

But no, every fun runner in a costume was exactly that – an idiot making life extra difficult for him or herself by wearing some ridiculous outfit to get themselves seen on TV.

Relief at last. He had seen something that absolutely confirmed that he was in a dream. There, a few yards ahead, was the Pope at the side of the road being interviewed by Clare Balding. The real Pope would never take part in the London Marathon, and there could surely be no doubt that this was the real Pope. He was the right height and build, and he looked just like all the photos Joe had ever seen of Pope Francis. He would know for certain when he ran past.

But were the backs of Pope Francis’s hands really covered in tattoos? And would he really be carrying a banner that read “Epping Forest Hell’s Angels”? It seemed improbable, to say the least.

He could not remember having dreams that lasted quite so long, especially ones that did not go decidedly weird at some point or other. But this one refused to deviate from what looked decidedly like reality. All the landmarks were in exactly the right places – Cutty Sark, Tower Bridge, Canary Wharf, the Thames Embankment, Big Ben – and they all looked exactly as they should have done.

This dream was also exhausting. He felt as though he really had been running for more than 26 miles on a Sunday morning in London. Surely he should wake up soon?

And wake up he did. There he was, in his own bed, with everything exactly as it should be.

That was the most vivid dream he had ever had. It was so vivid that his feet felt sore and his leg muscles exhausted.

But what was this thing dangling round his neck that certainly had not been there last night? There was no doubt about it. It was a genuine 2019 London Marathon Finisher’s medal.

© John Welford