Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

A group of people huddles around a man lying down on the cobbles, turning green. The people are looking over each other's shoulders, not knowing what they would want done, had they been in his position. A woman in a brown cardigan is hysterical. She is sat on the cobbles next to the man with her legs sprawled out, like a marionette. Someone from the theatre café has brought her tissues and water in a plastic cup. The woman weeps, but all she can think of is how now she will never see the waters of Sharm El Sheikh or puff shisha sitting on satin cushions in overpriced seaside bars. She won't see the pyramids. The thought of not seeing the pyramids in particular makes her give off a high-pitched wail. The traffic policeman is tired. The bribes he's collected today aren’t enough to get that lamb shank his wife’s ordered. He should be on the road, fining Mercedes drivers for making the wrong U-turn, restriction sign obstructed by a birch tree. “Where the heck’s the ...

Ken spotted the grand piano idling by the shoreline as he took Blue for his early morning walk. It was a huge ebony instrument leaning slightly into the lapping waves. The piano lolled like a drunk around midnight. One leg was wedged deeper into the saturated sand than the others. It must have lolled there a while, he thought, as the lid already had speckles of seagull shit dotted like polka dots. Yet, it hadn’t been there last night, when Ken had taken his evening stroll with Blue. Had it washed up on the tide? He wondered. But then, it was standing bolt upright, as though dumped there once the tide had gone out this morning. He considered his tide timetable back at the cottage. Living on this part of the coast, you had to be aware of such minutiae. Ken studied them religiously. Had more than once had to warn youngsters to get off the beach before they got washed off the rocks. Ken stroked the top of the piano. He tapped a couple of the keys with cold, gloved fingers. ...

And then at times the dips of our marriage are no different than the falling into love in Richmond Park before we started home, and I wrote every day until the motion of the ship made me certain that for every berth going out, new souls put in, spit from foam. If I could read Greek or understand the errand of the cardinal we watch for with coffee in our hands, I could make poetry on the tips of fence spears where he stops and the fire of you would go urgently from land to land. by  Charles Bane, Jr.