Three Easy Pieces

Three Easy Pieces
By Simon John Cox

Cover design by Simon John Cox
eBook design by Simon John Cox
All rights reserved.

The Shark

Once, when I was younger, on a day when the sun was fat and clouds were piled up on the horizon like ice cream, I caught a shark. He was half as long as I was tall, with skin as harsh as sandpaper, and although his eyes were black and sad, he smiled at me as I scooped him into my boat. He told me, as he lay heaped in the belly of the boat, of strands of eel grass stroking his fins in the warm Sargasso, of endless twisting conversations with lonely remoras, of nights spent watching the ripples from a boat tear the moon into a thousand shimmering strips...and a tear painted a snail trail down my cheek as I realised my mistake. I apologised as I eased the hook out of his jagged mouth and helped him onto the lip of the boat, but he smiled again and assured me that he did not mind. His skin rasped against the wood as he slipped back into the diamond sea, and the water laughed as it embraced him.

One Final Dance

Good crowd tonight. Decent purse. 

Who are you kidding? It’s not about the money, it never was. Not even when you were first name on the card at Caesar’s Palace. 

Here he comes, dancing up the runway, vaulting into the ring. Look at him, strutting around like he owns the place.

But he does own the place. It’s you that’s buying time in his spotlight. They don’t come to see you any more. These days you’re just another rung on the ladder that all the others are climbing. A low rung. 

The lights flash, but they don’t seem so bright these days. That’ll be the eyes going. Knock gloves as the referee talks. Never hear what he says, never have. Stretch your back, and pain twenty years old stretches with you. The old heat wakes up in your shoulders. It hurts. It feels good.

Take a really good look at him for the first time. He looks fit. His body’s bulky, but not so bulky that it’ll slow him down. He’ll move fast, and hit hard. The worst kind. Being hit isn’t a problem, never has been. But the speed is. They just seem to be getting faster and faster.

No, no, no. You stupid old man, it’s you getting slower. You’re getting slower, and someday soon they’ll learn the tricks, and then your day’ll really be gone.

Could be gone already.

Too late to back out now. Just have to see how it turns out. Whether you’ve judged it right or not.

Poor Ellen. She’ll be watching her film about now, trying not to think about you. Hoping that when you come back you don’t look too different.

Hoping that you come back.

Well, this is your last time. One final dance.

Yeah. That’s what you said last time.

 The Old Gods

 It's a grey day. Across the road a crooked man scurries along like a raindrop running down a window pane. I recognise him from a past we both once shared. I pull the brakes on the rig and a thousand snakes hiss at me in indignation.

"Hey, Anansi," I call from the cab. He looks sideways at me but keeps on going. His legs rattle. I call again.

"My name's Anatole," he calls back, "Leave me alone."

"You're Anansi. I'd recognise you anywhere." 

He pauses, looks first left and then right, then scuttles hunch-backed over the road. 

"Keep your voice down," he says. 

I open the door and he takes off his hat and climbs in. 

"So, how are things?" I ask.

"I'm doing fine. Fine. That's why I don't need you shouting...shouting that name across the street at me."

Steam rises from his bald head in the warmth of the cab.

"I just wanted to reminisce. I haven't seen you for ages."

"I'm not Anansi any more, I'm Anatole. I'm not a spider-god any more, I'm a chartered surveyor. That's why you haven't seen me for ages." 

"I know, I know. I was just thinking, remember the old days? The fun we had? I thought maybe we could—"

"No, I don't remember the old days," he says, "At least, I'm trying not to. I try to keep my mind on my job."

"I'm sorry. It's this weather. It just got me thinking, is all."

"Listen: you're not Thor, you're Tom. You're a truck driver. Those days are over now. Just let it go."

He puts his hat on and gets out of the cab. Rivulets of water stream down the window as he shuts the door firmly behind him. Lightning flashes a photograph of him at me – black-and-white, his collar turned up and his hat pulled down low – and moments later a snap of thunder rolls across the sky.

It makes me feel a little hollow.

(c) Simon John Cox
This collection of short stories is published under a Creative Commons  Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence.