Here you can find links to some of my published short stories as well as some brand new ones to enjoy!
Happy Reading!
When I grow up I want to be a Prophet
In the back of her mind she always knew he would leave. The question that had always tormented her was when. That afternoon she watched Yeshua in his workshop from her kitchen window as she prepared his food. He was running his fingers over the table top that he had been sanding. She could see that his thoughts were far off. Her own mind played out where his might be. She saw him standing among the great arches of the temple. Not in the garb of a priest but in his own clothes, dusty and brown from the workshop. He would be looking down on the mass of people below. From where he was they would look like tiny dust mites swarming together in the sand. In his hands was a scroll, engraved with the book of the Torah that he was about to read aloud. The weight of the scroll pulled his arms down. It fell to the ground with a thud as he unrolled it. And then she heard his voice: vivid and clear. It cracked slightly on his first word but then rung out like a siren. She was startled by the pot bubbling over and scolding her hand. Quickly she served up his meal and walked down the path from the house to the workshop.
Whatever he was daydreaming off, he was startled out of it by his mother dropping his lunch on the table in front of him.
‘Here, your lunch,’ she said, pointing to it.
‘Thank you, Mother,’ he replied and swept a handful into his mouth.
She stood next to the table he had just been working on and watched him eat. He ate his meal standing, though there were seats around the table. She took a seat for herself to rest her feet for a while. It had been a long day. Now that the family were growing, with new wives and grandchildren, she seemed to spend all day sweeping the dust from the house. It seemed to accumulate in layers everywhere no matter how hard she worked to keep it swept and clean.
Yeshua was far off in thought again and staring into space. His head was tilted to one side as it so often was when he was daydreaming. The rice in his hand dripped sauce in a large, brown drop: back onto his place where it had come from. Catching her looking at him he lowered his hand back down on to the plate. Placing her elbow on the table, Maryam rested her head in the palm of her hands.
‘Have you been busy today, Mother? You look tired,’ he said.
She smiled at him and the concern etched on his face, ‘I’m fine, son,’ she said. She sat for a while, watching him enjoy the food she had prepared. With a cube of bread he moped up the last of his meal and moved to take his plate through to the main house. His mother jumped up quickly and took the plate from his hands.
‘I’ll go,’ she said.
He patted her arm. She didn’t know why but she was suddenly holding back tears.
That evening he came up the path from the workshop to the main house as he always did. At the door way to the house he shook the sawdust from his hair and clothes. She mused that perhaps it was him bringing the dust in. Through the doorway she could see her daughter-in-law stirring a pot so ferociously that Maryam wondered what was in there that she was trying to subdue. Over dinner that night there was little conversation. Maryam watched her three sons, and the wives of the youngest two, and wondered that they had nothing to say to one another. The only noise came from plates being moved back and forth and the occasional squeak of a chair moving across the floor.
Whatever he was daydreaming off, he was startled out of it by his mother dropping his lunch on the table in front of him.
‘Here, your lunch,’ she said, pointing to it.
‘Thank you, Mother,’ he replied and swept a handful into his mouth.
She stood next to the table he had just been working on and watched him eat. He ate his meal standing, though there were seats around the table. She took a seat for herself to rest her feet for a while. It had been a long day. Now that the family were growing, with new wives and grandchildren, she seemed to spend all day sweeping the dust from the house. It seemed to accumulate in layers everywhere no matter how hard she worked to keep it swept and clean.
Yeshua was far off in thought again and staring into space. His head was tilted to one side as it so often was when he was daydreaming. The rice in his hand dripped sauce in a large, brown drop: back onto his place where it had come from. Catching her looking at him he lowered his hand back down on to the plate. Placing her elbow on the table, Maryam rested her head in the palm of her hands.
‘Have you been busy today, Mother? You look tired,’ he said.
She smiled at him and the concern etched on his face, ‘I’m fine, son,’ she said. She sat for a while, watching him enjoy the food she had prepared. With a cube of bread he moped up the last of his meal and moved to take his plate through to the main house. His mother jumped up quickly and took the plate from his hands.
‘I’ll go,’ she said.
He patted her arm. She didn’t know why but she was suddenly holding back tears.
That evening he came up the path from the workshop to the main house as he always did. At the door way to the house he shook the sawdust from his hair and clothes. She mused that perhaps it was him bringing the dust in. Through the doorway she could see her daughter-in-law stirring a pot so ferociously that Maryam wondered what was in there that she was trying to subdue. Over dinner that night there was little conversation. Maryam watched her three sons, and the wives of the youngest two, and wondered that they had nothing to say to one another. The only noise came from plates being moved back and forth and the occasional squeak of a chair moving across the floor.
At last someone interrupted the silence. ‘How was work today?’ Yochanan said to Yeshua, leaning back in his chair.
‘It went well, I think. I finished a few pieces.’ He replied. Yochanan nodded; his father would have made thirty tables in the time Yeshua had made three.
‘We had a hard day,’ Yochanan said matter-of-factly.
Yeshua looked down at his plate.The silence encroached again. Maryam stifled her frustration.
‘It went well, I think. I finished a few pieces.’ He replied. Yochanan nodded; his father would have made thirty tables in the time Yeshua had made three.
‘We had a hard day,’ Yochanan said matter-of-factly.
Yeshua looked down at his plate.The silence encroached again. Maryam stifled her frustration.
After the meal Yeshua was nowhere to be found. Maryam knew where he would be. Her other sons and their sullen wives rolled their eyes at one another as she opened the front door. Immediately she saw his silhouette, he was standing on the peak of the hill that towered over the village. He had his back to her. She’d seen him there so many times with his long tan coat billowing around him. She knew what he would be doing: just staring over the land. The land led to nothing and contained nothing; just sheep and herd boys. He would stand and stare for hours and hours on end at all that nothingness. When she saw him there all she could feel was the weight of him in her arms as a baby. So vividly it came back: the feel of him kicking in her belly and his high pitched cry as he entered the world. The smell of his baby skin, it was as if it were under her nose right then. The feel of his dark hair tickling her nose as she kissed him on the crown of his head. His eyes that were so blue when he was born but turned to a dark, deep pool of brown as he grew up. How he began to walk, following her from room to room always hanging from her skirts. She remembered the first day she took him to the temple. She had to present him to the priest and offer a sacrifice. They took two pigeons as they couldn’t afford the usual offering of a lamb as well as a pigeon or dove.
Everyone had been in love with Yeshua, they always where. The old man priest took Yeshua in his arms and blessed him. He said words that Maryam never forgot, that gave her all her understanding of him and that fuelled all her fear:
‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.’
Her fears were only added to as he grew up. Everything he did, he had his own way. He was so different from the others. Everything he made as a carpenter was so intricate he could never match it. No two table legs ever looked totally the same. That was how everyone knew the table had come from his workshop. It drove his father mad. She feared every thing that lived and breathed in Yeshua’s head; those ideas that grew legs and walked him away from her.
Maryam always imagined that one day his walks might take him away and he wouldn’t come back. She practised the moment in her head. Tried to train herself out of the pain she knew she would feel. The day it happened for real she waited for him in the kitchen for hours, though she knew he was gone. When he had gone to bed the night before, he had held her in his arms for just a fraction to long. Those extra seconds told her what he was about to do. She swatted him away and laughed, calling him soft, trying to retract the moment. He smiled back at her and kissed her on her forehead. Then she really knew.
She sat in the kitchen for five hours, her other sons came and went. Then a sudden burst of hope gripped her and she ran down to his workshop. It was empty. She thumbed the tools he used and sat in his chair. On the floor she made patterns in the sawdust with her toes. Eventually the wind came in and swept away the sawdust. It formed into tiny mountains around the legs of the unfinished furniture dotted about the room. She sat in there often and let the dust build up in the house. All the time she thought of him, of how he was her own and yet it was as if he had arrived to her with his own unmoveable heart.
She heard from relatives that they’d seen him in the city. She didn’t follow him there and ignored the tug of her heart because she knew she couldn’t change him. She couldn’t imagine him there, among the tall buildings that radiating heat through the narrow streets. She could only see him in her mind as he’d always been: coming through her back door with dust on his feet and a smile on his face. She wanted to pluck him from those hot streets and bring him back here to keep.
On the thirty-first day that he was away she swept out his workshop. She couldn’t stand the dust anymore. Her daughter-in-law Ruth stood in the doorway and watched her. She hoped her mother might sweep Yeshua out with all the sawdust and badly made tables. Then she watched as Maryam put down her broom and stared through the open window. She looked past the neighbours houses to the bottom of the street. There the houses ended and you could see travellers on the crest of the hill as they entered the village. Maryam waited a moment as if giving him one last chance to appear on the horizon. He didn’t come. She wiped her hands on her apron and picked up her broom walking briskly past Ruth out of the workshop.
They went on as normal for thirty more days. The house was swept again, perhaps even more so than when Yeshua was there. The door of the workshop was pulled firmly closed until one day the second eldest of Maryam’s sons asked her if he might open it and re-start the family trade. Maryam stared into the pot of food she was making, stirring it slowly round and round. After a long pause she looked up at her son and nodded. The tables he made were square and functional.
She told herself she had to go. They went to Jerusalem every year for the Passover and she probably wouldn’t see him anyway. But of course, she did. He was among the crowds in the same coat he always wore but it was more ragged now around the edges. His hair was longer and his eyes looked browner. Perhaps it was his skin; it had darkened with the sun. She supposed he had never seen much sun when he was in the workshop. People were bumping into her in the crowd. She stood rooted to the spot. Suddenly she was sure he had seen her so she quickly backed away. She told herself that he didn’t want them and she didn’t want him. Her heart thumped in her chest, her throat was parched, dry. She lost herself in the crowd and pulled her hood over her head as she walked rapidly away.
As she made the journey home the rains came. Great bullets of rain fell from the sky. Each one creating mini eruptions as it hit the dry earth. Maryam let her hood fall back. The rain pummelled her face and hair. She walked on not wanting to stop for even a minutes rest. As she neared home the rain began to slow and it was then that a dark shadow passed over her. He was there, his old coat held above them. It smelt heavy and of camel hair. How long he had been following her she had no idea. They walked together, neither one of them speaking. Their feet slid on the leather soles of their open sandals. Mud formed between the gaps of their toes. Yeshua walked her back to her home until they were standing there at the front door of the house. She pushed it open, the house was black inside. Still neither one of them spoke. Yeshua leaned back against the door frame. He looked so tall and again she was struck that he looked different somehow. She could see the whites of his eyes clearly though there was little light around. He was looking at her, as if waiting for something.
‘Will you come in?’ she asked. ‘Will you stay?'
‘I’ll come in,’ he replied.
Her second question hung heavy in the air.
The next morning she woke up early and as soon as she opened her eyes she knew he was gone. She leapt out of bed, grabbing her dress that she had laid out to dry the night before. She had left it on the chair Yeshua had carved for her. The first chair he had carved as his father’s apprentice. She ran to the front steps of the house where they had stood the night before. Her hair hung long and wild, in great ringlets around her shoulders, not a hint of her age about it. From the front step she saw it: the smoke rising from the temple on the hill and she knew: that was where he was. Forgetting herself she ran, her feet bare and her shoulders uncovered, until she reached the steep flight of stairs that led up to the temple. She took two at a time, leaping up them like an ungainly beggar. As she reached the top she slowed, suddenly feeling like a lamb being led to the slaughter. She knew what she was about to see and as she reached the top, she saw it. He stood there between the two great pillars at the foot of the altar with a great scroll in his hands. The temple was beginning to crowd with people. His voice rang out, as clear as a bell. Her mouth dropped. She ran.
The next morning she woke up early and as soon as she opened her eyes she knew he was gone. She leapt out of bed, grabbing her dress that she had laid out to dry the night before. She had left it on the chair Yeshua had carved for her. The first chair he had carved as his father’s apprentice. She ran to the front steps of the house where they had stood the night before. Her hair hung long and wild, in great ringlets around her shoulders, not a hint of her age about it. From the front step she saw it: the smoke rising from the temple on the hill and she knew: that was where he was. Forgetting herself she ran, her feet bare and her shoulders uncovered, until she reached the steep flight of stairs that led up to the temple. She took two at a time, leaping up them like an ungainly beggar. As she reached the top she slowed, suddenly feeling like a lamb being led to the slaughter. She knew what she was about to see and as she reached the top, she saw it. He stood there between the two great pillars at the foot of the altar with a great scroll in his hands. The temple was beginning to crowd with people. His voice rang out, as clear as a bell. Her mouth dropped. She ran.
Below is an extract from my new story My Name is Waceena. This story features in my short story collection, Stars in Unexpected Places.
Waceena had three tomato plants, three survivors reaching valiantly into the hot sun. She walked to the end of her garden. She knew where it ended by instinct despite there being no fence to divide her garden from her neighbours. It was play acting really as she didn’t even own the land that her home stood on. Waceena knelt down, her chetenge straining against her knees, and inspected the leaves of the plant. They were drooping slightly in the heat and the sun had not long been up. They desperately needed water.
Every second day she made the journey to the water pump twice, once for the plants and once for herself and the children. On the days that she went once she watched the plants wilt. She sometimes gave them water from her own cup but the sun scorched it from the ground moments after it had touched the soil. Waceena stood up and took one last look at her plants, the green tomatoes hanging beneath the leaves. She could count her hopes between the branches, a market stall loaded with produce for each new flower that opened.
Waceena’s home was in a place called Twapia, 'broken' in her own tongue. The only fence to be found ran the perimeter of the compound. This, her homeland, was a place of fences, places to be kept out off, good things locked away. Waceena turned onto the main road. She wore thin sandals, the soles flapped against the tarmac. The road was newly laid, as it always seemed to be, it hissed in the heat like a geyser ready to blow.
Half way into her journey she passed the market stands, cobbled together from sheets of corrugated iron, held up precariously by wooden stilts. She walked around the edge of the stands to avoid having to walk where she would feel the stall holders’ eyes on her. It was obvious that she had no money to make any purchases, her chetenge had been mended so many times that the pattern didn't match up any longer. It wasn't the thought of the accusing looks that stopped her, she didn't fear being thought a thief. It was the possibility of not being seen at all that she really feared, that they would look straight through her. Confirmation that she was an irrelevance, even to them who had not much more to speak of than she did.
Waceena continued on for the last mile to the water pump, her second trip of the day. The heat was rising now and a thin film of sweat covered her body. A car drove past, surrounding her in a cloud of dust that settled and stuck to her skin. She collected her water, drinking as much as she could at the pump without upsetting the woman waiting behind her. As she lifted her container of water away from the pump, she turned to give an apologetic smile. The woman behind her had the same untamed hair as Waceena, framing her head like a halo, but it was threaded with strands of grey. As the woman reached for her bucket her arms, more bone than flesh, appeared from her wrap. She wasn't even sweating in the heat.
'Here, Ma'ma,' Waceena said, taking the bucket from the woman's hand. 'Let me.'
The woman smiled and lowered herself down on to a rock next to the pump. Waceena strained to pull the leaver down, her arms shaking with the effort. When she had dispensed enough to fill a cup, Waceena dipped her own mug in the water and handed it to woman, who drank it down quickly.
'Where are you going to with this heavy load?' Waceena said.
'Twapia,' the woman said and then smiled again, this time showing a thin line of teeth, some crumbling, some standing firm. She closed her mouth quickly when she saw Waceena looking at her.
'The same place I'm heading. Between the two of us we can spread the load?' she said.
