Tag: books

Mr. Ainsley’s New Hat: A Story

“You look wonderful in that hat…”

Every morning, I step onto the balcony of my apartment with my coffee and stare at the building across the street that blocks the sunrise.

It’s probably a gorgeous sunrise, I told myself one Monday, taking a sip of coffee.

In the corner of my eye, I saw a pigeon — but it was Mr. Ainsley, my neighbor. He was standing next to the stone gargoyle on the ledge between our balconies, palms pressed flat against the wall. He was wearing a bowler hat. And a grey suit.

“Morning, Mr. Ainsley.”

He was breathing deeply.

“Nice day, isn’t it?”

He swallowed.

A gush of wind blew Mr. Ainsley’s hat off. We both watched it fall twenty-four stories to the street. A taxi drove over it.

I looked at my watch. It was 7:30.

“I have to go to work. If I’m even one minute late, Brenda will frown at me.”

I downed the rest of my coffee.

“Have a good day.”

Mr. Ainsley didn’t say anything. He was still gazing down at his hat.

On Tuesday morning, I brewed some coffee and opened the balcony door.

Mr. Ainsley was still on the ledge. He was breathing even harder, now. And rubbing the grey stubble on his chin.

“Would you like some coffee?”

I poured him a cup, reached through the balcony bars and sat it on the ledge.

I watched Mr. Ainsley meticulously step over the gargoyle … and edge closer. Several minutes later, he picked up the cup.

“It’s probably cold by now.”

Mr. Ainsley shrugged.

“I forgot to ask if you take cream and sugar.”

He seemed to be drinking it anyway.

I sat down. The sunrise was beautiful. Presumably.

“The machine got jammed yesterday when I was making copies. Brenda came into the copy room and frowned at me.”

Mr. Ainsley nodded, sipping his coffee. When he finished, he set the cup on the ledge. He shooed the pigeon off the gargoyle and maneuvered back over it.

It was close to 7:30. Dangerously close. I polished off my coffee.

“See you tomorrow.”

I was drinking from my biggest mug because it was Wednesday.

“Then I dropped the folder and pages went everywhere. One of them slid under the door of Brenda’s office and she came out frowning.”

Mr. Ainsley was half-listening. He was leaning on the gargoyle’s head, abstractedly fussing with his cufflink.

On a balcony across the street, a woman was painting a picture of something. I wondered if it was a sunrise. I stepped inside and back out with my binoculars. I focused on the painting…

It was a plain, grey rectangle.

I scanned every balcony from the top of the building to the bottom but didn’t see anything.

Then I saw a pigeon on the sidewalk and focused on that. No, it was Mr. Ainsley’s flattened bowler hat.

I sighed.

Mr. Ainsley sighed too.

“Brenda didn’t invite me to her birthday party. She invited everyone in the office except me. I gave her a pigeon pendant anyway and she frowned at me.”

Mr. Ainsley blinked. He was holding my favorite grey mug but wasn’t drinking from it. He hadn’t touched yesterday’s cup either.

I decided I wasn’t in the mood for conversation. I flipped through a book. During a sunrise, short wavelengths are scattered, leaving longer wavelengths like orange, red and yellow.

I closed the book and stared at the building across the street for a minute. Then I looked at my watch. It was 7:31.

I dropped the book and my coffee and sprinted inside.

On Friday, Mr. Ainsley was sitting on the gargoyle’s back with his eyes closed. There was a pile of dried grey pigeon shit on top of his bald head.

I nursed my coffee and told him about my dream.

“I was sitting on the balcony, drinking my coffee, when suddenly the sun rose. The building across the street was gone. I saw all the colors: orange, red, yellow. My eyes glowed orange, red, yellow. Don’t turn your head, I thought, but I did. I turned my head … and saw the gargoyle. It was frowning at me.”

I glanced at Mr. Ainsley, but he still hadn’t opened his eyes.

He must’ve been sleeping.

My alarm didn’t go off, so there was no time for coffee Saturday morning. I had one after dinner, instead. I slipped into my grey pajamas — it was a chilly night — and carried my cup outside.

As I sipped, I heard whimpering sounds. I wasn’t sure if it was pigeons or Mr. Ainsley.

I peered through the darkness at the ledge but couldn’t see anything.

I leaned over the railing and still couldn’t see anything.

“Are you there, Mr. Ainsley?”

There was no response.

I sat back down.

I was going to mention something about Brenda, but I didn’t see the point. I swallowed my coffee in silence.

The moon is superb, I told myself. I looked everywhere but couldn’t find it.

I go for a long walk alone in the park every Sunday morning. I breathe the fresh air; I feed the pigeons. I was scattering breadcrumbs when Brenda and her greyhound came bounding down the path. I hid behind a tree until they passed me.

That afternoon, I went shopping. Strolling home with a cappuccino, I passed Quinton’s Haberdashery. I stopped because there was a bowler hat in the window. I left the store twirling the hat around my finger.

The sun was setting behind my building as I approached it. I was pretty sure. I was about to look up when something landed on the ground right beside me.

It was Mr. Ainsley.

“How are you?”

Mr. Ainsley didn’t answer. So I asked him again.

Nothing.

I stared at him a minute. Then I put the new bowler hat on his head.

“You look wonderful in that hat,” said someone, walking by. Her friend nodded in agreement.

I gazed down at Mr. Ainsley…

Yes. I had to agree.

He did look good.

************

“Mr. Ainsley’s New Hat” appears in the Spring/Summer issue of Transition. Reprinted with the kind permission of the publisher.

If you enjoyed this story, please consider buying me a coffee.

Writing Stories

I didn’t feel anything at all when they froze me to death.

I liked writing stories but “No one has read stories since the 70s,” a man in a trench coat told me. An editor. Then he went back into the liquor store.

I thought about killing myself, but it was too expensive.

I didn’t feel anything at all when they froze me to death.

When they woke me up, I was in incredible pain. They also had to electrocute me, which was painful as hell.

“Welcome, Mr. Izmiris, to the year 2076.”

A man in a wheelchair took me on a tour of the city. When he finished, he gave me the key to the city.

“It’s an honor,” I said.

“We give it to everyone,” he said, out of breath.

There was a crater where my old apartment used to be.

But I found a charred notebook with Thoughts and Fancies written on the cover. The inside was blank.

There was a singed pencil, too.

I sat in the crater all day, writing stories. It was a lot colder due to Global Warming.

“We could have sex?”

I looked up. The old woman was standing on a slant. There were about a million crows on the skyscraper behind her.

The skyscraper fell over. The woman didn’t even turn her head.

About a million crows flew up.

Then the woman dropped down, dead.

It was cold as hell on the subway.

When I started crying, a staggering man put his arm around me. An editor.

“Listen,” he said. “I sympathize with you a lot. I died but it didn’t hurt because I can’t remember.”

He told me about the time he fell off his bicycle. The ambulance ran over him.

A tear started falling but he caught it in time.

Eventually, he agreed to look at my stories. He didn’t read them, exactly.

“No,” he said, flipping pages. “They’re too far-fetched.”

“I was writing about my life,” I said.

A rat ran past. The editor dropped my notebook.

He was still chasing the rat when the subway squealed to a stop.

The sun went down. A shell of frost formed over everything. To warm up, I took a walk in Central Park. Central Park was the name of the biggest crater.

I passed a guy on a burnt bench, swallowing wine. An editor.

“When it’s as cold as it is, you just need to stand outside for a while. You don’t need cryogenics.”

He was right. My blood was freezing.

“See the gargoyles up there?”

He pointed to the War Monument. That was the only thing in the park that was still standing.

“They’re actually writers. You’re allowed to paint over them if you avoid the eyes.”

“Really?”

“They might wake up one day.” He emptied the bottle. “Probably not.”

A man with dirt or makeup on his face walked by. His fly was down.

The editor jumped up and followed him.

It took me an hour to climb the Monument. I hadn’t eaten since 1976.

There was a gap between gargoyles, so I squeezed between them. I crouched down.

The paint was flaking off the white gargoyle. It was black underneath.

I took out my notebook and wrote down everything I’d seen and heard that day. Even this:

The editor crawled out of the bushes, up to the War Monument. He defecated next to it.

I closed the notebook. I scratched out Thoughts and Fancies.

Then I wrote down Do Not Thaw Until 2176.

“Writing Stories” was first published (as “Mr. Izmiris”) in Broken Pencil.

☕ If you enjoyed this story, please buy me a coffee. ☕

The Authocalypse

Something was missing from my life.

It was gin.

The cashier put the gin in the bag. She tried sticking something else into it.

“Wait — what’s that?” I said. “I didn’t buy that.”

“Oh, this? This is my book.”

She handed it to me. Before I could stop her.

The title of the book was Murder Starts with M.

Alice slid the dagger gingerly into Georgina’s back. That was the first line.

“What do you think?”

“It’s…”

“Were you going to say ‘good’?”

I nodded. Reluctantly.

“Really? Do you really think it’s good?”

She was quivering.

“Sure,” I said.

The cashier cried a little. She looked like she might blow up.

She stuck the book back in the bag.

There was a trashcan outside the liquor store. An old man was picking through it.

I threw the book in the trashcan. The man grabbed it. He opened it.

“A pool of lipstick-red blood spread across the off-white carpet like a shallow swimming pool,” he said.

The old man closed the book. He threw it back in the trash.

I noticed something peculiar on the bus. I always do.

A smiling guy was breathing heavily. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a book. There was a gun on the cover.

“I’m a writer,” he said to the passenger next to him.

The woman slid over. She reached into her purse.

“I’m a writer too,” she said, waving a paperback.

The bus driver stood up. He opened a book — and his mouth:

“And the waves rolled on and the storm rolled, and Miguel rolled out of bed and rolled a cigarette and helped himself to some hot buttered rolls.”

The bus crashed into a bookstore. Luckily, it was empty.

Not everyone survived. The writers that survived started eating the dead ones.

That was the peculiar thing.

I was just a few blocks from home. The gin was getting heavy.

I heard screams.

A girl was lying in the street. A bunch of those things were on top of her. Smothering her with books.

All I had on me was the gin.

I drank the gin. I smashed the end off the empty bottle and charged at the things.

They staggered back.

I grabbed the girl’s hand. I lifted her up.

An old guy who looked like Norman Mailer tugged on her purse, but she pulled it free.

“Come on,” I said.

We ran to my house.

I locked the door and bolted it.

I passed out.

When I woke up, I had a headache. There was a pillow under my head.

I head the fireplace crackling and noticed the doors and windows were boarded up.

“My name’s Madeline,” said the girl, walking into the room with two coffees.

“Did you do all this?”

She smiled.

“My dad’s a lumberjack,” she said.

There was a big pile of novels on the floor.

“What happened to my bookcases?” I asked.

Madeline never quit smiling.

“Right,” I said.

It was incredibly strong coffee. Thank god.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” Madeline answered. “This month.”

The front door burst open.

A dozen writers squeezed through it.

We grabbed the nearest objects at hand, books.

I threw my least favourite books by my favourite authors. I threw Martin Chuzzlewit and Hocus Pocus. I threw Coriolanus and Sylvie and Bruno and Across the River and Into the Trees.

Before I could stop her, Madeline threw both volumes of my Moroccan leather-bound edition of Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson. Oh, well.

The writers retreated.

I slammed the door. While I held it shut, Madeline hammered the bookshelves back in place.

“That was close,” she said.

“I need a drink,” I said.

We slept in shifts — on the sofa. Only I couldn’t. Instead, I lay awake listening to the sound of thousands of fingernails running down book spines.

“Madeline?” I said, sitting up. “Did you remember to board up the basement windows?”

“Yes,” she said, flipping the page of her book.

I sighed — and lay back down.

A minute later, I sat back up and said:

“Do you think they might come down the chimney?”

“Not with the fire going, no.”

“Right,” I said. And then I said, “Madeline?”

“Go back to sleep,” was all she said.

I must’ve. I dreamed I was trapped in an alley. Those things were closing in. One lunged ahead of the pack.

“Read,” she said, holding out a book. Vampire Wizards.

“Who published this?” I asked.

“I did,” she said.

I flipped through the book. It was full of grammatical errors.

“Well?”

For once in my life, I told the truth.

“Don’t quit your day job,” I said.

Then the writers piled on top of me and ate my skin.

When I woke up, Madeline was chopping down the kitchen table.

“I reinforced the doors and windows,” she said. “No one’s getting in — or out.”

She laughed.

I laughed.

I made the coffee this time.

The coffee table was missing, too.

Madeline sat by the fire. Her bright side looked beautiful.

“My lips are so dry,” she said, rooting through her purse for something. I hoped it was gin.

Something fell out of her purse. Into the shadows.

She picked it up.

A paperback.

Death Insurance.

By Madeline Brooks.

I jumped up. The coffee cup crashed on the floor.

I tried prying the boards off the windows, doors.

Madeline licked her finger.

My fingers were bleeding.

“Chapter One,” she said. “The Beginning.”

No, I thought. The End.

Rolli’s latest book is Plumstuff. Buy him a coffee.

POEM: Friday Night

Friday night

I was drunk on
sauvignon

writing
triolets

my note-
pad slanting
to catch
the lamp-
light

For a moment
closing
my eyes

I woke
as the dawn
was putting on
its clothes

From my new collection of poems and drawings, Plumstuff.

PRESENTING: Plumstuff
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☕ DR. COFFEE ☕

Hello, Friends – – –

Did you know there’s only one bookstore in the world owned and operated by someone with a bonafide PhD in Coffee? It’s a Canadian bookstore called The Penny University, run by the famous Dr. Coffee. Her shop is now stocked with signed copies of my new collection of poems and drawings, Plumstuff. Help support indie bookstores by ordering a copy from her wonderful shop: https://shop.pennyu.ca/item/1yMUbTnZaD8-iCVoBOkBqA. Order today and receive a free mini art print.

Have a happy Indie Bookstore Day!

Cheers – – –