Author: Ash Cheyne

I'm Scottish but I live in New Zealand ! I write stories and poetry. My dog Charlie is a great sounding board.

Imaginary Friends

 

 

Just like that

in a jiffy

the blink of an eye

 

There’s no more you and me

no matter how hard we try

 

You see someone stole the interweb

a cyber criminal it seems

and we’ve crashed with no insurance

into the luddite of our dreams

 

I just don’t remember a thing about it

without Google

 

Looks like we’ll have more time though

to make those calls

 

Proper long distance conversations

with friends in other nations

that we haven’t seen for ages

 

We’ll be writing letters

and eventually getting better

at reading things

other than just porno mags

 

Someone will spoil it

a hacker or a spammer or a pfisher

 

Some odious little prick you’ve never met

but who keeps droning on

above your head

making you think it’s all just fine

Without him

 

 

© Ash Cheyne 2017

Daily Word Prompt – Jiffy

Orange Disorder

I’ve made a glaring error. It was cheaper to get an Uber at this time of day but I should have learned from my week of scams and poor judgement.

It was of little consolation that I was able to make the call to book the thing in the first place. My mobile provider had seemingly and somewhat astonishingly employed a known hacker and given him access to subscriber’s details and data. Maybe both, I don’t know. It’s not working now anyway.

Oh and the apartment I’ve been staying in has a kitchen but I’m not allowed to cook in it. Not even for a €1000 a week.

I’m reduced to reading the news on a good old fashioned newspaper as we bump along the road to my show at what seems like breakneck speed. This guy’s in a hurry and oblivious to speed limits. How I long for the good old Hackney cab from last night.  He drove beautifully and talked non stop, spending most of the journey looking into the rear view mirror at me; probably to see if I was awake.

My current driver seemingly thinks he’s in a roller disco and constantly asks me if I dig Michael Jackson. Wherever he is I don’t want to join him or dig him but my requests to slow down get lost somewhere between Billie Jean and Thriller and my head hitting the roof.

I glance at my paper at the traffic lights in a rare stationary moment when I’m not fearing for my life. Seems the Protestant Orange Order aren’t keen on the words Rest in Peace on grave stones. They reckon the Romans had a scam going back then in getting Catholics to pay for the notion of a good death and encouraged prayers for the dead. The Orangemen are more black and white and believe you go straight to Heaven or Hell – no Purgatory for them.

We arrive at the gig, just in time.  I consider working the Orange story in with the Trump crackdown on opioids into my act. Surely that orange man will go straight to Hell.

 

© Ash Cheyne 2017

Daily Word Prompt Challenge – Glaring

 

 

Being Scottish – Warning Label

Contents work effectively on:

  • Excessive rose tinted devotion to a small nation 12000 miles away from where you live
  • Unnatural faith in sports teams from that nation who rarely beat anyone at anything
  • Revelling in grumpiness
  • Impossibility of getting a tan
  • Cynicism and suspicion of anything or anyone with an English accent
  • Looking great in tartan.
Dosage – take with large glasses of good whisky. If symptoms persist consult a travel agent and get a really cheap flight home.
If I Came With A Warning Label – #bravewarninglabelchallenge

Blood Into Ink Writing Prompt Challenge-The Scarlet Letter/Ash Cheyne

Brave and Reckless

There isn’t a whole lot of red around really, in this magnificent sea of blue. Just a little red trim on the shirt collar as a mark of respect to the Chelsea Pensioners; old soldiers who live at the nearby Royal Hospital. We used to be called the Pensioners and to be honest we’ve played like old men sometimes. That’s in the past though. It’s the last day of the season and it’s ours for the taking as long as our nerves don’t get the better of us.

Don’t know what Elvis Costello was on about. I always want to go to Chelsea, like I was born to the place. We pass an antique shop on the Kings Road and a flash of scarlet draws me immediately. There’s an old soldier in his tunic and hat looking the business. He’s admiring something in the window as I approach. Someone shouts

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Chameleon

The race through life has become more of an amble

a gamble that all the bad shit might get credited out

by Karma and a little help from pharmaceuticals

Compassion you see is no longer the fashion

for high heeled boots and fancy suits

and kindness that’s rationed in the war years

There’s a sprinkling of peace and love

and above all else you realise

that there are no winners or losers

 Just false promises made in boozers

  

Ash Cheyne 2017

Daily Word Challenge – Amble

 

 

 

 

 

Henry

She had walked for miles before sitting, exhausted at the edge of the lake. Soft, flickering lights beginning to appear on the hillsides and reflecting on the deep water. Good time for a swim she thought but then she couldn’t. Not because of the cold and pending darkness. More that she had never learned. She had made enough mistakes for a lifetime of learning.

There were times when she just wanted to feel down on herself because it was her safe place. Everyone else could just fuck off and they weren’t invited in as she sipped from her bottle of bad memories. A brief respite as a prelude to the most deliberate of hangovers.

She had gone to his trailer but he was nowhere to be seen. Friends told her that might happen as he was wild at heart. Open to bad influences. Vulnerable, despite his apparent strength and speed. His elegance that they all swooned over.

They were in love but her version of that was very different to his, she supposed. She worried for him and hoped he was with someone good. Someone who cared enough about him to let him be himself. To be magnificent.

As the last few drops slid down her throat she felt resigned to her fate. Hopeless and alone again as the last flicker of the day tucked itself behind the hill. She drew on her cigarette. A habit she knew he would disapprove of and as she blew the clouds of smoke into the still, damp air she heard something behind her.

A tap and a scrape and she turned her back on the lake; her sudden smile creating a vast shimmer across the water and the sky. He was indeed magnificent and he had come for her, despite everything that had happened.

© Ash Cheyne 2017

© Photograph courtesy of Martine de Wit. Check out Martine’s other amazing work on Instagram – photos_by_martine

Daily Word Prompt Challenge – Shimmer

 

An Apple A Day

It is just a casual bike ride on a Sunday afternoon. Taking the last bite of my apple, I think about flicking the remains into the canal but stop at the thought of the biodegradability consequences. I should take it home in my pocket but then my phone will get all sticky. I have two pockets so shouldn’t be a problem in this first world that we live in.

I see the other guy approaching, with his full attention on his device and wonder if he’s reading the news about all the food that will rot in the fields when there’s no one left to pick it. The workers, it seems, get paid very little for back breaking work and now that they’ve decided that Britain is full of racists, they don’t fancy the gig any more.

He gets closer, but he’s not looking up. Must be a fascinating article and I wonder if he’s got to the bit about the growers moving their operation to central and eastern Europe, presumably to have the stuff picked by, well, central and eastern Europeans.

He presses the buttons of his device and puts it to his ear, maybe to tell someone about the Chinese. Not the whole nation; just the two jokers who got themselves arrested in front of the Reichstag for giving a Hitleresque salute. They won’t be picking fruit any time soon I figure and there’s a ting on his device and he checks the cause. Probably a picture of what his friend had for dinner.

Inevitably, regardless of the shock news he’s just intercepted, we collide in a cacophony of metal, chains and apples. Mine eaten to the core; his shiny, latest version spiralling over the canal side wall and bouncing two or three times in a homage to Barnes Wallis before sinking to the bottom.

We both stare in silence into the murky canal. I’m thinking of those trenches that archaeologists have found in the south of England. They were intended to stop the German advance in WW1 and think maybe they could be used to slow the exodus back to Europe.

To the third world, where everything we had is now in the cloud.

 

© Ash Cheyne 2017

Daily Word Prompt Challenge – Casual