Nicolas Ridley, Featured Author

January 2019 | Best of Net nominee, fiction, nonfiction

Virtually Identical

FICTION

 

‘I shan’t introduce you to my sister,’ said Kate. ‘You’ll fall in love with her. Then I’ll have to hate you.’

‘Fine,’ I said.

(I’m used to Kate’s pronouncements.)

We were driving to Sussex. Having decided to marry me, Kate felt I should meet her parents.

‘You and your sister,’ I said. ‘Are you alike?’

‘We’re virtually identical.’

‘Twins?’

‘Stop the car,’ said Kate. ‘There by those bushes. I need to change.’

 

I find it captivating: Kate’s ability to transform herself. From brisk solicitor to untamed party-animal. From formal dinner guest to fun-runner in baggy shorts and shapeless t-shirt. The Kate, who now appeared in a black skirt and white blouse, was the dutiful daughter.

 

‘I must warn you,’ said Kate. ‘My parents are prudes.’

To me they appeared courteous, welcoming, perfectly charming.

‘Samuel will be sleeping in the guest bedroom,’ said Kate.

(Another of Kate’s pronouncement.)

Did I see Kate’s mother raise an eyebrow?

 

‘Don’t come looking for me in the night,’ said Kate. ‘You’ll end up in someone else’s bedroom.’

Kate’s father’s generous measures of single malt meant that I fell deeply asleep, but I woke up immediately when the bedroom door creaked open.

‘Don’t turn on the light.’

I didn’t.

In the morning, she’d gone.

 

‘Were you alright last night?’ said Kate.

‘Last night?’

‘By yourself in your lonely little bed.’

‘By myself? But didn’t you …?’

‘Didn’t I what?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I slept fine.’

 

‘Who are you?’

‘Me?’ I said. ‘I’m the bridegroom.’

‘I thought you looked familiar,’ she said. ‘I’m Aunt Astrid. I’m potty as an aspidistra. Did you know there was madness in the family?’

‘Really?’ I said, looking round the marquee. ‘Tell me. I haven’t met Kate’s sister yet. Is she here somewhere?

‘Sister? Kate has no sister. Kate’s an only child.’

 

by Nicolas Ridley

 

Unarmed Combat

NONFICTION

 

It’s a pleasant day in early April. Winter is no more than a memory and today we are learning how to kill people. Or maim them. Maybe both. I’m not sure yet.

Together we chant the sergeant’s mantra:

One-two-three-four,

Step-on-his-jaw,

Just-to-make-sure.

‘Next!’

Last January we slept in our boots on Dartmoor. We learnt the lesson on the first morning. If you leave your boots outside the tent, they freeze like solid blocks of ice. The answer is to keep them on all night. This means lying on your back in your sleeping-bag with your feet pointing upwards. It’s awkward at first but you get used to it. When you’re fourteen-years-old, sleeping isn’t usually terribly difficult.

One-two-three-four,

Step-on-his-jaw,

Just-to-make-sure.

‘Next!’

This spring the school’s Combined Cadet Force is camping in the Thetford battle area. We have spent much of the week crawling through damp bracken and sheep’s droppings but we’ve camped in many worse places and will do again.

This afternoon a group of us has volunteered to undergo training in unarmed combat. It sounded more fun than signals, mortars or map-reading. We are in the care of our instructor: square, unhurried, amiable, Sergeant Jones.

Methodically, almost languorously, Sergeant Jones disarms, disables and dispatches us by numbers.

‘You take the arm. You break the arm. You twist the wrist. And over he goes.’

Perhaps it’s a little chilling but it’s also oddly hypnotic.

‘You take the arm. You break the arm. You twist the wrist. And over he goes.’

One at a time, we rush at Sergeant Jones with wooden weapons. Step-by-step — cool and unflurried — he goes about his business.

‘You take the arm. You break the arm. You twist the wrist. And over he goes.’

I’m not certain what we’re learning except that Sergeant Jones is the master of his craft. If we have to watch him very much longer, we may become bored and rather restless but, for the present, it passes the time.

One-two-three-four,

Step-on-his-jaw,

Just-to-make-sure.

‘Next!’

All afternoon the sun shines down on us benignly. Tonight the damp bracken and sheep’s droppings will remain unfrozen and we will sleep peacefully in our socks.

 

by Nicolas Ridley

Nicolas Ridley has lived and worked in Tokyo, Casablanca, Barcelona, Hong Kong and Paris and now lives in London & Bath (UK) where he writes fiction, non-fiction, scripts and stage plays. A prize-winner and Pushcart Prize nominee, his short stories have been read at Liars’ League (London), Rattle Tales (Brighton), The Speakeasy (Bath), The Squat Pen Rests (Swindon), Story Friday (Bath), The Story Tales (London), Storytails (London) and Talking Tales (Bristol). Others have been published in London Lies, Lovers’ Lies & Weird Lies by Arachne Press (UK), Ariadne’s Thread (UK), Barbaric Yawp (USA), The Linnet’s Wings (Ireland), Litro Magazine (UK), O:JA&L (USA), Rattle Tales 3 (UK), Sleet Magazine (USA), The Summerset Review (USA), Tales from a Small Planet (USA), Tears in the Fence (UK) and Black is the New Black & True Love by Wordland (UK). Godfrey’s Ghost, his biographical memoir, is published by Mogzilla Life.

 

 

Cherished a Hope

January 2019 | poetry

The emotion that lies at the heart,

not shown in gestures and words,

cannot be measured or felt,

but for myself.

Disillusion, sadness and despair,

even rejoicing and pleasure,

have created tears, salty and hot ones,

that have leavened the soil where I live,

bringing forth flowers, fruits, children.

Have also nourished and ennobled my spirit,

paying the toll I owe to the lord of the fief.

I am sure they are leading me to Canaan,

the promised land where evil finds no shelter

and milk and honey flow abundantly.

Where the woman I desire is waiting for me,

at the door of my house, longing and needy,

wife and lover.

 

by Edilson Afonso Ferreira

A Brazilian poet, Mr. Ferreira, 75, writes in English rather than in Portuguese. Largely published in international journals in print and online, he began writing at age 67. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2016. His first Poetry Collection – Lonely Sailor – is coming soon, scheduled to be launched in London, November 29th 2018, with one hundred poems. He blogs at www.edilsonmeloferreira.com.

Vanishing Point (October Vignette)

January 2019 | poetry

on the bus, after we heard the news,

I saw a woman softly sobbing into her hands;

beside her was a Whole Earth shopping bag

containing what must be heirloom or designer apples

that were almost orange in color –

perhaps a miniature pumpkin,

if such a thing exists –

and what resembled a purple pomegranate.

 

another woman was picking at her nails

nervously

like a monkey searching for nits.

 

the crying woman patted the pockets

of her all-weather jacket;

maybe she was searching for a handkerchief

to wipe her face?

 

but then I noticed that her face

was darkening, like the tears

were soot, and by mingling with her skin,

they were turning her entire person

into black-and-white, like an old-fashioned movie;

soon, everyone on the bus

was fading into black,

or vanishing altogether

as they bleached out of my vision.

 

I looked down at my hands

and I, too, no longer

had any color except shadows

and pale, ghostly flesh –

it seemed like early Halloween,

or an Edgar Allen Poe tale come to life.

 

someone on the bus said,

I think we’re heading back into the 1950s,

before color TV, and someone else said, no,

the 1930s, before Technicolor hit Hollywood:

it’s like in The Wizard of Oz, in Kansas,

before Dorothy meets the Munchkins,

or follows the yellow brick road.

 

the woman stopped her sobbing, sniffled, then said,

yes, we’re going backwards, to when white men

didn’t have to share the country with anyone else.

 

by Alison Jennings

Alison Jennings is retired from teaching and accounting; throughout her life, she has composed over 400 poems, and recently published several of them, in print journals and online. She lives in Seattle, where she writes poetry whenever she has time.

First Saturday in November

January 2019 | poetry

A noisy, anxious fall,

the nation hangs

on a precipice

as the noise reaches

an ugly crescendo.

In three days, we

will know the script

our nation will follow

the next two years.

As we look forward

in weary trepidation,

we mostly want it

to be over and usher

in a wintery peace.

 

by Janet Jenkins-Stotts

Janet Jenkins-Stotts has taught at Highland Community College, Wichita State University, and Kansas University. She has self-published a novel The Orchid Garden, and a chapbook, “Winter’s Yield. She has performed slam poems on weight loss, and women’s issues at Open Mics and slam contests.

V is FOR

January 2019 | poetry

My vagina and Venice Beach

both of which

are no longer that Xanadu

subculture of old school grooves and funk –

there’s no more riffing with Morrison,

no sonic hey-days

spent skating figure eights.

 

My vagina and Venice Beach

are haunted by the laughs of men

who’ve gentrified Bohemian-sweet virginity

with basil-honeysuckle soap

and brute celebrity.

 

My vagina and Venice Beach

were plowed by lucrative

boutiques, Silicon Beach, and tiny

yellow ghosts pulling out.

 

My vagina and Venice Beach

went from roller dancing to race riots,

Dogtown to Blue Bottle Coffee –

the boom boxes were stolen,

and the gondoliers

bought homes in the Valley.

 

The First Baptist Church of Venice

sits vacant and boarded up

while residents hold Sunday morning vigils

protesting the billionaire

who’s determined to make it his home.

 

V is for the vigil

I hold between my thighs.

 

by Candice Kelsey

Candice Kelsey’s poems have appeared in such journals as Poet Lore, The Cortland Review, Sibling Rivalry Press, and Wilderness House — and her work has been incorporated into multiple 3-D art installations. She has been accepted into the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Virginia Quarterly Review’s Writer’s Conference. She published a successful 2007 trade paperback with Da Capo Press. An educator of 20 years’ standing, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.