Five Minutes of Your Time: A One-Shilling Bag of Mixed Lollies

By Ian Willis

I joined a writer’s club where the participants were invited to deliver a selection of five-minute stories.

Sometime later, while in line to vote at our local primary school, the official directing us blurted out, ‘You’re the man who wrote that story about the little ghost. I loved that.’ Embarrassingly, I did not recognise the lady, but she went on the tell the people behind me what a good writer I was and asked me where she could get a copy of my book.

Sadly I did not have a book for her to get, but she tickled my ego, so I decided to put together a collection of five-minute stories, in keeping with Clifford’s original theme.

So here they are, thirty-odd five-minute reads. If books are food for thought, then this is a one-shilling bag of mixed lollies from the milk bar. If you are of an age, you will know what I mean; if not, then you can Google it. Some are sweet, some sour, some are sticky, some hard. None is too big to swallow, and if you do not like one, then there is always another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jul 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664105881

Ian Willis

I am a dental prosthetist by profession. I dabble in the arts for pleasure. Performing ballet, writing and performing songs with my band, and writing prose. I am a child of the 1960s born in suburban Melbourne, Australia. I am of an age where, as a child, I shot rabbits with my grandfather. I am self-employed, married, a father, and a grandfather. Boringly middle class.

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Copyright © 2021 by Ian Willis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and

such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/06/2021

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CONTENTS

Preface

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife

Flipping

Guilt

Innocence Lost

Note to Self

The Man on the Right

The Question

Iam

Abuse

It’s Nothing

The Glass Ceiling

The Heat

Tomatoes

The Unexpected Call

Better Safe Than Sorry

Plastic

Lord OTF

Crossing Over

Going Nowhere

Trained in North Africa

Phantom

Bite

Perspective

Midwinter’s Dream

The Torch

Ghost of a Smile

The Opera

The Mouse

Christmas

All Hallows’ Eve

Astral Projections

The Gift

You Don’t Understand

Author Bio

PREFACE

Forward of me, I know.

This book is a consequence of the actions of Clifford, the owner of our local book shop. He started first a book club and then a monthly storytellers’ evening, where the participants were invited to deliver a five-minute story each month on a topic Clifford set the previous month.

Over six months, I told half a dozen stories, and then, alas, the evening ended.

Sometime later, while in line to vote at our local primary school, the official directing us blurted out, ‘You’re the man who wrote that story about the little ghost. I loved that.’ Embarrassingly, I did not recognise the lady, but she went on to tell the people behind me what a good writer I was and asked me where she could get a copy of my book.

Sadly I did not have a book for her to get, but she tickled my ego, so I decided to put together a collection of five-minute stories, in keeping with Clifford’s original theme.

So here they are, thirty-odd five-minute reads. If books are food for thought, then this is a one-shilling bag of mixed lollies from the milk bar. If you are of an age, you will know what I mean; if not, then you can Google it. Some are sweet, some sour, some are sticky, some hard. None is too big to swallow, and if you do not like one, then there is always another.

Now I am a writer, not your mother. It is not my job to make you eat your greens. You can be sensible and nibble one or two every now and then, making the book last, or you can binge the lot in one sitting. It is up to you.

Some of these stories are pure fiction, some faithful biography, still others are a conflation of both. You are free to decide which is which, because I contend that all fiction is born of memory, and all memory is a fiction we have cobbled together to suit our own devices.

So please, lend me five minutes of your time.

THE LIGHTHOUSE

KEEPER’S WIFE

‘I remember the wave. A wall of steel-grey water rising out of sight. I remember the captain shouting. What, I don’t know. Just an image of her waving arms and open mouth. I remember pain, and I remember wet, and I remember blackness.’

The doctor looked at me with calm patience, scrawling on the clipboard in his hand. The nurse, more distant, removed. The hospital bed I occupied was firm and dry. I felt safe, for the first time in what seemed forever.

‘But that is all beside the point.’ I continued, remembering my focus, my purpose, my overriding need to tell. ‘I need you to understand something, urgently. A woman’s life could be at stake. Or worse.’ I sounded melodramatic to my own ears; God knows what I sounded like to them.

The doctor held up his hand, one part compassion, three parts dismissive. He needed me to tell him my story chronologically. From the beginning. He reminded me that we are at sea. On an ocean-going container ship. That nothing could be done ‘urgently’ about anything. I took a breath and told him my story.

‘As I said before, I was a crew member on board Qualla II, sailing in the Melbourne to Hobart, West Coast Yacht Race. I was washed overboard in heavy seas, somewhere to the east of King Island. I think I must have hit my head, because the next bit is very vague.’

‘At least, I hope it was just me washed overboard. Is the boat all right? The crew? What is the news?’ Panic rose in my chest.

The doctor told me to not worry. For the moment I was the only concern. Just to please continue on with my recollections, in the order they occurred.

‘I was alone for the longest time. I was aware of reeling in cold, heavy seas. The sky nothing but black clouds. Sheets of rain squalls marched over me in ranks. I was alive now only because of my life jacket.’

‘I must have drifted in and out of consciousness. The scene in my mind repeating, over and over, never altering.’

‘Suddenly there was change. I remember the wet, rolling blackness, and then I heard the sound of waves breaking. I was flung crashing against shallows and once again blackness. I sensed time had passed. I was still, completely and utterly motionless. Laying prone, wet and cold on a beach of sand and rock. I was unable to move. It took all my effort just to breathe. Then the black nothingness again.’

‘I remember feeling a rising panic. But it took ages to comprehend why. It was the tide coming in. Lapping, floating my legs, my seaward arm. I would soon be dragged back out to sea. I could do nothing to resist my approaching death. I felt total and utter resignation. In a way it was liberating. It would soon be over.’

The doctor just stood there, listening, occasionally nodding, sporadically writing notes.

‘My next recollection is of a woman kneeling over me. Holding me firm against the pull of the tide. White skin, black hair, green eyes. She must have been about thirty. She wore a storm jacket over a nondescript skirt and sea boots.’

‘She dressed the bleeding wound above my left ear and eye and made me drink some sweet tea from a Thermos flask.’

‘Then I was in a bunk bed. My leg splinted, my head bandaged. I was warm and dry and alone in a semicircular room. From the wooden ceiling above me I heard muffled voices. An angry male voice and a scared woman’s voice. I could not hear the language, only the tone. There was a cut-short shout and a violent crashing. Then silence.’

‘With extreme care I got up from the bunk and stood unsteadily, surveying the room. It appeared to comprise one half of a floor in a chimney. A small door in the long, flat wall. It was locked from the other side, and in the curved wall, two small windows, little more than port holes, looking out over a rocky promontory with a small pier in the lea of the rocks.’

‘I was in a lighthouse! But that was my only illumination. Night closed in, and as there was no lighting, I staggered back to the bed and collapsed into sleep, or unconsciousness.’

The nurse stood up and, with a look to the doctor and short glance at me, left the ward. What was it that had distracted me? Her face? Her eyes?

The doctor said no, and told me to continue with my story.

‘It might have been a couple of days, it might have been weeks. I drifted from partial awareness through the void and back again. I think the woman changed my dressings. I think she fed and bathed me, but I do not know it.’

‘Then I was conscious again. Fully conscious, and the man was in the room, staring down at me. He was tall, solidly built, black hair with a full black beard. As I raised my head from the pillow to look at him, he simply turned away and soundlessly left the room, the clunk of a bolt sliding after the door had closed.’

‘I called out to him but got no response.’

‘Over the next three days I realised I was a prisoner in solitary confinement. In the dark I slept, when I woke there was a changed waste bucket and a tray with dried fruits, dried fish and bread, and a bottle of water. Nobody spoke, not to me, not outside of my cell.’

‘On the last night I was woken into the darkness by the sound of a woman pleading, then a fear-filled scream, and silence. I knew then I needed to escape, immediately. It was blindingly dark, but I found my way to the most seaward window, and after perhaps fifteen minutes, I worked it open. I could just squeeze through the rough-hewn opening. I tumbled the two metres to the rocks below with little more than a few extra bruises.’

‘I had remembered seeing a dingy tied at the little pier, so I blindly crawled my way in the direction I hoped led to my chance of freedom. Somehow I found the little boat, untied the hawser, and sculled out into the water. I had no plan other than to get to a shipping lane and pray for rescue. It was not just for myself now. The woman needed help.’

‘I floated for a day and half a night, when on the horizon I saw what looked like navigation lights. I rowed in the direction of those quickly disappearing beacons for what felt like hours, eventually collapsing in exhaustion. I must have dozed because suddenly the dingy heaved and bucked then turned turtle. It had been hit by a large wake.’

‘Wet, exhausted, cold, and now devoid of all hope, I clambered half aboard the upturned hull to watch a second set of navigation lights disappear towards the horizon. I was at my limit. I no longer had even a life jacket, I would eventually fall asleep, slide off the wreckage, and drown. There was nothing left to me.’

‘The next thing I know, I am in this ward. I guess that your crew saw me and rescued me in my last moments. You don’t know what that means to me. And to that woman. I can’t have travelled far, eighteen, twenty hours. Your navigator must be able to work out which is the island. There can’t be that many here with a manned lighthouse.’

The doctor said nothing. He turned to walk away from me, just as the lighthouse keeper had done.

No! I would not allow this. Summoning all my energy, I staggered up and out of the bunk. The room spun. I shouted at the retreating form of the doctor; my eyes throbbed as I staggered and collapsed forwards onto my face.

I coughed and sputtered as the mouthful of seawater flooded down my wind pipe. I floated, cold, wet, and numb, in a rolling sea of grey water that stretched from horizon to horizon. A black sky full of cold white stars was above me. Only my life jacket kept me afloat . . .

FLIPPING

It is just an ordinary day,