Can't Sleep, Won't Sleep, Volume 7. Grownup Stories for Bedtimes

By Lesley Atherton

Brilliant Short Reads

This book is volume 7 in an ongoing series of short stories, perfect for reading while travelling and commuting. Inside you’ll find intriguing tales of revenge, of enlightenment, compassion and humour.
Volume 7 of Can’t Sleep, Won’t Sleep features quite a bit of verse and a few 100-word stories. Also, there’s a lovely feel to the book, with the down-to-earth, Routine Rum and Pep, and memories of losing an 82,000 word novel, alongside short, sweet stories and thoughtful writings. There’s so much to this little book, so if you struggle to find a novel that relaxes you at bedtime, try this short story anthology instead. A truly brilliant and relaxing short read!

Published by Words Are Life. Do support independent publishers!

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Books by this Author

•Bigheart
•Conflict Management: Novelettes for Discerning Readers (Collection of No Matter What, Walking with Eve, Divine Intervention and Changes)
•Crash Test Dummy
•Feet On the Table: An Enormous Book of Tiny Stories
•Life’s a Mess... and Then You Die: Hoarding, Writing and Lost Family
•Melissa And the Mobility Scooter: And Other Bedtime Stories
•The Waggon
•Can't Sleep, Won't Sleep, short story series

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lesley Atherton
• Release date: Dec 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005223922

Lesley Atherton

I’ve always been a writer. I was the kind of kid who would create little books of my own, and I also did quite well at school when it came to writing projects and exams.I’ll always remember my lovely English teacher, Mrs Nash, giving us an assignment. We had to read Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Blackberry Picking’ and then were told to write our own version.My resultant poem, though simple, used some strong words and brought positive and glowing reactions from Mrs Nash, both at the time and later in her literary flourish of an end of year report card in which she told me how much my writing had blossomed and would soon become wonderful. I loved that teacher so much. She was awesome, kind, creative and a little eccentric. Unfortunately, I don’t have her report anymore, and I don’t have the poem either. I just remember that it began something like this:Blackberry picking, sweet and sticky, Dum de dum de dum de dum, Like a gaping wound.Later in life, I married a writer who became a publisher and helped him out with office and business management. I loved the writing-related work that came with it too - reviews, articles, copywriting and editing, proofreading and the rest of the whole shenanigans. Yep, I loved all that.Later, when we split up and the children were a little older and more self-reliant, writing seemed to become my ‘thing’. It was what I wanted and needed to do.When I got a little braver I saw a poster on a bookshop wall. It was for a writing group, and it gave Michelle’s email as a contact. I emailed her a few breathily nervous messages, then we agreed to meet at a local café. It was a lovely and unforgettable meeting. She directed me to join a writing group and this was what I did. Joining the group expanded my new writing confidence massively.So I began publishing more. Writing a little less (temporarily). And Scott Martin Productions was born.The company became Words Are Life as I moved away from publishing fiction (I am truly appalling at selling things, and nonfiction sells itself to some extent). I carried on writing, ready to publish.So, that’s my history. Good at editing, not bad at imagination and writing skills, but bloody awful at selling stuff.​In recent years I’ve published ‘Melissa And The Mobility Scooter’, which is a gorgeous book of bedtime stories for children (not just girls!) between 5 and 8. Older children will enjoy reading ‘Melissa’ themselves.I’ve also published a collection of novelettes called ‘Conflict Management’. It’s an interesting collection of stories about good and evil twins, managing autism and long term illness, making serious life decisions, ghostwriting, revenge, and working with a male supermodel.My first novel originally came out under the name, ‘Past, Present, Tense’, then was slightly re-written under the name ‘Life’s a Mess... And Then You Die’. I love this book. It’s all about hoarding, family lost and found, dysfunctional relationships, vengeance and hope for the future.And, I've also written what might just be the largest, floppiest book of empowering short stories ever created. It is called 'Feet On The Table'; and is the result of many, many years of work.At the time of writing, I’ve just published my second novel, ‘The Waggon’. I normally don’t have much confidence in my work but I believe this to be the best thing I’ve ever written! It came about as the final assignment of a Masters Degree in Creative Writing. This was back before Covid times, and I was due to publish it, but lost a lot of creative confidence when I was given a Merit on the course. I genuinely believed the writing deserved a better grade, which is unlike me. Unsure about how to progress, I gave it to a number of beta readers for feedback. It is their feedback that’s enabled me to rewrite the book. I hope it is deserving of a Distinction grade, even if it is only in my own head! Better late than never.I have also just published short ebooks, 'Crash Test Dummy', 'Could This Be An Office Romance?', and 'Bigheart'. Also, my books, Can't Sleep, Won't Sleep - short story anthologies available here on Smashwords.So, that’s where I am at the moment. I’m publishing on a few different platforms and am concentrating on editing and writing. There aren’t enough hours in the day to write all I want to write, but it’s getting a little easier every day.

Book preview

Another Adult Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, high in the locked tower of a castle on a hill, there existed a young man who believed himself to have once been called Alexander. His days could hardly be called living since he had been imprisoned within the confines of his locked landing and suite of rooms for the previous seven years.

Each meal arrived through a hatch in a locked door. His few brief conversations arrived through the whispers of the wind, the scurries of the rats and the occasional overheard chatter of kitchen lads and lasses who would run through the courtyards shrieking on the way to their errands. He’d reply but was never heard.

Alexander had been locked away, not owing to some terrible crime, nor the curse of a spurned witch. No. Alexander believed he had been imprisoned for protection against a world that was not yet ready for his peculiarity. Though he felt it would not last forever, it mattered not, for he knew not when it would end.

Every day, he prayed for release, and on no day had a release yet come.

The young boy had grown to be a young man, and, following years of acceptance, he suddenly knew that he must leave his prison, come what may. He had passed 15 summers and his heart was breaking with what he suspected was loneliness. He'd read of it within his room’s library, just as he had read of valour, of love, of friendship, of work and of the ideas of great thinkers since printing began.

But book knowledge, though important, did not equip him with the skills to remove himself from the only existence he remembered. Even had he discovered a physical method of escape, he knew he would struggle with life on the outside, it being a place that was full to the brim with confident souls accustomed to the world’s vagaries, and that they would not accept him for all he was.

Books assisted in passing the time, but only his dreams brought true relief from the tedium. They provided faint memories of the life he’d had before this place. All those years ago, he’d been walking in the forest when, from a gap in the bracken, a woodland creature had emerged, with its head cocked. The creature had been curious at Alexander’s approach and greeted the young boy with a nod of his head and a lifting of his leafy green hat. He held out his hand to Alexander and being a well-brought-up boy, Alexander extended his own to meet it.

But, once their skin touched, Alexander regretted all friendliness, as half his boy-ness disappeared into the creature, and half the creature-ness seeped into him. The young man and woodland creature were both transformed, two into two, and each half of the other. Alexander’s mother, with whom he’d been strolling, fell into a dead faint at the vision of her creature-son.

Both were discovered by an elderly gentleman riding in a carriage, and he bundled the creature-boy and his mother into the carriage. Then, the elderly gentleman’s coach carried the unfortunate pair to the man’s manor house, where the man had locked the boy into his secret hidden bedroom, having told the boy’s mother that he died from his transforming. The gentleman soon married the mother as she had become weak and vulnerable through her grief.

So, what remained for the young man? Only two people knew of his existence - the elderly gentleman, and the butler who brought all his meals.

The boy had matured into a strong young man whose brain was full of thoughts that arrived through his enormous supply of books, and somehow or other, he believed fervently that he would discover the means to escape. Only then would he know for certain how the world viewed his creatureliness.

The sooner came earlier than he’d expected, and later than he’d hoped, when one fine and warm morning, a bell tolled in the courtyard. It rang once then, following a count of ten, rung once more. Alexander watched as flags were erected - three black cloths on three tall flagposts. Black. He knew well enough that it signified a death of importance within the house. As the day went by, Alexander heard enough to know for certain that a wasting disease had taken the old man, and his successor had been fully primed for all his duties within the manor.

That was all very well, but would Alexander’s life continue as it had? Would he be remembered? Would his meals arrive as they had? And what had become of his mother?

All was quiet in the rooms of Alexander for one day, two days, three days. And, towards the end of the third, the young man, requiring much sustenance for his growing, had made the decision that his only way to live was to break out of his confines at that very moment.

Though no knives were provided on his food trays - he ate only food he could hold, and chopped food using a spoon - on one occasion he’d mistakenly been provided with a tiny, rounded-end palette knife. He’d stashed it, of course, and now was the time to use it.

Hunger dictated the urgency.

He knew that there were wooden barriers over his window and that they had been attached by means of what he believed were screws. The tops of the screws were some straight and some crossed, and he set to work to turn these. His learning was all through books, so it took a few efforts to make even the smallest amount of loosening, but once the first screw fell to the floor of his room, he was energised enough to continue.

Unscrewing took the whole rest of the day until the light ended and he was forced to sleep.

He woke early and immediately walked to the window. How marvellous the view was. How vibrant and colourful. How cheery were the people.

And next to his bed was a bunch of flowers in a small jar.

And a sheet of paper. It read ‘My Darling Son, I too have been locked up all these years. Though free on the outside, the old man kept me in such torment of my grief at having lost you. Yesterday, I discovered from the person who brings your meals, that you are still alive. He led me here as you slept. I saw the wooden bars you’d removed from the windows. I will be preparing our belongings for leaving this place. So, when you wake, come to me’.

The young man lay back on his bed. Relief. Escape! It was all going to happen. He was to return to his mother, and perhaps even to the rest of his family. And he would get healed.

He smelled the flowers next to him and noticed a small round item - silver and shiny and looking so fragile and delicate that, at first, he didn’t like to touch it. But, as he brought it up to his face, Alexander remembered. The item was a mirror. He hadn’t seen himself for so long and his heart beat with speed and excitement as he held it in front of his face.

He was no longer the boy he had been before the imprisonment. He was no longer the creature that he’d seen in the bracken. He was a young and handsome man, with long dark hair, skin as white as snow and lips as red as blood.

He was the image of the mother he remembered, and he could no longer stop his feet from carrying him to her.

‘Mother,’ he shouted as he opened the always-locked door, and left the hated and loved prison and shelter for the final time.

Back to Contents

Antihero

‘So, what do I call you?’ Tony asked, his hand quivering as he offered it to shake. Her refusal disturbed him not at all.

‘I’m Kate, Mr Evans.’

‘Call me Tony.’

Tony scratched his ear and watched as the scaly skin he disturbed dropped slowly onto the brown of his jacket. Snow on earth. Perhaps snowdrops and crocuses would emerge soon, to pierce the fabric with their speared-sharp shoots.

‘So, Kate… do you do this kind of thing often?’ He used the back of his right hand, and then his left, to smooth out the sweat droplets that were gathering and being absorbed into the bushy mat of his eyebrows.

‘You’d be surprised just how often. Yep, there’s a lot of demand. Tell me what you need.’

Tony rubbed his eye and cursed the roughness of his fingers and their tips. He cursed the labouring and the constant scratches of the gardener’s life. He was sure he’d scratched his eyeball and rummaged in his bag self-consciously.

‘My wife,’ he said as he passed a photo to Kate. It showed the couple surrounded by lupins, both man and wife smiling joyfully at the ice creams they licked.

‘I’ve put our address on the back, with a list of the times when she’s at home and I’m at work.’

‘I’ll be in touch when it’s done,’ Katie said and left without another word. She wasn’t a young, vibrant woman with short, bobbed hair, a woman who was sleek and agile with wealth and who was tough, almost psychopathic in