Chapter Five; Teacups Without Handles

Dear Reader,

One of the books I’m reading at the moment is ‘Stephen King; On Writing’ and he writes a piece about how sometimes you have parts of a story and you just can’t quite make them work. He calls it the ‘teacup and the handle’, you can’t have a teacup without a handle nor is a handle any use without a teacup.

I attempt to write short stories, dear reader, and I often come up with teacups with no handles or handles without the teacup. Bits of stories that you just can’t make work or can’t figure out which direction they’re supposed to go in and so just come to a halt.

I can’t tell you that my short stories are good nor can I tell you that they’re awful because to be honest, I’m not sure I know. Can any writer turn around and honestly say that they think one particular piece of work is truly awesome? I have no idea whether my writing is any good at all. I really need to give my old English teacher, Mrs Mack, a call and get her to pop round for a cup of tea and a good ol’ marking sesh. For old times sake.

I thought that for this post I would share some of my teacups and some of my handles with you, dear readers. Maybe one day I’ll be able to make them into stories, maybe I never will….maybe they’ll stay forever a handle without its teacup.

I

“Now?” she asked, her voice strong but ending in a slight wobble which escaped her before she had a chance to stifle it. “Now? You want to know how I’m feeling now my friends? Physically or mentally? We’ll start with my body. I feel cold, now that’s important because I may feel cold but the temperature around me is not cold. Therefore stating there is something wrong with my internal thermometer.” Helen, you see, is a nurse. Or at least she is studying to be, hence why she understands what is wrong with this situation. Helen is extremely intelligent, but here her intelligence is to be tested. Her nursing knowledge is out of it’s depth here. But she must focus and listen, if she wants to walk out alive.

II

And like that, the night was gone, the shadows that held him close has thrust him away into the light. He wasn’t sure what time it was or pinpoint exactly when the dark had turned to light but he knew he had do go. It was time to run, once more, he must hide form life. Most people think life is more dangerous at night, but no, not in this world. When you die, it’s with the sun on your back.

So there they are, a couple of my teacups minus the handles. I wrote these down quite a while ago and every now and again I take a look at them, wondering whether an idea might pop into my head. But alas, nothing yet! If any of you dear readers have any great ideas as to which direction you think these short stories should go, please feel free to comment on this post, even if you think that direction is in the bin!

Happy writing!

SP.