Two short stories
by Tony Dawson

 

 

Buttons

 

It was dusk. He was standing with his young son on Mulholland Drive looking down on Los Angeles at the millions of twinkling lights.

“Son, when you grow up, you’ll realize that, as a man, apart from your belly button, you have another one, or maybe two. The buttons I’m talking about only exist in your mind.”

“What do you mean, Dad?”

“When you grow up, you’ll discover that adult males tend to have appetites and little else. As such, they may have just one button, a toggle ON/OFF switch. Some of us have two buttons such as STOP and GO or more likely, FOOD and SEX, but not necessarily in that order.” He smiled as he thought about it.

“Why is that, Dad?”

“Well, men are simple souls, you see. Instant gratification is what we want. No beating about the bush, if you’ll excuse the inappropriate metaphor. We are focused on the basics, the essentials in life.”

“So that’s what all those lights flashing down there are? Buttons being pressed, switching on and off?”

“Not exactly. We haven’t talked about the female of the species yet. They are much more complicated than us men, which is why they have so many more buttons than we have and what’s more we don’t know what they are for. They aren’t labelled. And another thing, just when a man thinks he has sorted out what each button does and so knows the right one to press to get what he most wants from a woman, it turns out they have all been re-programmed! All those flashing lights that you can see are men repeatedly pressing the wrong buttons on women. That’s why men say that women should come into this world with an instruction manual.”

“It all sounds very complicated, Dad. Is it really worth the trouble?”

“Oh, it certainly is, my son, as you will find out one day. I think I’ll go home and see if I can work out how to press your mom’s buttons in the right order.”

 

 

 

 

 

A Garden Fate

 

I had just planted some annuals in a freshly dug flowerbed where I had buried my dog and was leaning on the fork when I heard the gate creak open. To my amazement, Gerald, the man who used to live next door years ago was walking across the lawn towards me.

“Evening, Jack. Good to see you again. Is Mia around?”

“Oh, you know Mia: Mia, by name, MIA by nature!” I laughed.

“What do you mean?” he asked, surprised.

“Just my little joke,” I responded. “She’s long gone I’m afraid.”

“Gone? Have you two separated, then?” he asked, concerned.

“That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. The fact is she died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that! What happened? What did she die of? You don’t seem particularly upset.”

“She had an accident in this garden.”

My visitor couldn’t believe his ears.

“How’s it possible to have a fatal accident in a garden?”

“Well, she was running across the lawn when she fell on this fork,” I replied.

“Why on earth was she running with a garden fork in her hands?”

“I didn’t say she was running with the fork,” I said, as I stuck it in Gerald’s chest.

 

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