The Storymaker (Part One)

©2012 David Jasmin-Green

Important Note:- I would like to make it clear that this scaly tale bears nothing in common with my experiences at Abc Tales, and I sincerely hope it doesn't reflect any other member's experiences either.....

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The Storymaker sat at his desk making stories, which was what he enjoyed doing above everything else. According to his better half it was all he ever did, or all he was good for, or any of a dozen other negatives, depending on her mood. Sally Anne had brought him a cup of coffee and a ham and salad sandwich an hour or so ago, maybe considerably more, he wasn't too sure because he didn't pay much attention to the passage of time while he was composing.

“Here you are, Storymaker,” she snapped, making her usual emphasis on the title that in her mind had long since replaced his name. “Enjoy!

It's a good job I'm here to wait on you hand and foot while you waste your entire life on your so called hobby, otherwise you'd sit there until you rotted in your comfy chair and slid onto the floor in a stinking, maggoty heap. Hobby - bloody obsession, more like. If I wasn't here to keep you in line you'd die of malnutrition. Shit, I don't think you'd even remember to take a dump unless I reminded you.....

Because of your bone bloody idleness I have to work my tits off seeing to the endless chores necessary to keep this house from falling down around us. OK, occasionally you wash up or run the hoover around half-heartedly for ten minutes, but I have to do everything else when I get home from work. Aren't I entitled to a little leisure time too, or is leisure time just for arty-farty creative folk? ”

“Thanks, love,” Gordon replied automatically as soon as his long suffering wife finished stage one of her angry monologue. As usual he was blissfully unaware of most of what she said, and the possibility that he might have been the cause of her fury never occurred to him. He had learned to switch off in Sally Anne's presence a long time ago, especially when she was talking, because although as far as he could ascertain he still loved her (and maybe, just maybe she still loved him) she was nearly always angry, and he didn't like the crap she came out with when she was angry. He didn't switch off out of rudeness, far from it, he switched off because it was the safest option. Gordon hated confrontation and he avoided arguments whenever possible because bickering made him feel vulnerable. And, more importantly, it stifled his creativity.

“You're welded to that sodding swivel chair from the moment you get out of bed until you haul your fat arse back upstairs in the early hours of the morning. Bloody ridiculous, it is. It's about time you fought your way out of your fantasy world and learned to face reality, as difficult as that might be for you. You need some structure to your life, love, you need to go out and at least try to find yourself a job as difficult as the economic climate is. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. We desperately need the money, remember? We can't get by on my pitiful wage forever.”

“Yes, dear. Very nice.”

“I'm at my wits end, and I'm not sure how much longer I can cope if you don't leave this room for at least a couple of hours a day and help out in the house, maybe even pay me a little attention now and then. Naah, that's too much to ask, isn't it? The way things are going, one of these days you're going to wake up from one of your hollow daydreams and realise that I've fled to greener pastures, but knowing you you probably wouldn't notice until days after I'd gone.

You don't even emerge for long when the kids and grand-kids come to visit. You sit in the living room for ten or fifteen minutes, perched on the edge of your armchair like an impatient eagle ready to soar off into the distance. You make empty conversation that you can't be arsed to pay attention to, and before we know it you've sidled back in here like a crab scuttling under a rock to escape from the seagulls. When Alice and Paul came round on Saturday I had to remind you three times that the baby's name is Jamie – he's nine months old, for Christ's sake, and you can't even remember his bloody name.

I don't even want to think about the way you treated the twins when they came home from college for the summer holidays. You barely even noticed them..... Adam must have come in here a hundred times, desperate for his miserable old dad to notice his existence, but you made it clear without the gift of words that you were way too busy to chat with him for five minutes. And you reduced Trisha to tears when you shouted at her for disturbing your precious bloody train of thought. You used to be so close to the kids, pudding, I don't understand what's gotten into you.

Oh, by the way, it's my birthday, Gordon,” Sally Anne said as she made her way out of the room. “I sincerely hope you haven't forgotten. And it was our Silver wedding anniversary on Sunday. Twenty five years.....

I love it when you go all silent on me, dear, it usually means you're struggling to conceal a mind blowing surprise. I assume you've planned a nice evening out to celebrate both occasions. I'll wait for you in the lounge. With my Rampant Rabbit to keep me company, perhaps, or if the batteries are dead maybe I'll ask Mr. Patel from next door if he fancies a dabble. If you fail to emerge from Never-never land and drag your stinking carcass into the shower in an hour at the very most I'm off to celebrate the pointlessness of my existence and the wreckage of our marriage alone. It'll probably be a lengthy party, duck; it'll probably involve an awful lot of alcohol and maybe several cocks of varying sizes and colours, which could take a while, so don't bother waiting up.”

“Hmmm.....”

Of course that all important bundle of information failed to register in Gordon's frantically busy and, it has to be said, rather addled mind. Sally Anne nearly always referred to him as 'Storymaker' nowadays, almost as if she had forgotten his real name, the name that he was Christened with, the name she used to rabidly growl in his ear during their frantic couplings aeons back before they had the kids, which, as is all too often the case, changed everything. The presence of his name in his wife's rather one sided conversation was the last thing that Gordon expected to hear, so predictably enough he didn't notice it.