Happy New Year in Cafe Crem!

Letting go(for Kev)

Letting Go

 

When a poem is written,

Released to be read,

It ceases to be mine alone.

Like a wayward child,

It speaks its mind

To all it encounters

And is changed forever:

I never meant that!

That’s not what I said.

Futile!

I gave it life,

Gave it wings,

And now must say goodbye.

It has its own life:

A purpose, a mission maybe.

And I, like every mother,

Wish it well, wave it off,

Shed a tear and hope at least

For a Christmas card

And flowers for Mother’s Day.

The Little Boy and the Golden Thread

Following the surge of creativity here in Cafe Crem, specifically in Cafe Literati, I have decided to present my short stories here. some of them have appeared elsewhere in the net, so apologies to anyone who might have read them already, but I want them recorded here in Cafe literati, which I consider their rightful home. Today, a story inspired by this beautiful illustration from Miki:

The Little Boy and the Golden Thread

The boy tossed and turned in his featherbed, the wind that blew outside scraping the branches of the tree against his window like brittle fingers.
He was Five years old, and had never slept a night. Arriving at the breakfast table, bleary-eyed, the following morning, his mother looked at him with despair.
“Son, you must learn to sleep, for a third of your live is given to sleep, and if you waste it, your life will end all too soon!” she exclaimed
The boy looked up at her with large brown eyes, imploring.
“But mama, I don’t know how!” A tear began a slow journey down his cheek.
His mother turned away, stifling a sob.

That night, as he climbed into bed, the boy resolved to seek an answer to his problem.
When all the lights were out, he quickly dressed, unfastened his window, climbed down the tree and ran out into the night, taking a jam sandwich.

He walked for many days, and then hid on a train to London, jumping off in the countryside before it reached the big city. He stuck his nose in the air, and smelled the sea, setting off in its direction. Nobody saw him, for he was only five years old, and very small. By this time he had very little left of his jam sandwich, and was very hungry. He was beginning to feel a little upset when; all of a sudden he caught sight of a tall ship in the harbour. He was by the sea!

He climbed aboard, unseen, and hid in the bottom, with the rats, who were a friendly sort.
One in particular was very talkative, and asked the boy the purpose of his journey.
“I want to know how to sleep, I have never slept one night of my short life, and I am losing precious time!” he said.
The rat, offering the boy a tasty morsel of rotten cabbage, leaned a little closer and whispered, conspiratorially, “Then you have a long journey indeed! You must take this ship to the end of the world, then make your way to the Temple on the Sacred Mountain, where the answer to your problem lies.”
“How can you know this?” asked the boy, in wonder.
“Oh, I travel” sniffed the rat, disdainfully.

So the boy stayed on the ship for many months and the months turned into years, and eventually, the ship made landfall at the end of the world. He slipped ashore unseen, having bade farewell to the rats, and began to walk to the Sacred Mountain.
He walked.
And he walked.
And he walked some more.
He walked for ten years, and curiously, even though he had journeyed many years at sea, and many years on foot, he was still a little five year old boy.
And all at once he was at the foot of the most beautiful mountain he had ever seen. He knew this to be a certain fact, for it was the only mountain he had ever seen.
There was a seemingly endless flight of steps cut into the very rock, curving, up, up so far that he had to squint to see how high they went, and as his eyes followed this stone staircase, he lost sight of it in the clouds. With a sigh, he began his ascent.
Many days passed, and the little boy, one foot in front of the other, climbed higher and higher. Lush green grass gave way to scrub and rock, which in turn became wreathed in snow and ice. The little boy became quite chilly, as he was only wearing his pyjamas.
Eventually, after some months, and just before breakfast, he arrived at a huge wooden doorway, with a big bronze knocker. He reached up…he could not reach high enough.
He tried knocking with his tiny fists on the wood, but they hardly made a sound. Reluctantly, he turned around and headed back down the Sacred Mountain.
Some months later he reached the bottom and peered through the door of a small cottage by the side of the road.
“Can I help you?” said a voice from within
“Yes, if you please” said the boy, “Do you have a stool I could borrow?”
“Why certainly!” came the reply. All at once a man as big as an elephant appeared in the doorway. “You may take this one” he said, gesturing to a small red stool by the fireplace.
“I’m afraid I have an over fondness for toasted marshmallows, and I have been sitting by the fire for twenty years eating them, which accounts for my unusual size, and the inadequacy of the stool I now give you.”
The man handed him the stool.
“The marshmallows smell good!” said the boy “Can I have one?”
“Don’t be greedy!” exclaimed the man, and slammed the door.
The boy set out upon the great stone staircase once again through grasslands, rock, and ice and snow, and the soft caress of the great white clouds, clutching the small red stool.
Some months later, he reached the vast wooden doorway once more. Carefully, he placed the stool below the door knocker, and climbed upon it. He reached up on tiptoe…not..quite…there. He stretched his fingers as far as he could, which wasn’t very far, because if you have seen a little five year old boys fingers you will know that they are very short indeed…his fingers brushed against the metal. The boy frowned. He jumped down from the stool, and made his way down into the clouds on the great stone staircase.

Some months later, he arrived at the door of the cottage.
“Come in” mumbled the man, between marshmallow mouthfuls “I can’t get up, I’ve become wedged in my armchair due to my continuing over fondness for these tasty toasted treats” he said, by way of explanation.
“Why don’t you eat less?” asked the little boy, innocently.
“Don’t be impertinent!” harrumphed the man.
“I wonder if you have a large book I could borrow?” continued the boy.
“Well, of course, as I cannot reach my shelves anymore, are you looking for anything in particular?” asked the man.
“Well, it’s got to be thick.” said the little boy.
“Oh! But this is no criteria for choosing a book, lad!” exclaimed the man, worrying a particularly troublesome piece of marshmallow from between his teeth.
“You need something full of knowledge and wisdom, to improve your lot in the world, and by happy coincidence, my encyclopaedia is both informative and thick, so both your needs will be fulfilled, close the door on your way out.” said the man, his fat fingers  maneuvering another marshmallow onto the end of his toasting fork.

The little boy considered taking a marshmallow with him, but didn’t like the idea of ending up wriggling on the end of a toasting fork, so tucking the encyclopaedia under his arm, he once again mounted the stone steps, through the lush pastures, the rock, and the clouds, emerging into the sunlight by the giant doors. He brushed a layer of snow and ice from the stool, for he had been gone many months. Carefully, he placed the encyclopaedia on top, and climbed up. On tiptoes…stretching his fingers…until they curled around the metal ring of the knocker, he pulled it out and let it fall, one, two, three times, the sound vibrated around the mountain top and deep within the temple.

A tall, thin man answered the door. He welcomed the little boy inside. He was so thin, that as he turned away into the great hall, he almost disappeared completely. The little boy couldn’t help thinking that he should eat some toasted marshmallows.
Wordlessly, he led the little boy through a succession of halls, with glittering ceilings rising high above them in silver and gold.
The boy was enchanted.
“How do you clean them?” he asked.
“The ceilings come to us.” answered the thin man, mysteriously.

All at once they entered a vast mirrored ballroom, which seemed full to overflowing with Golden thread, and in the midst of it sat an old, old woman at a Spinning wheel, working patiently, steadily. The boy let his gaze wander up the thread, and saw that it emerged from a magnificent golden spider, perched high in the roof space.
“Come here boy.” called the old woman.
The boy approached, picking his way through the golden thread.
“Can you help me sleep?” said the little boy.
“That I can.”said the old woman. “though the remedy is painful.”
The little boy took a deep breath and said;
“Then please, tell me how.”
The old woman motioned for the boy to sit on her lap, and from her pinafore she took a wickedly sharp silver needle, which she threaded with expert ease. Gold thread shimmering in the light.
“I will sew this golden thread into your eyelids, and, in time, with the gold in them weighing them down, they will become heavy and close, and sleep will beckon.”
Then, quick as a flash, her fingers went to work, and the little boy’s screams echoed across the mountains.

A world away, his mother woke to the sound, and she leapt from her bed, in the grip of fear. She ran into the little boy’s room.
“My son, are you all right?” she cried.
The little boy was sat up, in his bed.
“Mama, my eyes are so heavy, I cannot keep them open. She looked down at his flickering eyelids and gasped as she caught a glimpse of gold running across each one.
“Mama, I shall not wake from this sleep, for they are too heavy to ever open again.”
His mother held her hands to her mouth in horror.
“But my son, you are but five years upon this earth!”
“Do not weep, Mama,” said the boy, “for I have seen such wonders, and have lived a life of four score years in the blink of an eye. It is not the destination, but the journey, and the journey is life.”
And with that, the little boy’s eyes that weighed so heavy closed for the last time, and the branches scratched forlornly at the window.

THE END

Story Copyright Kev Moore 2007  – Illustration by Miki

Snag, a short story

Snag

There was thunder in the air and a scent of coming rain, and as he went down the steps into the cool of the cellar bar, he had an odd sense of expectation, though he couldn’t have said why. It was just the usual post-work drink on a Friday, a couple of glasses of something cold before going home to shower and change ready for the night ahead, a demarcation point between the world of work and the real one. So he didn’t know quite why he had the feeling he might have had if he had been expecting to meet someone, when the chances were at this time, the bar would be deserted.

It wasn’t quite deserted. In the corner to one side of the door two women lurked, chatting in bored tones over white wine. He knew one of them slightly. They had history, but not the earth-shattering or even earth-moving sort, so he nodded to her curtly so she didn’t think he was ignoring her.

He was about to order a drink from the languid and damp-looking barman when the door swung open again and in a sweep of rain-scented air a woman walked in. A girl really, though as he glanced at her he realised he really couldn’t guess her age. She had the freshness of skin only the under twenties usually have but her eyes had a kind of self-aware intelligence he’d rarely seen in anyone under fifty. She was oddly dressed, and as she entered the bar, the woman in the corner said in a deliberately audible stage whisper,

“God, I hardly think wearing a sack is exactly the height of fashion.”

The girl paused, her arm nearly touching the bar. The dress was a bit odd, true enough; the fabric did indeed have the open irregular texture of hessian but as he looked at it he saw that the cloth had a shimmer and a gleam and a softness that could never come from sackcloth. Raw silk, or linen and silk mix maybe, cinched in with a wide, worn leather belt of burnished brown with a plain buckle of some dull metal.

He saw her brow contract and the girl bite her lip with hurt and on impulse he leaned over and said in an equally loud stage whisper,

“Ignore her, it’s a lovely dress.”

She gave him an uncertain smile.

“Do you think so?” she said, her voice soft and musical. “I made it myself. Excuse me, I should have a word with her.”

She turned away from him and went unhurriedly to where the other woman had now turned her back on her.

“A word?” said the girl, touching the woman’s shoulder gently.

“Well?” she demanded, staring up at her with undisguised contempt.

There was a definite pause and even the barman stopped polishing glasses to see if a fight was about to erupt. Then the girl leaned down and spoke directly into the woman’s ear. The woman’s face froze as she listened, and then went very red and finally so pale her blusher stood out on her face like the imprints of a slap. She seemed to gasp and then got unsteadily to her feet and rushed out. Her friend stayed still for a second or two and then rushed after her, shouting,

“What did she say? What did she say?”

The girl gave a small secret smile and walked back to the bar.

“What did you say to her?” he asked, impressed.

She smiled again, a pleased smile.

“I only tell people their own secrets,” she said and ordered a drink.

His curiosity was piqued.

“OK,” he said. “Tell me one of my secrets then.”

She sipped at her wine and shook her head.

“You won’t like it,” she said.

“You don’t know any,” he said, disappointed.

“Oh, I do,” she said. “But as you saw from the lady over there, usually people don’t like what I tell them.”

He was a little stung.

“How do you know these things anyway?” he asked. “Are you some sort of private detective or something?”

She shook her head.

“I just have a gift for it,” she said. “An instinct for knowing things if you like.”

“Bet you don’t know anything about me,” he said, a little galled.

“I know you’re getting married in a month,” she said.

“Anyone here might have told you that,” he said unconvinced. “She could have told you that.”

“I’ve never been here before,” she said. “And I don’t even know your name.”

If it was a pick-up line, he wasn’t going to fall for it by telling her.

“But I do know you’re having serious doubts about it,” she went on and his certainty began to waver.

“Oh yeah, why is that then?” he asked, a touch aggressively now.

“That’s for you to know, not me,” she said.

“Lots of people have doubts. You’re not much cop as a psychic, you know. Bit of guesswork, that’s all that was, and maybe some local knowledge,” he said.

She shrugged unconcernedly and took another sip of her drink.

“As you say,” she agreed and it annoyed him that she wasn’t arguing. Then she raised her eyes to his and he saw for the first time that she wasn’t wearing any makeup. He’d so seldom seen a woman without makeup that her face seemed indecently naked and he found himself blushing at that thought. Her eyes were fringed with long thick fairish lashes and he found himself thinking how much nicer it looked than being caked with so much mascara raising the lids must be aerobic exercise. Despite virtually living with his fiancée he was certain he’d never seen her without makeup.

“You keep a photo of your dog from when you were a child in your wallet, under the one of your fiancée,” she said, her eyes looking deeply into his. “She hates dogs, most animals in fact. That’s one of the reasons you’re having second thoughts. You know the others.”

He was shaken, badly shaken but he tried to hide it.

“I take it back,” he said. “You are pretty good as a psychic. Nice trick. How’d you do it?”

“As I said,” she said. “I have a gift.”

There was an awkward silence.

“What did you tell her?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“That’s not for you to know,” she said. “I was going to remind her to get her Lottery ticket tomorrow, because her numbers will probably come up, but when she was so nasty, I thought, no. It’s not her time.”

“So you reckon her numbers will come up?”

Again she shrugged.

“Nothing is certain you know,” she said. “But when I came in here and saw her, the chances were those numbers would be coming up.”

“What numbers were they?”

She laughed out loud.

“Come on now!” she said. “I’m not telling you that. It’s not for you. You aren’t the one who dreams about leaving her highflying, highly paid and hardworking career to live a life of decadent luxury where she need never wear the same pair of knickers twice.”

This time he was shocked.

“How do you know about that?” he demanded. “There was no one else there.”

She smiled.

“I told you,” she said. “I have a gift.”

He was beginning to feel very unnerved now. He had had a fling with the woman who had left. It had been some years ago and it had ended almost as soon as it began. The evening had begun with a lot of drinks then back to her place for more drinks, leading to various confessions of their dreams and ambitions and finally to bed. Languishing in post coital bliss he had made the mistake of asking her how it had been for her.

“Not too bad,” she’d said. “But maybe next time I’ll draw you a map and a set of instructions.”

Understandably from his point of view, there had been no next time. But he had always thought bitterly of her every time he saw the Lottery draw on television. He’d never so much as bought a ticket himself. He’d almost decided to stop coming here on a Friday until he told himself sternly that he would not let her ruin something that he enjoyed. He enjoyed the few quiet drinks here in the dull quiet hiatus between Friday afternoon and the start of the weekend. He enjoyed them so much it was a real effort to go out again properly later in the evening.

“So what are my dreams then if you know hers?” he asked, feigning indifference by finishing his beer and signalling for another.

“You want to make a difference but you don’t know how,” she said and he found himself blushing again as if she had revealed his intimate dimensions to the world. “You worry that if you marry your fiancée you never will get the chance to make a difference anywhere, anytime, except maybe to the prosperity of the shoe and dress industry.”

He was speechless with shock. These were not things she could have found out from anywhere; these were thoughts he had never so much as given voice to. Even in that drunken game of truth or dare he had not revealed his true dreams and ambitions and he had never so much a breathed a whisper of concern about his intended’s taste for expensive shoes and designer clothes.

She finished her drink and set the glass down.

“I must be off,” she said. “I’m supposed to be meeting my sisters. We work together.”

“What do you do then?” he asked and she frowned slightly.

“It’s a bit difficult to explain,” she said. “You might call it human resources, I suppose. We have our own company.”

“Are you any good then?” he said. “I could put some work your way if you like.”

“We are good,” she said without any false modesty. “The best. We have sufficient business currently though, thank you. It was kind of you to offer though.”

She started to move away from the bar. The sleeve of the dress caught on something, a nail or a splinter and a tiny shred of fabric ripped away and hung on the edge of the bar. She grinned at his distraught face ruefully. He was clearly expecting the kind of tantrum most women were likely to throw at ripping their dress.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m pretty good with threads. And you’ll be all right too. Just listen to what your heart is really telling you and you can’t go far wrong. You’re a kind man, you know. Go make a difference.”

She walked away from the bar, her worn Greek sandals slapping softly on the smooth floor and her strange dress shimmering around her as she walked. He unfastened the shred of fabric from the nail it had caught on and held it up to the light. It felt like silk, so soft he could almost not feel it at all and through the oatmeal coloured fabric he could see finer threads of what looked like gold woven into the material. A faint and agreeable herbal scent seemed to cling to the scrap, a fragrance of bay and thyme so very unlike any of the power perfumes popular with city women but which really gave him a headache. He tucked the shred into his wallet with the picture of his dog and went home.

A week later he found himself in the bar again, listening to the music of rain and traffic outside and contemplating his coffee. He’d half hoped the girl would be there again, but inside he knew she wouldn’t be. Even so, when the door opened, his heart lifted. It was the woman he’d had the fling with years back. He got up and went over to join her, motivated by some curiosity he’d not have given in to before. Her face looked jaded and sour and her perfume had gone sour too with too hot a day and too little fresh air.

“Bad week?” he asked lightly.

She looked at him with the amused half contempt a woman reserves for an inadequate lover who still tries to be friends in the hope of a second try.

“Yes, actually,” she said acerbically. “First of all, I split up from Paul. He expected me to forgive him his little slip but when I told him about mine he blew up and dumped me. Then I was so upset I forgot to buy my Lottery ticket. And of course, guess what?”

“Your numbers came up,” he said quietly.

“Four and a half million quid lost just because that little bitch last week told me that if I didn’t tell Paul someone else would,” she said bitterly. “And you? Bad week?”

“No, actually,” he said. “I split up with Michelle.”

She looked at him with some interest.

“So that makes it a good week then does it?” she said sarcastically.

“Better that now than later,” he said.

“Why did you split up?”

“We want different things from life,” he said simply.

She gazed at her wine for a minute.

“Well, an ill wind and all that,” she said. “How about coming back to mine then and consoling each other? I bet after two years with her you won’t need a map any more, not with her experience after all.”

It might have stung once but not now.

“No thanks,” he said. “I’m going out shortly.”

“You don’t hang around,” she said sharply. “Plenty more fish in the sea after all.”

He smiled.

“Not exactly,” he said, finishing his coffee. “I’ve got my first shift as a volunteer at the Night Shelter.”

He went out into the evening, sunshine showing through the grey clouds like gold thread through raw silk, and smiled at his second chance.

Snapshot in Ice

Snapshot in ice

 

The world is frozen,

Every web edged in ice,

Occupant huddled under leaf

Awaiting a thaw.

Seedheads, candied in frost,

Return to brief flowering,

Coated in fragile crystal

So dense it seems furry.

Ferns are turned to fossils,

Chrysanthemums to pom-poms.

Even the air is frozen,

Full of microscopic ice.

Foghorns call across the miles,

Invisible as owls in the night,

And the sea, oblivious,

Crashes softly on the shore.

Dangerous Age

Dangerous Age

 

I’m at a dangerous age:

Too old to be young,

Too young to be old.

Women like me straddle extremes,

A foot planted squarely on each.

I might do anything:

Run away to Bali,

Find adventure or a vocation,

Or stay home, learn bridge

And buy a shopping trolley.

I’m not done being young yet;

I’m not ready to exchange

My running shoes for slippers,

I’m not ready to cut my hair,

Colour away the silver threads

And save up for Botox.

I’m at a dangerous age:

Are you ready for this?

 

V

I don’t have a life:
I exist in the corners
Of the lives of others
Kind enough to lend me space.
No, don’t shake your head,
Protest and frown,
Condemning me for self-pity.
It’s true: the words say it all:
Wife, daughter, friend, mother.
They define me by my
Relationships with others.
My name: a jumble of sounds
Meaning nothing in themselves,
A label by which to identify,
Quantify, stratify and forget:
Put me in my box
And hope I stay there.
Me, I reduce my name
To a single initial.
It takes up less space, less attention.
And maybe, just maybe
Beyond all names
I may shine, alone.

By Viv

I’ve been lurking and peeping at the window for a while an Michael suggested I contact Miki and so now I have come on board. I’m not sure at al ofthe protocol or etiquette in this place but I hope not to overturn at coffee cups. I also have no idea how to post anything beyond comments.
I should introduce myself: I’m Vivienne, often known just as Viv or even V, and I’m a writer from Suffolk in England. I have written since before I could read, bashing away on my Dad’s typewriter while the story in my head thundered away. I’ve had a fair bit published over the years in the way of poems, short stories and articles but the great prize still eludes me. Having got to the committee stage with various publishers who were considering taking on novels from me, and then have them back out I think I know a little of what it must feel like to be abandoned at the altar. Michael said in another post that Writers need to be read and I couldn’t agree more. It’d also be nice if they got paid too but that may be a counsel of luxury right now at these times of huge changes. So I’d like to say hi to you all and hope we can get to know each other.
I have posted here a poem that has been published before and hope that you like it and that it may help to introduce me better than I can here:
V

Bubble Boy in Cafe Literati

For those who haven’t got it yet, because they are deeply involved in all these actual festivities, I will repeat here, certainly not for the last time:

Following an idea from Kev Moore and  Michael Pokocky we have opened here,  in Cafe Crem,  “Cafe Literati”, our Literary Room. You can read more about it in the page dedicated to it.  Cafe Literati is open to all writers who want to prepublish their novels, poetry, short stories, etc. in the form of a continuous serialization in the net.

Michael Pokocky has started already with “One More Day”, the first of the 11 novels he has written. Once again, Michael, 1000 thanks for this exciting step and great novel!

Kev Moore will follow soon with a novel too, I won’t tell you the name yet, you will discover it when he is ready to start, soon after his New Year solo gig. By the way, if you still don’t know what to do on that night, join us there, it will be a great show and Kev Moore will certainly gives all he has to his audience, and I can tell you: it is a lot!

But for now it is my turn to announce the publication of my illustrated children book, called “Bubble Boy”

But before I start I want to tell you a story about it. I wrote this story in German under the name “Bule” about 25 years ago, at a time where I was quite a beginner in art. I needed some help, somehow, to be able to illustrate from imagination a whole story, so I inspired myself, especially for the second main character of the story, from some of the drawings, from an artist called Brian Bagnall who was my favourite Cartoonist and illustrator at that time. I don’t remember how deeply I really went into his style (simply said: how much I really copied him! but not so much either) so if you like my illustrations, Brian Bagnall should get some credit too for it.

But now to the story of the novel. After having written it, I never tried to publish it, but I gave it to some people to read, with the original illustrations. The day arrived when somehow the whole thing disappeared and nobody around me felt responsible. I thought the last one to have it between her fingers was a young girl called Daniele, but she denied it, and after a while I gave up looking for it. Quite sad, I must say…

And then the years passed, I moved many different times, thought sometimes with regret about My Bubble Boy, but always less and forgot him eventually.

Earlier this year, in February,  I suddenly received the following email (in German) though a French schoolfriends site:

“Everybody knows it:

The net is very chatty

and uncovers some hidden secrets

when you ask him the right question.

Now that you have a net existence

maybe I can add another little piece of the Puzzle

to your already so restless life…

Having saying that:

Keep moving, always!”

followed by a link to a web page, almost blank, with the following words in the middle:

Bule

bei Momo

I was very surprised, and at first had no idea what that was. But then suddenly I remembered: Bule! Bule, the little boy born in a soap bubble in Japan and travelling through the sky in his bubble!

Bule, this (unpublished) story for children which I wrote and illustrated when I sometimes let myself be called “Momo”,  in honour of a  little orphan living in a ruin and chasing time thieves…

Bule, the book which I thought was lost forever… almost forgotten… banished from my memory…

And I asked myself: Who sent them back to me? Well, I won’t make the story too long here, but after some investigation, I found out that it was my first husband who sent the link to me,. He had found the book back somewhere! And well, some weeks later, I was even in possession of the original drawings. You can perhaps imagine my happiness! I want here to thank him, Johannes, for having done that for me. It means immensely much to me, the story itself, and the gesture.  He was by the way the one who brought me to writing too, something which I deeply enjoy, perhaps even more than painting…

So! Here he is, my Bubble Boy, and it is with this logo that I will serialise the story, under the names “Bubble Boy 1″, “Bubble Boy 2″, etc… I will publish twice a week, always, as far as possible, on Mondays and Thursdays. Starting on Thursday, 1st.January, 2009.

By Miki

Cafe Literati

Kev Moore's Hand

As a result of the idea of  prepublishing here (serialising it on a regular basis), in Cafe Crem,  Michael Polocky’s novel “One More Day”, and the pact Kev Moore did with him:

“… and just in case you need further incentive – for every chapter you publish, I will try and write and present a short story…” (Oh no, Kev Moore, I haven’t forgotten!)

- We three decided to open here “The Literary Room”, open to all actual and budding writers from Cafe Crem, and starting NOW!

Today Kevin found for it the wonderful name of “Cafe Literati”.

I suppose no many people here know it, but I am myself a writer, kind of… I wrote in the past a novel, and an illustrated book for children, but I never tried to publish them. Well, I have just decided, along with Michael and Kevin, to publish here for the first time my children story, with the corresponding illustrations. Unfortunately I wrote it in German, as I was living in Germany. But I will translate it into English for all our readers here, and Kevin will make the necessary corrections. The name of the story is “Bubble Boy”.

Michael Pokocky has already started to publish One More Day. To find it, scroll down the categories on the right hand side of this site, you will find it under the category “Cafe Literati”.

WELCOME ALL, WRITERS AND READERS ALIKE, TO CAFE LITERATI !

Miki's Hand

By  Miki

Greetings

Many hot chocolate cups are on their way for this season. This morning there was frost on the patio table and chairs, and I had to run to the trash bins in my light PJs; quick to come back to my safety nest inside.

Soon the house will be full of relatives and children, happy noise will be heard all around these walls and we will enjoy Xmas goodies. I do not need much to be happy. Happy hearts and laughter, family, that is good enough.

Happy Holidays to all and I hope you are enjoying the season as much!