Trust & Other Balancing Acts

By S. T. Blake

This fantastical, weird and witty collection of short stories and flash fiction features a host of familiar characters, including Humphrey Bogart, Alice in Wonderland & Oscar Wilde, and also provides the answer to lots of random questions no one normally asks, such as –
What happens if you organise a jewel heist with a crow?
Why does a time traveller hold such a grudge against Frank Sinatra?
What unseemly use was Cinderella’s glass slipper put to?

With stories that range from sci fi to biographical sketches of well-known personalities, and from mythology to humor, Trust & Other Balancing Acts is a quick-fire collection of stories with something for everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S. T. Blake
• Release date: Jan 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215499351

S. T. Blake

I’m an Anglo-Irish writer of stories that have a fantastical or paranormal worldview – often containing darkness, but also touched with satirical humour.I’ve always liked stories that seem rooted in everyday reality but have fantastical elements which serve to unhinge the recognisable world in a surprising or unsettling fashion. For me, that description fits a range of books, including Fantastic Mr Fox (which I remember being the first book I read through obsessively), Dracula or Gormenghast; and writers such as Shirley Jackson, Philip K. Dick, J. G. Ballard, H.P. Lovecraft, Caitlin R. Kiernan and Angela Carter.Apart from that, I’m a musical obsessive and a poor guitar player. The key characters in my first novel, Feline Alchemy, were based on two cats I lived with, sisters called George and Bootsy (named after George Clinton and Bootsy Collins of Funkadelic, obviously).I live in Milton Keynes, England.

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Trust & Other Balancing Acts

By S. T. Blake

Copyright 2023 S. T. Blake

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Contents

Trust and Other Balancing Acts

You Wore Blue

After the Nivelle Offensive

Murmur of Obituaries

End Times

Hype

Resume, circa 800 BC

Domestic Noir

Dreamt Things

Don Quixote’s School of Regret

The Unspeakable

Dance Partners

The Flying Problem

Regrets Aren’t Like Sinatra Said, the Schmuck

Ex Luminary

What Sparks

Las Vegas Widow

Luxury, Leisure and Spirit

Cinderella’s Bordello

When the Looking-Glass is No Longer a Friend

Scrying

What We Call Mother’s Day

Have You Seen the Rain?

S/L/O/P/E

Other Tears

Aches and Mirrors

From Space, the Planet is Blue

Chariots

Free Book – ‘Eyewitness & Other Fictions’

Other books by S. T. Blake

About the Author

Trust and Other Balancing Acts

Roped together, precariously, and using dainty umbrellas as their only means of balancing on the tightrope that supported them, they made an unlikely team.  Lithe and unhealthily slender, looking like a tourist from the spirit world, a red-headed girl led the way.  The black party dress she wore was her disguise, she said, and it fluttered wildly in the wind that whipped across the roofs.  Close behind her traipsed a crow.

This is not a promising scenario for a jewellery heist, not at all, complained the crow, with a forlorn little caw that was hardly heard above the wailing wind.  Still, he resolutely followed after his determined mistress, placing his talons carefully around the tightrope they ascended.  He worried about her motives, but his loyalty was unquestionable.  Then, staring down at the speck of a street far below them, the crow worried about his mistress’ fragile bones and how quickly they’d snap into tiny bony trinkets if a stronger gust of wind carried her off.  Very foolish, the crow pondered, in silence: never evolving wings like that.  What on earth was your gene pool thinking of all this time?

His mistress, of course, failed to notice his concern.  Set, as she was, on forging ahead along that slender bit of rope that twanged a little at each step, her attention remained fixed on the promised prize, on the riches that lay in wait.  And so, she only heard the crow’s complaint, and chastised him.  What have I told you about this aura of negativity you carry around with you constantly?  It’ll drag you down in the end, it really will.  And I don’t want that, especially now, when we’re roped together like this.  Do try to brighten up a bit.  She tried to flash a little smile over her shoulder, to bolster some good cheer in him.  But, nearly losing her footing on the swaying tightrope, her attention switched back to righting herself and she merely shot back what looked like a disgruntled sneer in the crow’s direction.

The crow frowned at his mistress’ accidental sneer.  I’m a crow, he sighed, I don’t do ‘bright’; it would look foolish on me.  You ought to have formed an alliance with a budgerigar if you wanted bright.

But budgerigar’s aren’t very bright… I mean, they’re not very clever.  Crows, meanwhile, are outrageously clever.  At this, the crow gave a little nod and ruffled his gloomy plumes.

Tis an astute observation and yet it hardly constitutes a plan.

There is a plan, his mistress nodded.  Most definitely.

Care to share? the crow deadpanned. 

Take jewels.  Flee.  I’ve always wanted to flee, you see.

I do see.  Although… the authorities might not want to let you flee too far, only into a cell of their choosing.

I’ve thought of that.

Oh good.

If the plan goes unaccountably wrong and I’m caught during tonight’s little spree then I’ll face a lie detector test.  And what happens then?  I can’t pretend I didn’t commit the robbery because, as you see, I did.  Or rather I will.  So, that’s not an option.

It might perhaps still be an option never to steal the jewels?  Have we considered that yet?

No, that’s not an option either.  I deserve those jewels.  Those jewels deserve me.  End of argument.

Very well, I’ve no wish to argue.  And I feel sure you’re deserving of many jewels.  I like you.  You’re my favourite mistress.  And my favourite jewel thief, too.

Why, thank you!

It’s my pleasure.  But…

But?  The girl paused on the tightrope and turned around, with wobbling care, to confront any objections face-to-face.

But that still doesn’t explain my role here, tightrope walking my way onto the ‘Most Wanted’ list, as an accessory before the fact.

Well, once they strap me into that lie detector of theirs, I’ll have no choice but to confess to my crimes.  But I won’t stop there.  No, I’ll go on to admit, in great detail, that my accomplice was you, a very bright, though not bright, little crow.  No doubt they’ll decide I’m not fit to stand trial after hearing that.  And it’s just so much easier to escape from some cosy asylum, in a pleasant countryside setting, than it is from any gaol.  Trust me, I know.

The crow gazed into his mistress’ sparkling eyes and nodded his gloomy head.  Then, turning their faces into the howling wind once more, they inched further along the tightrope towards all sorts of treasures.

You Wore Blue

It’s funny about wars –

(No, you’re right.  Nothing’s ever funny about wars.  But you remember what my sense of humour’s like, remember how it got me into trouble even at the best of times?)

But all I mean to say is, it’s funny how wars get so familiar, like family.  You don’t notice it at first but, after you get up close to a few, real close, you can’t help but see how much they all resemble each other.  You see the same heartache etched on every face, and betrayal.  That family likeness is unnerving.  Most families share blood but this one shares bloodshed.  It’s rising up all around you, day-by-day.  It’s like a biblical flood with no Noah in sight who’s sailing to rescue his chosen few.  Well, maybe Noah does still turn up to rescue the chosen few.  What would I know about that?  None of my crowd was ever lucky enough, or smart enough, or just low-down cunning enough, to get counted among the chosen few.

Anyway, I guess I never had much time for the chosen few any time I met them.  And they had even less time for me. 

(Good judges of character, those chosen few.  Am I right?)

Let’s raise another glass to the chosen few!  No, I can’t remember who the other glasses were raised to, either.  I gave up keeping count a long, long time ago.  I guess when you own half-a-dozen bars for half your life then alcohol’s the easiest way to go.  At least you know you’re getting trade rates on the disease that’ll carry you off.  That’s some consolation.

(I used to