• Browse
  • Home
  • Stories
  • Brooches
  • Competitions
  • Podcasts
  • About The Casket
  • About Joanna

The Casket of Fictional Delights

Brooches Podcasts Stories

Three Portraits & Three Tales

by Dawn Reeves

Flash FictionAudio Romantic, Thought-provoking

While visiting the BP Portrait Award 2012 exhibition Dawn Reeves and I were particularily drawn to three portraits.  They have inspired these three short tales –  to view the three portraits from exhibition click the links at the end of each tale.

Dear Barbara

by Joanna Sterling
5a Atlantic View
Windy Villas
The Lizard
Cornwall

 Dear Barbara

What a surprise, you remembered, this year. Imagine my delight when I felt the squidginess of the parcel and realised you had been busy with your knitting needles. All that work, such plain neat stiches. Just as good as M&S. I usually stick to green, complements my eyes. I’ve never worn red before. I am sure it’s good for me to have a change. As our mother would have said.

Am settling into the new flat. The movers broke some of Aunt Phyllis’s china. That ugly pattern, do you remember? All bright colours and geometric shapes, by some famous maker? Name like Clarence Cliffe I think.

Not having much success with my window boxes. I read somewhere sea air is the devil, the salt. If I can toughen up so can they.

Have you heard from that feckless brother of ours? I still have some of Maurice’s boxes. And only one spare room now. There’re piled up almost to the ceiling. It’s impossible for me to get the place straight. No one’s going to want to come and stay in a room with all that clutter. He promised to collect them before he left on his latest trip. A postcard arrived from some part of South America three months ago, saying weather dreadful, food hot, scenery magnificent, back soon. Have you room for 17 boxes? I’ve no idea what’s in them. A couple are beginning to smell. I unpacked one. Ethnic wood carvings from Papua New Guinea. I’ve mounted a couple on the wall; they covered up an unpleasant looking damp patch surprisingly well. One’s a man with a beard and tribal headdress, reminds me of Maurice a bit. It’s the set of the eyes- they follow me around the room, as if he’s here keeping an eye on me or is it his things? I do miss him you know. Maybe you could pop in for a drink the next time you are passing. Not many people make it this far.

Yours Antonia

p.s. The views of the sea, waves crashing against the rocks are Daphne Du Maurier to a ‘t’, and it doesn’t rain here all the time, really it doesn’t.

 Still Waiting by Antonio Barahona

Relief in Grey

By Dawn Reeves

The portrait world had moved on. My agent had said, “it’s gone as far as it can. When you can’t tell the difference between the painting and the photo, just use a bloody camera.” It had been my life’s work perfecting the technique. I sacked him and pressed on. Julia was a model of patience. I decided to go big. A two metre portrait would breathe life into the form. The limitations of a black and white palette were challenging but it offered the chance to go behind the black, shade the white, to dazzle with an ellipse of greys; to become art.

My brush was as fine as the translucent downy hairs on her chin. Four thousand strokes in an inch. After two years, the painting was nearing completion when Julia’s father died. She sat silently, her eyes brimmed with water. It was a turning point. The emergence of grief began to take the picture beyond realism, back to the painterly.

We drank heavily and talked about her most intimate childhood memories; the way her father’s warm hand rubbed away her stomach ache; the bedtime stories of Russian ballerinas. I pushed for a perfect teardrop, asking about the pain he’d been in at the end, the shape of his mouth as he took his last breath.

But the tears had set like gel over the whites of her eyes. The effect was stunning. The substance, such a concentrated form of humanity, felt ethereal, otherworldly. Desperate to capture the sorrow in that viscous liquid, I painted on into the night; finally falling into my leather chair, admiring the work through the prism of a whiskey glass. I awoke to find Julia gone, released. The essence of her pain left on the canvass.

Silent Eyes by Antonios Titakis

Always with Him

by Joanna Sterling

The coat reached almost to the ground. Double breasted brown tweed with flecks of green and blue, buttons made of horn. The lining red silk, threadbare and faded now, except behind Marika where the colour remained as vibrant as she. He wore the coat no matter the weather. People commented upon it. Didn’t he have another? Wasn’t he hot? He just smiled and replied – it was a good coat. He liked his coat. It had seen him through many trials and adventures. He wrapped the coat tighter around his bony frame. The excess material hung loose about him now. He had to have her close to him always.

The photo had been taken in Budapest. A cold day, Marika didn’t have a coat, she’d hugged herself to keep warm. They didn’t care. They were young, they were in love. You could wrap two people under his new coat, especially petite Marika. No one knew she was there. In the park they could huddle and cuddle. The only give away two pairs of feet. But who looked at feet. If he pulled up the collar around them they could be quite private. He liked to remember those days. The feel of her breasts pressed close to his chest, only two fragile layers of material separating them. If he shut his eyes, there was the smell of lavender water. She dabbed it behind her ears just at the point where her hair started to curl. Her nose wrinkling up when she giggled.

Marika, his Marika.

All he had left now were his memories and the photo taken that day in the park in Budapest. He remembered the old woman, she had lent him needle and thread. How each sway and jerk of the train had caused the needle to stab his fingers. And how the lights on the train kept going out. It had taken a long time to sew her photo into the inside of his coat – next to his heart. At each border checkpoint his pockets were turned out. But the photo was safe.

And Marika? She was taken to Vyhne to labour for the Nazis. She had not been safe.

 All Dressed Up for Mam and Dad by Peter Goodfellow

  •  
  •  
  •  
Hear

You are listening to
Three Portraits & Three Tales
by Dawn Reeves

http://media.blubrry.com/the_casket___new_short_stories/content.blubrry.com/the_casket___new_short_stories/Three-Portraits-and-Three-Tales.mp3

Story read by Menna Bonsels and Keith Morris for The Casket of Fictional Delights.

About Dawn Reeves

Dawn writes, tap dances, cycles and makes change happen. She’s motivated by social justice, believes in public service, is fascinated by power and anything weird and wonderful under the surface. Her first novel 'Hard Change' - a political thriller, was published in 2013.

About Joanna Sterling

Joanna writes short stories and flash fiction, has had her work published in a number of magazines and anthologies. She lives in London with her ever growing collection of Brooches.

You’ve reached the end of this story. Please do explore further. And if you’re feeling generous today, donate to The Casket and help keep the fictional delights flowing. Want to know when more stories arrive? Make sure you sign up for regular updates.

A little tin-rattle

The Casket is a platform for new, fresh and enjoyable short reads. We don’t receive any grants and your generosity helps us provide FREE accessible ad-free content. Any donation is hugely appreciated. If you would like to contribute, donate by PayPal by submitting your name and an amount.

Sending

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

If you choose to leave a comment on The Casket of Fictional Delights, in addition to the comment you provide we collect a little data, including your IP address, in order to check it isn't spam and to publish the comment. Following approval, your comment text, name and website URL (if provided) are visible to the public. To find out how your data is used, check our Privacy Policy

News

Christmas is Coming

We are gearing up for Christmas here at The Casket.  We have two stories by Morgan Parks  in December

A Bigger Tree Each Year

Lucky Elf

And the Brooch of the Month comes from Estonia.

Don't to forget to let us know what you think of all our stories and our brooches  @casketfiction.

 

Check out other short stories on The Casket of Fictional Delights

The Goldsmiths' Fair

Journeys through Jewellery

Rue Pigalle designs women-only trips around the world, for intimate groups of art, jewellery and culture lovers.  Isabelle describes herself as having three passions; jewellery, art and craftsmanship. She takes her clients on journeys of discovery around the world, destinations include Paris, Barcelona and New York.  There are trips to London planned in 2020 and as a prelude Isabelle asked me to write two pieces on this year’s Goldsmiths’ Fair. Followers of my Brooch of the Month blog will know I regularly visit and shop at the Goldsmiths’ Fair, so I was delighted to take up the challenge and report back all the highlights for readers of Rue Pigalle.

Goldsmiths' Fair Week One

Goldsmiths' Fair Week Two

Tweetings

  • RT @MennaBonsels: Enjoy Christmas short stories by @MorganJParks And look for the podcast of Lucky Elf, read by @ajacksonbond https://t.co/TKsVU9ooRK, 22 hours ago
  • Sunset from our balcony. #relaxing #sunset https://t.co/B1ROvFadbF, Dec 3
  • I have spent 2 days of my holiday trying to make @VodafoneUK work crappie service all they have done is increase my traif and it still doesn't work , Dec 2
Follow The Casket on Twitter

Podcasts

Prefer to listen? - from the beginning The Casket of Fictional Delights has specialised in producing high quality podcasts of short stories and flash fiction compilations. The podcasts are recorded by actors and voiceover artists and produced by a professional studio manager ensuring we maintain a consistent high standard. I’ve chosen three to highlight the variety and quality of work we have to offer - visit our Podcast page for more. I hope you enjoy listening to them.

Casket podcast highlights

Listen!

  • Apple Podcasts
  • Android Podcasts
  • Spotify
  • Stitcher
  • Tunein

Sign up for our Newsletter

The Casket of Fictional Delights newsletter delivers the latest story or brooch of the month fresh off the press, and keeps you informed about our competitions and other Casket news periodically.

No spam, ever - and we never use your details for anything but sending your newsletter. You can change your mind at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of any email you receive from us.

View our Privacy Policy

  • Stories
  • Authors
  • Podcasts
  • Brooches
  • Birth of a collection
  • About The Casket
  • About Joanna
  • Liu Xiaobo
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Donate to delight!
  • The Casket on Facebook
  • The Casket on Twitter
  • The Casket on Pinterest

Text & stories © Joanna Sterling 2019
Stories © various authors
Audio by Menna Bonsels
Maintained by Brighton WebTech
Brooch photography by Mark Colliton