by Snyman Rijkloff | Jul 18, 2026 | 20 minute lees, By Brigham Whitmore, English, Flash fiction
It was the time Lily’s nephew came to stay for the holidays.
Now, just to give the story a bit of perspective, believe me when I tell you that Lily isn't merely the prettiest young lady in Little Wyverton, she is the most beautiful woman in the whole wide world. Her splendour has a way of filling a man's dreams with colours, scents and a general atmosphere of happiness that simply refuses to be described. Her smile, her nose, those eyebrows of hers... good heavens, I become positively emotional just thinking about her.
Now, by one of those curious balancing acts nature occasionally performs, Lily is exactly as beautiful as her nephew is spectacularly unfortunate in the looks department. The little chap, whose greatest ambition in life is to become a firefighter, possesses such flaming red hair, freckles and crooked teeth that even the village schoolmaster looks ready to burst into tears whenever he catches sight of the youngster.
So it came to pass that the nephew, one Toby Milnerton by name, arrived to spend a week with Lily and her mother. It wasn't long before the first signs of calamity appeared. The little blighter decided that it would be an excellent idea to throw firecrackers underneath the chicken coop. To describe the resulting commotion as noisy would be rather like describing the ocean as slightly damp. Feathers filled the air, chickens flew in every conceivable direction, and absolute mayhem took complete possession of the premises.
I have never had much affection for Staffordshire terriers myself. Especially not since Lily and her family's staffie, Isabella, once mistook my ankle for a garden hose, or whatever it was the wretched dame imagined it had discovered. But even Isabella lost all sense of dignity during the chicken-coop affair and promptly began chewing the tyres of the old Lagonda with admirable determination.
By the time the little menace had progressed to hurling tins of fish onto the corrugated iron roof of the shed, Lily dashed down the passage and grabbed the telephone.
"Georgie, the time to show yourself a true and proper gentleman has indeed arrived."
"Your dear mother lost her jewellery again, have she?"
"Not quite the scenario. But believe you me, you, George Bernard Adley, were born for a time such as this."
"Lily, my darling, what on earth is that noise? Renovating perhaps?"
"If we were renovating, I'd have invited you over for tea. This, however, is a matter of life and death."
"Go on. It sounds as though bombs are falling."
"That's Toby throwing bricks onto the roof of the shed."
"Bricks?"
"Yes. He's finished with the tins of fish."
"So what exactly do you expect me to do? Sort the little fellow out!"
"It's worse than that, Georgie. You don't understand. If my mother comes home and sees this chaos..." Her voice dropped dramatically. "Georgie, this is an emotional situation."
"That bad?"
"Even Isabella has started pulling the sheets off the washing line! I don't know what to do anymore. Please come... I'll bake you a sticky toffee pudding and all."
"And all?"
"Georgie!"
"All right, all right. I'm on my way."
So off I went towards the Long household, wondering how on earth one subdued a child who appeared to have been raised by whirlwinds.
When I arrived, the poor dog, never thought I'd live to apply those words to a Staffordshire terrier, was busily chewing a wheel off a wheelbarrow. Inside the house, the child had advanced to setting fire to the kitchen curtains. You know the sort: short, dainty little things that seem positively eager to burst into flames. Lily was darting from one side of the kitchen to the other, beating at the fire with anything within reach, while the youngster stood in the middle of it all spraying the garden hose around the kitchen as though the whole performance had been organised solely for his amusement.
"Didn't your late father own a belt?" I asked. "I think it's about time I gave the boy a proper hiding."
"'Owned' is the right word," she replied, yanking the burning curtain from the rail and throwing it into the sink. "Look behind you."
I turned and saw the belt lying on the kitchen floor, or rather, what remained of it. It consisted of nothing more than a few forlorn strips of leather.
"Isabella?" I asked.
"The very same."
I couldn't help smiling. The dog had quite literally saved the youngster from the hiding of a lifetime.
Just then I heard the familiar tinny tune of the neighbourhood ice-cream cart drifting down the street. Inspiration arrived with it. I grabbed the little fellow by the collar, hoisted him over my shoulder, and carried him straight out the front door.
Not five minutes later, the two of us were sitting peacefully on the kerb, each holding an ice cream.
"How on earth did you manage that?" Lily asked, taking my hand towards her mouth and calmly helping herself to a lick of my ice cream.
"I told him that if he behaved himself, he'd get to ride in Donovan's fire engine."
Lily frowned.
I merely winked.
With a generous helping of imagination, Donovan's red big old pickup truck served admirably that afternoon as Little Wyverton's very own fire engine.
by Snyman Rijkloff | Jun 20, 2026 | By Brigham Whitmore, English, Flash fiction, Tea and Toast
Tea and Toast
from the glorious world of
George Bernard Adley.
You should understand, dear reader, that when Lily comes sailing into my print shop with the words "Georgie, we need to talk," you may stake your last shilling on the fact that this is not a matter of idle chit-chat. And don't imagine for one moment she'll tell you what this pressing matter actually is. No, first we are to proceed to Antonio's Roastery for coffee.
It's actually Eddie Thomas's establishment, and where the fellow acquired the name Antonio is a mystery known only to himself.
I made my case that I hadn't a farthing to my name, but Lily took me by the ear and hauled me, very nearly over the desk, straight out of the office. The coffee, mercifully, was to be on her.
Once installed, it was I alone doing the drinking of coffee. Lily, in recent years, has developed an alarming devotion to milkshakes.
"Georgie," she began, launching into her tale, "I am worried."
"Worried?"
"Worried," she confirmed, with a nod of the old bean.
And with that particular furrow upon the dear lady's brow, I could tell the worry in question ran deep.
"If this is about my wanting to name my cat Antonín Dvořák, then..."
"Georgie, I shall never understand you," she cut in. "Your business is genuinely in the soup, and you imagine I care two figs what you call your cat."
"And how, pray, do you know my business is in the soup?"
"Carol's been telephoning me. She says you're behind on the soap she delivered to you last week."
"But I never ordered the wretched stuff! She simply delivers as the fancy takes her."
"Isn't it a monthly arrangement?"
"Yes, I order it every month. But if I haven't ordered it, what on earth makes her think she can simply deliver it regardless?"
"She probably assumed you'd forgotten to order."
"My dear, that's her lookout, not mine."
"Seriously, Georgie, what is going on there?"
"Slight cash-flow difficulties. Nothing I shan't have well in hand presently."
"Yes, and haven't I heard that particular tune before. I know precisely how you go about getting things 'in hand.'"
"Well, what do you propose?" I asked, already aware that Lily would never have dragged me out here unless some scheme were already brewing beneath that fringe of hers.
"This very coffee shop," she said, with a smile so broad you'd have thought she'd just won the national baking contest.
"What about this very coffee shop?"
"We buy it!" She flung her hands skyward, positively radiant with excitement. "Or rather, we take it over."
"Have you gone entirely off your trolley? What do I know about coffee? And what on earth makes you think Eddie, lurking there behind his till, wants to give the place up?"
"He told me so," she said, looking thoroughly pleased with herself. "It's true. He's been taking evening courses to become a programmer. Something to do with computers. The man's making a career change."
It was at this precise juncture that I found myself in need of something considerably stronger than coffee. And it was at this very same juncture that a young man slunk in, clad in black denim and a Metallica T-shirt. With silver about his neck and dangling from each ear, and a tattoo of a hideous looking serpent coiled across his left hand, the fellow gave every impression of being under the influence of something that had rendered him remarkably tranquil.
"That's Jones," Lily whispered to me. "Our town's resident programmer. Though it's rather odd seeing him out in broad daylight. Like certain nocturnal species, he generally only emerges after dark."
"Perhaps he's come to give Eddie a programming lesson," I whispered back.
To cut a long story short, both Lily and I had entirely missed the mark.
To our considerable astonishment, it was Eddie giving Jones lessons, on the roasting of coffee, and all the attendant ceremony thereof.
"Now that," I observed, "is interesting."
"What is?"
"Here we have a coffee expert who dreams of bettering himself in life. So he labours away after hours, studying to become a programmer. And at the very same time, you have a programmer who dreams, day in and day out, of becoming a barista. It does rather seem the grass is forever greener on the other side of the fence."
Lily sighed. "All I see is that our plans have been thoroughly run over."
And it was at precisely that moment that my phone gave its small, insistent beep.
"Lily, old thing, I've a new order in. And not a small one either, mind you! I must dash."
Being the gentleman I am, I apologised profusely with a sparkle in my eye, and made my exit at speed. A man, after all, has work to be getting on with. And what with this new commission just landed in my lap, the grass on my own side of the fence had suddenly acquired a rather encouraging shade of green as well.
by Snyman Rijkloff | Jun 15, 2026 | By Brigham Whitmore, English, Short story
A piece of flash fiction By Brighham Whitmore
There are two things in this life which I hold in the highest possible esteem, and I am not ashamed to say so.
The first is a rasher or three of good English bacon, properly attended to in a cast-iron pan, with a spoonful of kimchi alongside, and here I must pause for the benefit of any reader who has not yet made the acquaintance of kimchi, which is nothing more sinister than fermented cabbage, though I grant you it sounds alarming, the whole business served atop a generous mound of creamy mashed potato. I would eat that particular combination at any hour of the day or night, in any county in England, regardless of weather, occasion, or the opinions of others.
The second is this: in the depths of winter, after one has been out pounding the country lanes for a solid hour, to lower oneself, with appropriate reverence, into a bath of near-scalding water. There are no words in the English language adequate to the occasion. I have looked.
It was, in fact, during precisely such a moment of supreme civilised contentment that I became aware of something deeply irregular happening on the other side of the bathroom door.
A sound. Not an easy sound to categorise. Something between the ruminations of a large horse, the impatience of a prize bull, and the general disposition of a rhinoceros that has not had a satisfying morning. There was also, now that I applied myself to the question, a smell. I could not immediately identify it, though I formed a provisional opinion that it was not lavender.
My first hope, the hope of an optimist, which I have always considered myself, was that it was my imagination, and that the thing would resolve itself in short order and leave me in peace. It did not. My second hope, slightly more desperate, was that it might be some variety of ghost come to try its luck in the premises, on the reasoning that spirits, being of a delicate and heavenly constitution, tend not to linger long when they find a chap in his bath. This hope also proved unfounded. Whatever was stationed on the far side of that door was not delicate and heavenly. It was, if anything, the precise opposite of delicate and heavenly. It snuffled. It wheezed. It shifted its considerable weight with a sound like furniture being rearranged on the deck of a ship. And it showed absolutely no sign of going away.
I faced facts.
Half-submerged, warm, and profoundly unwilling to move, I nonetheless grasped that the situation demanded action. Any man who has climbed out of a hot bath in January knows that it ranks among life's grimmer experiences. But there it was. I towelled off with the speed of a man escaping a creditor and opened the door.
My heart, I believe, stopped for a measurable period.
Standing before me was a pig.
Now, had it been an ordinary pig, the sort of modest, apologetic pig one might encounter trotting across a farmyard and think nothing much of, I should have administered a gentle nudge with the foot and considered the matter settled. But this was not that pig. This pig had clearly been on a rather liberal diet for some considerable time. Pizza, I thought. Possibly beer. She was pink, she was vast, she occupied the entire door frame from one side to the other with the unself-conscious authority of a person who has never once in her life questioned her right to be exactly where she was. I am not exaggerating for literary effect. She was a very large animal indeed. The last detail I registered before slamming the door with all the force I could muster was a red collar decorated with small embroidered flowers. I did not wait to admire the floristry.
I leaned against the door. She leaned against the door. She leaned harder. I braced my feet against the base of the bath and deployed my full eleven stone, which the pig appeared to find no more troubling than a light breeze.
The bathroom floor, I should mention, is tiled. Tiles, when wet, are not one's allies. My feet went one way, I went another, and by a combination of scrambling and determination I managed to seize my mobile telephone from the little table by the towel rail and place my first call to Reginald.
With my friend not picking up, I rang Lily.
"Georgie," she said, with that particular tone she reserves for moments when she suspects I have done something inadvisable, "why on earth are you panting like that?"
"Lily, my dear," I said, keeping my voice as steady as circumstances permitted, "I need you to come round immediately with a carrot. Possibly a cabbage. Something of that general nature."
"Are you hungry?"
"Not for me!"
There was a pause.
"George Bernard Adley," she said, in a different tone entirely. It was slower, more deliberate, the tone of a woman composing her thoughts before delivering a verdict. "I never thought I should see the day. You've gone and acquired a girlfriend who's a vegetarian, and you have the absolute brass neck to telephone me and ask me to bring round the provisions. You've sunk to a new low, Georgie. A new and remarkable low."
"Lily, I have not acquired a girlfriend. I am being held hostage in my own bathroom by a pig. Would you kindly stop talking nonsense and bring some greenery?"
A brief silence.
"Is she pink?"
"Resoundingly."
"And rather large?"
"The word 'large' does not do justice to the situation. Try 'monumental.' Try 'geological.'"
"Red collar? Little flowers on it?"
"The very same. You are clearly familiar with the creature."
"Oh, that's all right then. She only wants to say hello."
"Lily. I am crouched on a wet bathroom floor in a towel, holding a door shut with my back. This is not the context in which I wish to make new acquaintances."
"She's Mrs Paddison's pet. She's been going up and down the lane all morning asking if anyone's seen her Cathryn. Apparently she's quite beside herself."
"I am beside myself. Inform Mrs Paddison that unless she retrieves her considerable darling within minutes, I shall begin to view it as a good old bacon-loaded breakfast."
I cannot entirely account for what followed, but Mrs Paddison, a small, determined woman in a waxed jacket, arrived within a quarter of an hour and managed, by means and persuasions I cannot fully explain, to coax Cathryn the Magnificent back out of the flat and into the lane without meaningful structural damage to either party.
Cathryn the Magnificent, it transpired, was something of a refined and well-travelled sow, the sort who had absorbed, over the years, a quiet but unshakeable sense of her own importance.
What I chose not to share with Lily was this: in the brief glimpse I caught of Mrs Paddison as she led her charge away down the lane, it struck me rather forcefully that the two of them had, over the years, arrived at a remarkably similar relationship with the dinner table.
by Snyman Rijkloff | May 21, 2025 | By Brigham Whitmore, English, Flash fiction
Oftentimes, it is the man, whom life has crushed beyond what the human heart can take, who stands firm in that solid character, higher moral ground and strength, who has more than once saved humanity.
And oftentimes then, it is the beautiful spoiled rich girl, brought up in the highest of society and sold to the vanity of puffed-up discourses, who disregard even the most common decencies toward a poorer class, resembling the deathly, bitter poison that devours body and soul.
But it was not so with the Clarke household.
Sophronia Rose Victoria Clarke grew up and ventured all her life in Ennismore, appropriately shielded from the rest of London. The young girl was mostly kept in the neat, dry, warm environment, filled with opulence in their family apartment.
But such was not the case in the Clarke household.
Barely sixteen years of age, she was curious about other people, and world’s to be explored. The books her father allowed her to read, were that of adventures and wars in Africa and India, of brave men and of wealth beyond comparison. Of diamonds being dug out of colossal holes, and of the largest sailing ships ferrying tea from the East Indies to the ports of England, where she, young Miss Victoria could enjoy that very tea while her imagination ran as wild as the ferocious beasts of that alluring dark continent.
Attired with a vigorous dose of ambition, her parents named her after the queen, but from the age of four or six, they comforted themselves in the notion that it was all in vain. Their little Victoria, had ideas of her own.
James Ward was also a man named after a King. He, however possessed none the nobility nor the character of a king. James was fortunate enough to have seen those diamonds Miss Victoria read about in the books, but never privileged enough to have owned one. Being warped by the greed of the mining trade, he joined the British troops in their fight against the Boers, and was rewarded with a Westley Richards’s bullet through the hip.
Armed with a cane, and a pipe and cheap tobacco, he lived in the kitchen of an apartment in White Chapel, barely keeping himself together with odd jobs at the docks. The world was a cruel and harsh place. Bitterness filled his belly. Self pity covered his soul.
Now not so often, but perhaps on a rare occasion it would happen that a young man in shanty clothes and in a wretched state, would after a long day at the quay, take his long walk home. And perhaps on such a rare occasion, a beautiful young girl in a Victorian dress would, in the spirit of youthful energy run after that man, having picked up something he accidentally dropped.
“Sir! You have dropped something that might belong to you? It must have fallen out of your pocket when you took out your pipe,” she said while feeling the cold ivory in her soft and tender hand.
“I don’t mean to trouble you, sir, but I’ve never seen anything like it, so beautifully carved with lions and elephants… What is it, sir?”
“Cut-throat.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“It’s a cut-throat razor, Miss.”
“Oh! Truly remarkable. Rather a unique piece of art, I might add!”
With those few lines, young Miss Victoria and Mr James Ward met. Two ‘bluebottles’ however, watched the distinct couple on the pavement with stark suspicion.
“Bluebottles, you say?” She didn’t understand.
“Coppers. Policemen,” he grunted.
“Let us hide in here, I have so much to ask you. Please, sir?” She pleaded, pointing to the cemetery.
“T’s old graveyard? They’ll be lock’n up soon… I’s illegal you know, they’ll take us for grave robbers, they will.”
“Oh, who will know? We’ll hide behind the sanctuaries. It’ll be our wild adventure!”
He looked doubtful.
“My father is quite all right you know, a man of reputation,” she smiled with confidence. “He will put a word in, if ever necessary.”
“He’ll save you, Miss, sure thing. For me they’ll hang.”
“Oh, do come on! I want to hear all about it. Everywhere you’ve been. Perhaps you can even take me there some day, to those faraway worlds of beauty and splendour…”
Thus it happened that the most unlikely of couples, committed the most irregular of acts, by spending an entire night, conversing in the moonlight shadows of tombstones and ancient oaks, on the subject of an adventure they both knew almost nothing about.
***
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by Snyman Rijkloff | Feb 3, 2025 | By Brigham Whitmore, English, Poems
Cry, cry, you violin of old
cry for these two souls sold
old friends you and I
and together we watch them go by
once, their love, worth more than gold
more than lovers, they too were friends of old
deeper than the fleeting feeling of romance
did they play notes of song and dance
louder you violin of old!
much louder of these lamentable stories told
for these old friends once brave and bold
gave their ways to nothing but green and musty mould
‘till two dreary hearts sunk in water deep and cold
the spirit of bondage had taken hold
so deep, so cold, we canst not bear
not even for a decent fiddler’s fare
but you, violin of old
cry, cry, with notes on high, for these two souls sold.
by Snyman Rijkloff | Apr 17, 2023 | By Brigham Whitmore, English, Flash fiction
Her curse was her beauty. She was more beautiful than all the girls in the village, so she naturally attracted all of the available men, rich and poor, strong and weak, short and tall, handsome and cruel. It was bliss winning all the beauty contests, and receiving the vast amount of attention. She had her pick among suitable partners, but as soon as she committed to one, doubt crept in and she wondered if she would not be better off with another. Day by day she grew more frustrated until her life continued to exist through a constant flow of tears. Tears of disappointment. Tears of frustration. And eventually, tears of deep sorrow.
His curse was his knowledge, insight and creativity. On countless topics, he knew more about the world and the workings thereof, than any other person in the village. People were glad to listen to him speak, his words full of grace and wisdom. But with the vast amount of knowledge and a neverending flow of creativity, he did not know what work to do, or what line of career to pursue. His interests were as wide and as deep as the ocean, and his passion for everything beautiful, stronger than the most fearsome heart. This also drove him mad, and rendered him into a state of severe depression, not knowing what to do, or how to go about his life. His tears were also that of disappointment, frustration, and untimatly, deep sorrow.
When the two finally got to know each other, it wasn’t her beauty that attracted him to her. Nor was it his graceful words of wisdom and insight that attracted her to him. No, they just needed to look into each other’s eyes and know, that which connected them could not be expressed in words. Nor could it be measured in earthly value. For through their tears of disappointment, frustration and deep sorrow, their hearts were knitted in patterns of a heavenly rhythm. The kind of rhythm found in sounds that make men free. And through that, the healing they experienced became vibrant, so vibrant it was almost tangible.
When the people of the village then looked at them and saw their deep and beautiful eyes, and their radiant, shiny and healthy faces, they called them blessed. In and through their ignorance, the people of the village could not fathom the immense richness these two hearts held and felt. The wealth they possessed knew no bounds. And when the two looked at each other, silent tears of joy expressed all that was meant to be said. For what was meant to be said and held in the tiny molecules of their moist cheeks, could not be uttered in an earthly language.
In the eyes of angels and men, their hearts were forever joined. And it would be, for as long as there was breath on earth, impossible to separate them.
***
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