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    Nightshift
    Nightshift
    Nightshift
    Ebook75 pages1 hour

    Nightshift

    By Aristidis Metaxas

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Nightshift is an anthology of short stories and one poem from popular Narrator Magazine contributor Aristidis Metaxas.

    Aristidis's stories are heartwarming, amusing and always uniquely truthful.

    Enjoy the following ten touching and insightful works:

    Anniversary
    A Christmas Tale
    George
    Henrietta de Chook and her Totally Awesome Adventure
    Nightshift
    Piña Colada
    Sandman
    The Last Flight of the Cockie
    Ticket
    Voyager

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTellwell Talent
    Release dateDec 1, 2011
    ISBN9780987173188
    Nightshift
    Author

    Aristidis Metaxas

    Aristidis is a regular contributor to Narrator Magazine NSW/ACT and Blue Mountains.He has a lovely insightful take on life and death, on what makes us tick, and who we are and why.If you're deciding whether to buy this ebook or not, then have a look at some of his works in past issues of Narrator Magazine, which is free on Smashwords.

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      Book preview

      Nightshift - Aristidis Metaxas

      Nightshift

      a collection of short stories

      by

      Aristidis Metaxas

      Copyright © Aristidis Metaxas 2011

      Cover design: © Aristidis Metaxas

      ISBN: 978-0-9871731-8-8

      Smashwords Edition

      MoshPit Publishing

      Hazelbrook

      an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd

      Shop 1, 197 Great Western Highway, Hazelbrook NSW 2779

      Website: http://www.moshpitpublishing.com.au/

      Smashwords Edition Licence Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to http://www.themoshshop.com.au/ or http://www.writtenforwomen.com/ and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      ***

      Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright. However, should any infringement have occurred, the publisher tenders its apology and invites any copyright owners to contact them.

      Table of Contents

      Anniversary

      A Christmas Tale

      George

      Henrietta de Chook and her Totally Awesome Adventure

      Nightshift

      Piña Colada

      Sandman

      The Last Flight of the Cockie

      Ticket

      Voyager

      Nightshift

      Just my luck to draw the short straw … it’s early morning, 3am, and I’m pulling a nightshift. I’d rather be home with my family. It’s my ‘lunch break’ and I’m alone on the top floor terrace of the office tower, overlooking the sleeping city. Five stories below the streets are empty save for the occasional car. A drunk stumbles along, shouting ‘Merry Christmas!!’ A smoke, coffee and chocolate … anything to get me through the night … this night. The boss left a few cans of beer in the fridge for the nightshift – to celebrate Christmas. I crack a can open, the cool liquid clashes nicely with my hot black coffee. Soul food when you’re on the night moves … the red glow of my cigarette matches the red of the traffic lights. I fumble for some coins in my pocket, nothing, just paper money, can’t buy snacks from the vending machine or play the video game. The cafeteria is now shut; Helen the cook has gone home for the night. What a night! Silent night, Holy night.

      Who is this hurrying somewhere laden with presents so early down below in the street? Another car disappears in the distance towards the suburbs. Some houses have lights on, shining through the windows, so many homes filled with the excited rustle of toys being wrapped carefully while the children sleep. Other windows are dark, like the vacant eyes of people who have seen too much and don’t want to look any more. A song comes on strong to me from the radio ‘NIGHTSHIFT’ … and in my mind a word begins to spin, like a Mantra, round and round, it takes off on its own like a slow train-ride-to-nowhere-and-yet-a-somewhere ...

      Somewhere

      Somewhere

      Somewhere

      And somewhere a mother has skimped and saved and gone without,

      just to be able to put at least one small present under a tiny tree for her sleeping child.

      And somewhere a daughter is given the keys to a brand new red sports car.

      ‘Wow – for me?! Awesome!’

      ‘Merry Christmas Darling!’

      And somewhere a man is told with anger ‘It’s always yours!’

      And someone says ‘I never belonged to you, ever.’

      And somewhere last evening a father finally

      arrived late from the bar to ‘take Mum Christmas shopping’, something

      he promised weeks ago but ‘never got around to it’.

      ‘Sorry Darl.’

      And somewhere a father, now divorced, denied to see

      his children on Christmas Day – weeps.

      And somewhere an old man living under a bridge remembers his childhood,

      remembers Christmas Eve

      in the old country, when the snow fell silently in thick flakes to the ground

      outside his window, and the room was filled with the sound of ‘Silent Night’

      from the old valve radio, the sound of sparklers crackling, the smell

      of pine needles from the Christmas tree, the flickering candles, and then it was time to enter the living room to see if St Nicholas had come.

      And he had, as always, and there were trains, and cars, and windup toys, and the room’s darkness was lit up brightly by the small candles on the tree, the aroma of fresh pine needles wafting through the home. And there were chocolates and nuts and sweets and glittering lights.

      And outside the snow kept falling, falling, and the child would wish that

      the night would never end,

      would never end, in his memory.

      And silently the man thanks all those dear loved faces who made Christmas so special and a little boy so happy,

      so happy, even just for one

      night.

      And somewhere a wife opens the door on Christmas day to her husband,

      finally come home after staying out all night with a woman he had just met at a Christmas party, and she says nothing because of the children, just wants to get the day over with, because it is Christmas.

      And the man, embarrassed, guilty, trying to make up, trying to escape the pain of the morning after, does not know what to say, it all seems so long ago.

      What did happen last night, what did happen early this morning?

      Did anything really happen?

      And somewhere a preacher, on Christmas Eve,

      so many years ago,

      because his old church harmonium had broken,

      sat down and wrote a simple song,

      a Christmas carol

      for his little parish, never dreaming, that one day, one day,

      his little carol would be sung all around the world, by so many tongues

      and many voices

      but with one beating heart.

      And somewhere someone dies.

      Someone old, someone young, not on Christmas day, dear God, surely not on Christmas day!

      Is there no God? Are our prayers not to be answered?

      And somewhere a child is born, and somewhere a child watches

      as his mother walks away forever.

      And somewhere someone is shot down in

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