S H O R T   S T O R I E S
 

 Colourful Thoughts
A Short Story by J. Graham Ducker
 

      Jeremy quietly seethed. “Stupid teacher! I don’t have a favourite colour! How can I write something about my favourite colour if I don’t have one? Colours mean different things at different times. I hate Grade Four.”

     Jeremy glared at his notebook where the words: My favourite colour is, had been written a ‘dog’s-age’ ago.

     He glanced around him at the other kids who were busily working. He dumped out his box of eight CRAYOLAS and lined them up across his desk.

     The black was neat and shiny and reminded him of the eyes of the squirrels he fed at the park, but it sure wasn’t his ‘favourite’. He put it into the box.

     The red was next, and while he rolled it in his fingers, he thought of robins, strawberries, and apples; then recalled his bloody hands when he went for a tumble. Stupid bicycle. He stuffed the crayon in the box.

     While fingering the brown one, his lip trembled slightly as he remembered his wonderful old dog Merlin that got himself run over last year. Jeremy slowly slid that colour out of sight.

     The green one made him think of grass and leaves and playing in the moss. It also reminded him of broccoli and asparagus and avocados. There were lots of reasons for not liking green.

     Next, he picked up the orange one because it instantly reminded him of oranges, cheese, pumpkin pie and Mom’s Kraft Dinner. Suddenly he shivered, as he could almost taste the squash his Mom tried to get him to eat last night. The orange crayon vanished.

     He had visions of summer skies and swimming at the beach when he rolled the blue crayon. As he shifted in his desk, the desk thumped his left arm right where he had fallen on the boulder yesterday. He looked at the huge bruise, which was an ugly mixture of blues and purples. He thought of grapes and plums as the purple joined the blue in the box.

     Only the yellow remained. Jeremy smiled as thoughts of bananas, buttercups, the summer sun, and – shyly glancing across to his left – the blond girl who was two rows over and two seats up.

     Jeremy picked up his pencil. He could talk about yellow but he would not mention
Mary Ann.

Lucy 
A Short Story by Stella Ducker

        I remember when I first laid eyes on Lucy. Instant love at first sight.

For the first year we were inseparable. I could not bear to leave Lucy even for a minute. During the night, I had the monitor on so I could hear all the various little sounds that would indicate whether all was well or if something was wrong. Yes, I woke many a morning tired from a sleepless night, but I need to only look at Lucy and it was all worth while.

        Lucy had not been part of my plans, but my husband thought that it would be 'nice' to have at least one, maybe two eventually, but I was not of the same mind as financially the budget was very tight.  Now he wonders if he had done the right thing and I smile totally besotted and happy with the end results, much to my husbands frustrations. Well, he should have considered that before. Hard for me to realize life at one time without Lucy.  It just seems such an incredible void. Just to think about it my heart 'hurts' at the mere thought.

        Well, I learned how to take care and protect my dear Lucy.  At first I as so very nervous and apprehensive.  Every action, every new item on any menu used to just about send me in a nervous panic.  I would check out all the directions and instructions and carefully follow through.  I would make sure that check-ups were done and inoculations was up-to-date. I'd literally die if anything would ever happen to Lucy.

         I imagine that's how it always is with your first.  Probably is different if you start when you are younger, but being of mid-life age puts things in a different
perspective on being the owner of a brand new computer!