Winter
Published in 'Does It Have Pockets'.
Does It have Pockets is a fantastic online literary magazine which gave me so much support when I submitted 'Winter' a piece about my favourite character out of those I have created - Winter Williams/Winta Wicks. This piece was published in their April edition along with some incredible writers. It is one of the first pieces I have been paid for. You can find it on https://www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/alyson-smith . I recommend submitting to this magazine, they were so encouraging and supportive.
Winter started as a poem after a call out from The Hedgehog Press for poems on the theme of 'Winter' and was accepted for their anthology. I work better when given a theme and deadline. You can check the poem out on: https://www.hedgehogpress.co.uk/product/stickleback-anthology-four-seasons-in-poetry-winter-various-artists-ebook-pdf-edition.
I am unsure whether Winter is now still a poem, or a short story But I have decided to post it in fiction and welcome your thoughts on this...
Winter
Cast
William Winters (M) Actor.
Supporting roles until winter when alter ego Winta reappears.
Winta Wick (M) Dame. Nanny to Sleeping Beauty. Typical dame role, with warm and tender character traits under bravado and brashness.
Act I
Prologue
William Winters carries his small battered suitcase down the stairs of the bed and breakfast he has boarded in every year since the 1940’s with only a break for three years service. He exits left and walks the relatively short distance to the Palli, nods to the man on the door, one of the few men he knows that are older than him, and enters backstage right.
Scene 1 Meeskite
William Winters comes alive at this time of year when others hibernate. He shakes out his dress and its petticoats hanging them on the clothes rail which looks bearer with the now then it did unclothed. He dusts the mirror and blows the cobwebs off his towering, faded wig.
Scene 2 Willkommen
She starts to appear. ‘Hello Miss Wick. How are you? What’s that? You didn’t expect another year? Cheeky Mare, stop your bitching. Open that bottle and get the bloody lippy on.’
Scene 3 Beedle Dee, Dee
A nerve-racking voice and sharp knocks on the door. ‘Mr. Winters, ten minutes ‘till curtain. Ten minutes.’ The phoenix rises, pushing up a trussed cleavage, downing some more Dutch grog and lifting petticoats arthritically.
Scene 4 Mein Damen und Herren
Winta parades. She owns that stage, well at least ‘til the bit celebrity makes their appearance, unprofessionally, stumbling over simple lines but bringing the crowd in.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, and the rest of us Beauties, I had a job as a pantomime horse, but quit while I was ahead.’
Act 2
Scene 1 Nicht Mehr
Winta knows what she’ll find when she re-enters her dressing room for the interval. She imagines the queue of parents in front of the ice-cream seller. They used to dress right. Elasticated frilly caps, matching aprons with lace stitched on edges. Now it's just a bored denimed student counting down the days when they can leave this seaside town and get back to the city where the lights are bigger and shine brighter than those on the worn-down pier. She looks at the mirror, but not at her face. The words, as always, are there, in smudges of red lipstick:
‘Still See You’
‘Still Miss You’
‘Still Here’
He tissues under his eyes and takes out an old polaroid camera, snaps a picture of the writing that he will now see in snapshot. He takes a cleaning cloth, dabs it with nail-varnish remover and wipes the greasy make-up from the glass. William Winters cries inside and outside then summons Winta who drags him back to the stage.
A pie in the face, sweets for the kiddies, the scare of the ghost behind you.
‘IT’S BEHIND YOU.’
Scene 2 O Wie Wunderbar
And as every pantomime goes since time began; boy meets girl, played by girl, and girl, played by girl, fixes everything. William wonders when it will ever be boy meets boy, but he pushes this thought to the back of his head where the gassed and the mutilated lay and wills Winta back.
Scene 3 Mein Traum
The kiss of life. Sleeping Beauty awakes, the tired orchestra plays as the confetti flies.
Scene 4 Toodle-oo
They're all together now. Final bows and crossed fingers so when the curtains reopen the audience will still be there. There is nothing that destroys the soul than a curtain call to emptiness.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, and the rest of us Beauties, an actor I know kept falling through the floor, it was just a stage he was going through.’
Finale
William Winters takes off Winta. Slowly. He doesn’t manage well without her.
Apprehensive of the three seasons he is now to endure.
About the Creator
Alyson Smith
Writer & Artist with Level I Autism & a whole lot of Bipolar. Based in Newcastle- upon - Tyne, works as an administrator in a Nursing Home. MA in Creative Writing.
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Comments (1)
What an original concept, thank you for this, I need to revisit it a few times to take it in properly