Short Stories WR Woodbury

      I am where I ought to be.  Surrounded by windows, I sit in an upstairs room of a house that is not my home.  To my right is the sheltered bay of a Greek island.  The light has gone from the harbour, but further out the sun shines on open water.  I stayed here for a while ten years ago and used to walk to the rocks on the headland and ask myself questions from a Tahitian painting.  Sometimes I met Yiannis, the village drunk on his way to the bar.  His mother had died that year so he was worse than ever.  I didn’t speak enough Greek for a lucid conversation, so except for a passing nod and "hello", we had no way to exchange stories.  He drank to kill his pain.  For reasons of my own I did the same.         In those days I was friends with an English rose named Melissa who lived with her American lover, a laconic Vietnam veteran writing his book.  He jokingly called her by the nickname Hol...

The men shouted and whistled when Ernestine took the stage.   Her theatre of operations was a raised platform where the Corporal stood when he gave the daily orders.   The single permitted oil lamp, entrusted to the oldest inmate, had been allowed onto the edge of the stage if Ernestine swore she wouldn’t knock it over.   As she eased into a rendition of the partisan classic Goodbye Beautiful, there were shouts of “Fascists go to hell!” Not everyone there was in agreement with the sentiment because they were not strictly political prisoners, but no fights broke out.   Everyone’s eyes were on Ernestine.   As the song went on she strutted the limits of the platform and clapped her hands to give her audience a marching beat for the song. She flicked the defiant flounces of her makeshift skirt at the men closest to her feet, whose rapt faces could have been worshiping the Madonna.   To calm things down she started into O Sole Mio but a melancholy hush came ov...