Winter writing competition

WARNING! Contains a few swearwords at the end...

Walking along Church Street on a freezing cold late-October afternoon, hands tucked deep into the pockets of my stinky afghan coat, I was thinking about nothing at all when a beautiful blond hippy chick stepped out of a doorway, stood bang in front of me and said: "Children of God?"

I must admit, it was a novel approach and caught my attention straight away.

"Children of God," she said again but more urgently. "Have you ever heard of us?"

"Never," I replied. "What do you want?"

She had leaflets. She handed me one. "Tired of the ratrace?" it asked. "Seeking meaning to your life?"

"Oh, Jehovah's Witnesses", I sighed. "No ta, I've already given."

"No, no, we're nothing like that." She smiled at me in a funny way.

"I really like you, what's your name," she asked. As she did so she reached out and held my hand.

We got talking. She really was strikingly attractive. She said we should meet up later as she'd like to tell me more about the rapture of finding Jesus.

I thought she was a nutter. But I really fancied her so we agreed to go for a drink in the Moonstone at seven.

I dashed home, did me hair, caught a few minutes of Starsky and Hutch, and dived back out. Sitting at the bar, I'd convinced myself she'd be a no-show. I finished my pint and was about to leave when I felt a hand softly stroke my hair. It was hair, er, her.

We talked and talked of many things for hours. She'd been with the God cult about a year. She said I was a natural for spiritual fulfillment.

I said I wanted to kiss her. She just laughed and told me I'd soon forget about physical love once I'd discovered the spiritual variety and we talked some more about God and shit.

I might have hinted that yes, I would be interested in joining the "church".

She said that was excellent news. She said if I did, I would have to change my "straight" name to one given me by the cult and as she was my mentor, she reckoned I suited the name "Autumn" as it was, well, that time of year and my manner was distinctly misty and filled with mellow fruitfulness.

I blinked and agreed that, yes, this would be my new name from now on! I shall find Jesus and be his slave, er, disciple. I will BE Autumn.

Just as I thought I was getting somewhere, another hippy turned up. His name was Amberlight and he was a "senior minister". My beautiful guru explained she would have to leave.

Like, straight away.

I took her phone number, or a phone number anyway and, as I watched them disappear up the stairs and out the door, I reflected on my good fortune.

After a couple of minutes I downed the last dregs and staggered out.

Walking through the darkened city streets, I heard the unmistakable sounds of a knee-trembler going full throttle in a doorway ahead.

I walked quickly past not wanting to spoil the fun. But as I did, I heard my mentor's voice from within: "Oh yeah, fuck me, fuck me!"

Fuck me! It was HER. With HIM.

"Oi! What the hell's going on," I spluttered. "You said physical love was beneath your spiritual plane. You said spiritual love was the future" I wailed.

"Well bollocks to this," I shouted, angry and humiliated.

"I'm off and I NEVER want to see you again.

"By the way, hippy, I never got to know your name...?"

"I'm Golden," she breathed, laughing at me with her crusty mate.

Kicking Golden, Autumn leaves.

THE END (or is it?)

The headlines were big and bold …”Look at that boys, we made the front page”…. Ben passed around copies of the Sunday Mail they looked at the headlines. They looked quite impressive and the report was nothing but complementary praising each of them in turn. It had been an amazing journey but this was just the beginning.

Jaz looked out of the window and reflected back over the past year. Only a year ago they were an unknown group playing for pennies in and around the club circuit, they were good but no one seemed to listen to them, they always played to half full venues all four of them had sat down to discuss their future, Rob had kicked it off

So it’s agreed, if we bomb out at the X factor auditions then we call it a day!, our gap year comes to an end soon so it will be back to Uni and the real world of careers and work. Everyone nodded jaz leaned forward; one thing though I think half our problems have been the name of the group. Everyone keeps saying what a naff name it is, who the hell can take seriously a group called..”Nutmeg Unload”..

Ben looked hurt; “I thought of that”, well to be fair my Nan did.
Yeah! Now that was a strange way to pick the name eh!.” It was a sign” said Ben, “it was the last thing she wrote before she died, it was written on the newspaper she was reading when she passed. I carry it everywhere in my wallet to bring us luck”!

“Lets see it” said Jaz, Ben carefully took the newspaper page out of his wallet and unfolded it passing it to jaz. It was the first time he had seen it, he thought Ben had made it up. But no there in shaky writing was the words “nutmeg unload”, he smiled he wondered why she wrote it.
He stared a bit longer and noticed that it was the crossword page and one of the clues was, “Kicking nutmeg unload leaves in a childish way” 12 letters. He stared at it, he had always been good at crosswords and loved the cryptic clues, he stared harder. A smile spread across his face …

”you Burk Ben” she was doing the crossword” he showed everyone the page. Ben looked at it I don’t get it. Jaz pointed out the clue they all scratched there heads, “why write nutmeg unload then, bit of a stupid clue” said terry? …”You wasters, Nutmeg unload is an anagram of Golden Autumn which is the answer to the puzzle, get it “Kicking golden autumn leaves in a childish way, ..OH! They all went, and started giggling ….Golden Autumn who would have thought!…. they all looked at each other, Jaz spoke first, why not boys, maybe this is a sign, they nodded Agreed then from this moment on we will be known as “Golden Autumn”….the rest as they say is history