Kindlingers, this week’s is a fun issue! 💃

Limericks and fairy tales! I used a very cute story generator for primary-school-aged children for the limerick and recommend other writers do this for a bit of fun!

I’ve started writing a kind of mini column over on my Instagram & Facebook pages on the weeks in between Kindling issues. Click below to read last week’s, and follow my page if you don’t already!

I fear I must write this quite quickly
What you’ve done has left me most sickly
You pulled the wrong the tooth,
my smile’s now uncouth,
and my wife’s mood has turned rather prickly

You see, it wasn’t my canine
that needed extraction, you lupine
It was my damn molar
that needed to go— ahh!
The pain has refused to decline

When I said that I liked a bald man
I meant it! A genuine fan!
Just because you’re self-conscious,
don’t get all obnoxious!
Now my marriage might be in the can

So, I’m putting it all in writing
Your misconduct should be rather frightening
to all future patients
who wish to make payments
to you to do their teeth whitening

I’m demanding a refund in full,
a new tooth, and an accurate pull
of the molar that’s hurting
this pain is subverting
my life – my wife’s had a gutsful

You’ve tainted all dentists and bald men
The fact that you’re both is an omen
You’re career is over
you’ll need a makeover
before you can practice again

Grace and Jace lived with their mother on the edge of town. Grace liked to run long distances and build practical things in their backyard from stuff she found in the bush. Jace preferred indoor pursuits like reading and lighting the fireplace each evening.

Their mother was a proud woman. She was loathe to accept help nor money from her neighbours. Grace and Jace we never told why, but it’s how Grace became so good at building things.

While out for a run one day, Grace found the perfect piece of wood for a bookcase she was making Jace for his birthday. The log was almost as thick as her waist. She wrapped her arms around one end to haul it home and found it was too heavy.

After puzzling on it for a while, she decided to leave it and return tomorrow with a rope to drag it home.

That night, as Jace was lighting the fire in the main room, Grace came home covered in scratches.

‘What happened?’ Jace asked.

Grace knew better than to ruin the surprise, so she lied. ‘I tripped on a tree root and fell into a bush.’

‘You must be careful out there in the bush,’ said her mother as she dragged Grace to the kitchen to apply a healing salve on her injuries.

As the sun rose on the next day, Grace set out to find the log once more. She wrapped a coil of rope across her body and tried to remember the route she’d taken the day before.

After a couple of wrong turns, she found herself once again standing in front of the log that was almost as thick as her waist. It was exactly what she needed to finish her brother’s bookcase. The sun was high, and Grace was tired after taking the long way.

She wrapped the rope around the log and knotted it tight. She gave it a pull, and the rope slid up the length of the log and off the end. Part of what made the log so perfect was also making it hard to drag home: there were no branches to tie the rope to.

Grace was distraught. She’d laid in bed that night planning how she was going to whittle the wood down and carve an intricate scene from Jace’s favourite book into its grain. But no matter how she tied the rope around the log, it was still too heavy. She ran home again, defeated.

On the third day, she had another idea. She could lie a row of sticks in front of the log and roll it over them all the way home. She filled a bag with six of her strongest and roundest sticks and made her way back to the log. This time she knew the way and got there before the sun was too high.

Carefully Grace laid the sticks in front of the log, lifting one end to place the last one under it. She manoeuvred herself behind the log and pushed with all her might.

The log moved an inch, then two. She watched as the log approached the row of sticks. It was working!

Soon the log was rolling along the forest floor and a good few feet from where it had started. When the log ran out of sticks to roll over, Grace collected the ones it had already traversed and laid them in front of the log once more.

Though it was working, Grace was already exhausted. It would take her days to get the log home this way.

‘You look like you need a hand,’ said a warm voice behind her.

Grace turned to find an old man dressed in cerulean robes and a sleeping cap. She didn’t recognise him and supposed he didn’t get out much.

He continued. ‘That’s a very heavy log, and you seem intent on taking it home. I can help, if you wish?’

Grace thought of her mother who never accepted anyone’s help. Perhaps this man would show her mother that help wasn’t a bad thing.

‘I’d love if you could help me bring this home. I want to turn it into a bookcase for my brother.’ She smiled gratefully at the man in the strange robes, as she pictured how she was going to carve it up later.

‘I can help you on one condition,’ the man said. ‘I live nearby, and I am getting old. I can no longer make the long journey to town and back each week. If you promise to run a few errands for me, I’ll make sure your log is sitting in your backyard this afternoon.’

Grace loved to run and knew her way to this part of the bush quite well now. A few errands for this old man wasn’t too great an ask. Her mother’s inevitable disapproval made her hesitate. ‘How many errands?’

‘One a week until I die.’

‘But I don’t know how old you are!’

‘Well then you can find a different log.’ The man lifted the front of his robes a touch and turned to leave.

‘Wait!’ Grace was distraught. Jace’s birthday was in a week. She needed this log. ‘What happens if I don’t keep my end of the bargain?’

A dark shadow passed over the man’s face, and he was suddenly an inch away from her. ‘If you don’t keep your end of the bargain, the bookcase will burn to cinders and your house along with it.’

She had no choice. If she wanted to make Jace’s bookcase in time, she had to accept this man’s help. She shook his hand, and he told her to run home. By the time she got there, it would be waiting for her.

It wasn’t until she was running home that she wondered how this old man, who couldn’t even walk to town, was going to deliver such a heavy log. However, when she got home the log was waiting for her just as the man had said.

Jace loved his bookcase and thought the intricate carving was so beautiful that he cried.

The next week, Grace kept her end of the bargain and went around town collecting the man’s orders and ran into the bush to deliver them. And the week after that, and the week after that.

For nearly five years Grace ran a weekly errand for the man in cerulean robes. Be there thunderstorms, snow or sickness, she ran his weekly errand.

Except for one week when she was left bedridden following the birth of her first child. Grace tried to tell her mother what she’d done. She had to make the errand, or Jace’s beautiful bookcase would burn to cinders. But her mother didn’t believe her.

At the end of that week, Jace arrived. Grace told him about the deal she’d made in the bush all those years ago to bring the log home to make the bookcase he loved so much.

On hearing this, Jace went pale. ‘The bookcase is here. I brought it as a surprise for you and the baby.’

Grace told Jace what to do. ‘If you run the errand for the old man, we’ll be able to keep our end of the bargain!’ He left right away.

But Jace had always preferred indoor pursuits like reading and lighting the fireplace, he wasn’t a runner like his sister. Along the way, he had to pause to catch his breath and took a wrong turn.

When he finally arrived at the house in the bush, he knocked on the door, but no one came. He left what he’d bought by the door and knocked again before leaving. When he turned back, Jace was sure he’d seen a flash of cerulean in one of the upstairs windows.

Jace used the last of his energy to make it back to Grace’s house, but he was too late.

All that remained of the house, and his beautiful bookcase, was charcoal and cinders.

‘Jace!’ A voice called from behind him. It was Grace. She and her newborn baby had got out of the house with their mother’s help. The only help they’d ever rely on again.