Verbs to Nouns / Nouns to Verbs

2 years ago this week I started a blog of short stories inspired by Rory's Story Cubes. As time went by the stories didn’t need the cubes. But the cubes will forever be part of the blog. To celebrate my blog’s second birthday I’ve returned to the cubes this week. 5 stories inspired by those 9 cubes. The blog has asked me to ask you not for presents to celebrate its birthday but for comments, shares, likes etc. Let’s get this thing going viral :-) 

Today something different - two stories using the same cubes. The words are used as nouns in the first stories and verbs in the second. 

Modern Man About Town

Theo liked to think of himself as a modern man about town. He was well-travelled, well-read, a theatre-goer, an invite to his dinner parties were considered a golden ticket while his dress sense was the talk of the town. He liked to think of himself as being pretty savvy too, not just smart but street smart. He might carry expensive gadgets and live in a city of pickpockets and thieves, but he was never going to be caught out, he was no fool. He scoffed at the idiot tourists that took such little care of their belongings. They were asking to be robbed and when they were, Theo had little sympathy, mostly because he was often the man who was doing the robbing.

He’d look for the big groups, the ones that followed a tour guide around like a flock of sheep. They were easy prey. He’d dart into them like an arrow and by the time he was through the other side he’d have at least one credit card and mobile phone in his possession. He called himself the shadow and wished other people could call him that too, but that would mean having to disclose to his friends what he did when he disappeared for the afternoon wearing his other mask.

He told them he did charity work and in a way he was not wrong. He never kept the credit card or the phones for himself. He’d buy some tea and a bacon roll for the homeless guy or hand over his ‘earnings’ to the homeless shelter.  He was like a modern day Robin Hood. Despite being a bad guy, he was really the good guy, one day someone would write a book about him.

But now he stood looking at the place where his bag had been with a look of disbelief on his face. He’d taken his eye off it for 30 seconds, a minute, tops but that was enough time for his bag to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

Answer the Bloody Phone

Mary had been trying to phone the number Laura had given her for about an hour but she was having no luck. She wanted to book a private detective to shadow her husband and find the truth, but Mr Landon Weekes PI wasn’t picking up the phone.  She tried to mask her disappointment but she was struggling to mask anything these days. She’d had her suspicions that her husband was having an affair for months, but she’d only recently decided to face the fact and do something about it. 

Carl had been a loving man, a dedicated husband, a skilful lover. But recently he seemed to have lost interest in Mary. To credit him with his due he still was a great dad and did all the things a husband should do, if Mary asked him to earth a plug or change a light bulb, he’d do it straight away, no complaints. But there was something missing, Mary could tell his heart was not in it anymore. He had a far away look in his eyes, he dreamt of being somewhere else, with someone else, he didn’t have to say anything, Mary knew.

Recently thoughts began to flock into her mind and she just had to have the answers. It was pointless living this lie but she needed to know the truth before she confronted him about it.  Who was she? What did she look like? What did they do together? Tears began to arrow down Mary’s face, why wasn’t this PI picking up his phone? She decided to go round to the address on the business card.

Landon’s doorbell rang again, a long hard ring.

‘I should answer that,’ he said. ‘I need the work.’

‘And I need you.’ his lover said kissing his face, moving hands across his body and stopping him from answering the door.

‘Carl, stop.’ Landon said, ‘it might be important.’ Landon moved Carl’s hand away from his crotch and went to see who was at the door.