I’m lucky enough to have my work included in The Rabbit Hole Volume 5: Just…Plain…Weird anthology along with quite a group of talented authors. I especially love the teaser
Welcome to the Rabbit Hole. On our fifth excursion into the warren of the odd, 37 authors lead us down their own little burrows of strangeness : an army of penguins, music that cures, aliens that communicate through old cartoons, images of the future that save, unwanted visions of the now, and, oh yes, it is raining lawyers. All have one thing in common, they are just…plain…weird.
Weird can be funny, weird can be sad, weird can be thoughtful, weird can be mad, but the one thing in common is that weird shares experiences you have, thankfully, never had.
Just be careful, all little bunnies are not nice, but they are memorable.
About the Author
Lesley grew up in the North East of England and now lives in Hampshire where she works as an advisory teacher for children with special needs. She dabbled with creative writing for many years before finally taking the plunge to submit her words. You’ll find them published in An Eclectic Mix Vol. 9 and the H.G. Wells ‘Time’ anthology, as well as online at Paragraph Planet. Other joys include Second Place in the Yeovil Literary Prize and a number of long and short listings with Fish Publishing, Writing Magazine, Cranked Anvil and Retreat West. She completed her first novel during 2020 aptly titled – The Year Without a Summer, although nothing to do with COVID19, and is now editing the second. When not working or writing you’ll find her out walking or in her garden but always pondering ideas. She tweets @LesleyjayneB
How the stories came about?
The story came to me as I drove home from the H.G. Wells prizegiving ceremony where I had a short listed story published in their “Time” themed anthology. “Vision” was the theme for the following competition and a story about shadows had been floating in my head like loose tea leaves for some time. By the time I’d driven from Kent to Hampshire the idea was coming together but it was another six months before I wrote it down. Time enough for it to brew nicely. Needless to say it didn’t make the short list in that competition, but I’m delighted it’s Just… Plain… Weird enough for The Rabbit Hole V.
Opening
He asked the wrong question. Why didn’t it occur to me before? All those visits with my mother. She wouldn’t admit it, but I knew she struggled to find the peas amongst the tins of beans and sweetcorn in the cupboard, yet when Dr. Rangathan said, “Can you tell me what the third line says?” mum reeled off the letters without hesitation.
“F-E-L-O-P-Z-D.”
She even feigned a squint when asked for the next line down, leaning forward in the ophthalmology chair before declaring:
“D-E-F-P … O, I think and T-E-C?”
I looked on, incredulous. This was the woman who’d put cumin in the cake mix instead of cinnamon.
Enjoy!
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