The Annual Bloggers Bash Competition will be closing this Sunday and your opportunity to win some fabulous prizes will cease if you haven’t entered. This year’s theme, to recognise this is the fifth anniversary of the first Bash, is

Five

Please follow this link for the rules and entry form. And if you need some inspiration here is a short story to send you on your way

Five

Martin Nonplussed hated his Aunt Etherea with a passion born of her passive-aggressive put-downs and constant tormenting.

‘It’ll be yours when I’m gone, lad,’ she’d say, patting her pocket book.

They were all that was left of the Nonplussed clan and he had only agreed to care for the old witch because his mother had made him promise.

‘You’ll have all the wine, women and song you like, when I’m gone. Promise me you’ll given me a proper send off, sweetie.’

He promised and then headed for the garden to prune his frustrations away.

Finally Aunt Eherea ate one chocolate bonbon too many, swallowed too soon and expired in a phlegmy explosion of part masticated caramel and dentures.

After a cup of tea and a quick wipe with some convenient unguent, he took the pocket book to the Bank. The Manager, a droopy dyspeptic man called Undulate told him the current balance: fourteen pounds thirty-five pence. ‘There’s a safety deposit box, too.’

The box was encouragingly large and crammed with notes. Five pound notes. Mr Undulate whistled. ‘Haven’t seen these since I were a kiddie.’ A pause, then, ‘Shame the old lady didn’t get them changed.’

The notes, some seventy-one thousand, had ceased to be legal tender in 1961.

‘You might get a few quid at a dealer,’ Mr Undulate said helpfully.

Martin filled his shopping bag and returned to his Aunt’s house (rented, he now realised). He stared at his Aunt’s waxy and disturbingly scented corpse – the unguent hadn’t been a good call – sighed, and fetched the wheelbarrow.

In life, his Aunt had been many things he would have liked to have changed but there was one characteristic he found himself grateful for; her remarkable degree of desiccation. Combining her former fortune and her natural flammability he created a spectacular bonfire. The informal and no doubt illegal cremation lasted seventy one minutes. As the last of her rayon bloomers fizzled to an unnaturally bright neon green conclusion, Martin stomped on the ash pile and filled the barrow. Tomorrow, when she was cool, he would feed his aunt to his roses. Perhaps, at last, she would prove herself some use.