Friday Write alternates with Friday Click & Run and Friday Review to help get Indie authors noticed. All you have to do is add a link to your own short story (up to 2000 words please and nothing too explicit) or a poem. If you do add your story/poem, please read and comment on at least one other. I’ve started the ball rolling by adding a poem I wrote on hearing a joke about a couple who had 15 children. Every night they would get into bed and the wife would take out her hearing aid and put it on the bedside table. The husband would look at her and say “Shall we go to sleep then, or what?” The wife would strain to hear his words and reply… “What?”

Ageing, by Stevie Turner

My eyes are not what they were

Back when I was young.

It’s hard to thread a needle,

Ageing ain’t no fun.

Today I lost another tooth.

And I’ve got a cough.

I wish someone could cure old age

Before anything else drops off.

My knees creak

My waterworks leak

And my back is as stiff as can be,

There’s corns and bunions on my feet

And nobody’s older than me.

I can’t seem to hear too much

I try with all my might

But you should have seen his face

When we went to bed last night.

He said something to me

The gist of it I’d got

To me it sounded something like

“Have you emptied the bins, or not?”

I had to ask him once again

Just to confirm it in my foggy old brain

I looked at him

Smiled a lot

And mouthed one word, and that word was

“What?”

His eyes lit up, he gave me a kiss

But how wrong his words I’d got

For what he’d actually asked me was…

“Shall we go to sleep then, or what?”

Too late I realised my mistake,

He gave me a leery grin,

But I’m very sad to have to say

I’d rather have emptied the bins.

You young folks make the most of it

For soon your bodies will be changing

And then you’ll find you are like me

‘Cos there ain’t no cure for ageing.