A SHORT STORY

Calvin once complained that there were not enough sports in the world.

‘There can't be enough,’ he said, ‘because I can't do any of them.’

It was true, my husband couldn't throw a ball or swing a racket and he couldn't run, jump or swim. But he was a genius. Calvin invented the Shop-o-maxometer.

You won't have heard of it. They don't want you to hear about it. Because the Shop-o-maxometer is exactly why when you go to the supermarket, you always seem to buy more than you went there to get in the first place. I don't know exactly how it works, but it does, and Calvin made a small fortune out of it.

But still, it always irritated him that he didn’t have a sport to call his own. Eventually, after years of him sighing at the sports channel, I’d had enough.

‘Why don't you just invent a new sport,’ I asked him, flippantly.

That was a mistake. He's been shut up in his study ever since, only coming out for meals and well, you know, and to sleep. The kids thought he’d left home. Until this morning, that is.

‘I've done it,’ he said. ‘I've invented a new sport.’

I was mopping the kitchen floor and he was now standing right in the middle of the clean bit. I sighed.

‘Good for you. How do you play it?’ I asked.

‘You don't,’ he said. ‘That's why it's new.’

‘Ummm...’ I started to reply, choosing my words carefully so as not to offend him. But he wasn't listening to me anyway.

‘You don't play it because the new sport is Resistance. You have to resist doing something against your opponent and the one that gives in first loses.’

‘But doesn't a sport have to include some sort of physical skill?’ I asked.

‘It does. The physical skill is in resisting the thing that you're compelled to do.’ He replied.

I thought it sounded like a crap sport. ‘Sounds great,’ I said. ‘Do you want some lunch?’

‘No time!’ He cried, racing out the door. ‘I need to patent it before someone else does.’

Two weeks later the TV crew arrived on the doorstep. I let them in and made the cameraman a cup of coffee in one of my best mugs.

‘Looks like it's going to be sunny this weekend,’ he said casually while I filled the kettle. ‘Two sugars doll, and I don’t suppose you have any cake?’

‘Sorry,’ I replied, switching the mug for a cracked one from the back of the cupboard.

They did the interview in Calvin's study. I held the boom while the sound man had a pee. The next day the interview was broadcast on our local station. Calvin and I watched it together in the living room with cups of coffee and a new packet of chocolate biscuits.

’I'm now standing here with Calvin Postlethwaite, the inventor of a brand new sport, Resistance, which has already been assigned by the Sports Council for next year’s school curriculum. Mr Postlethwaite, can you tell me how you came to invent Resistance and how you play it?’

‘You didn't tell me they were going to play Resistance at school,’ I said.

‘The Sports Council loved it; no expensive equipment and no health and safety risks,’ he replied.

‘I see,’ I said, taking another biscuit out of the packet and dunking it into my coffee. The end broke off and floated gently to the bottom of the mug.

‘And because there's no real movement involved they can use the playing fields for other things,’ he continued.

‘Such as?’ I asked.

‘New shopping malls, I think,’ he replied.

The following day I dropped the kids off at school as usual and waited in the yard for Doris and Charlotte. We always went for coffee on Tuesday mornings, to gossip about our husbands and generally put the world to rights.

’You know you really can't let him continue,’ Charlotte said once we were settled into comfy brown leather chairs in the local coffee chain, steaming lattes on the small round coffee table in front of us. Charlotte's skimmed, mine semi-skimmed and Doris' full fat.

‘She's right you know, he's gone too far this time,’ agreed Doris.

‘I know.’ I admitted. ‘But what can I do about it? ‘

‘Perhaps you need to invent something yourself,’ Charlotte joked. ‘Something to stop Calvin.’

Doris laughed and nibbled on the double chocolate muffin she'd added guiltily to her order. I sipped my latte and said nothing, while Charlotte changed the conversation.

‘Did you see Jack's mother at the supermarket last Thursday? She had a mountain of food in her trolley and I know for a fact that her husband's left her so I don’t know what she needs it all for...’

Later that week I was flicking a duster over Calvin's study while he was out meeting with a publisher for his new textbook – ‘The Resistance Manual, part 1 for schools’ - when I knocked a pile of papers off his desk. As I picked them up a paragraph on the first page caught my eye.

‘As these calculations show, it will now be possible to downsize any living matter to smaller proportions through the use of the Reductioniser. As you will no doubt appreciate, there are considerable implications for overcrowding in large cities. After all, smaller workers will take up less office space, saving millions for corporations across the globe...’

The next page was full of equations and calculations that I couldn't make any sense of. I flicked through the rest of the pages until on the last page I saw a diagram. The words underneath read; 'working prototype available for demonstration' in large red letters. I shut the study door, flicked back to the first page, and settled down to read.

Two Tuesdays later Charlotte, Doris and I were at the coffee shop as usual. Doris peeled the paper off her White Chocolate and strawberry muffin and took a large bite.

‘Have you heard from Calvin?’ She asked through the cake.

‘Yes, how's he doing in the Antarctic?’ Charlotte asked. ‘Has he invented a way to turn ice into petrol yet?’

‘Oh, he's fine.’ I said. ‘Actually, his contract has been extended for another six months so I'm taking over the business in the short term. We're expanding out into other inventions actually, greener ones, you know, that will help the community.’

‘That's great!’ Said Charlotte.’ Although I have to admit I never thought I'd see the day when Calvin grew a conscience. Sorry Emily, but it's true.’

‘That's OK,’ I replied. ‘I never thought I would either.’

I spooned the chocolate-topped foam from the top of my latte and licked it off the spoon. Perhaps resistance wasn't so futile after all I thought, and, carefully checking the air holes weren’t restricted, I gently covered the small wooden box in my bag with my bright red scarf.