Showing Cash 'n' Carrots & other capers by Phil Syphe

This collection features light-hearted scenarios with a touch of pathos and irony. Some tales include offbeat humour, others feature characters in difficult or lonely situations, yet the narrative tone remains positive. Only in STUNNED does the mood darken when a woman's good deed turns her quiet Sunday into a violent nightmare. Two teenage boys' infatuation with a gorgeous woman leads them into a confrontation with a dangerous man in WATCH YOUR BACK. While two men compete for the same woman in BATS & BELLYBUTTONS, an escaped criminal and a lost bat cause chaos. A PROPOSAL is an epistolary story, featuring a man's 'unique' style of proposing marriage to his ex-girlfriend, and her reply in writing. An Englishman escorts a Polish lady home from the village pub, wondering who THE DARK HANDER is. THE BEAUTY OF RAILINGS features an unusual narrator with a passion for railings who takes care of a dwarf's cat for ten days. RISING AROMAS is about a quirky Japanese man who owns an aromatherapy store in the US. An American couple browse the store and are talked into having a massage. ARRABELLA WELLFITT becomes semi-famous when her article on cabbages gets published. A man recently released from a mental home reads this article and is enchanted by the accompanying picture of Arrabella. Vicky is a lonely childlike woman with a bad memory and a passion for RASPBERRIES. Vicky surfaces again in title story - a light-hearted tale - in which she and her beautiful neighbour Emma find a locked briefcase belonging to carrot-crunching criminal Ivan. Emma decides to hand the case in, unaware that Ivan is watching her.