A line of makeshift shelters fringed the hillsides above the city. Outside crude shacks groups of people sat facing the sea, looking out at ominous signs of turbulence which been a familiar part of earlier lives. Many had experienced rapid costal land erosion where homes had once been. Some had been fortunate escapees from rogue tides and surging waves that had wiped out people, dwellings and, often, all means of surviving. People had fled for their lives, joining the worldwide population of climate refugees in search of safety and clean water.
Continue readingAuthor Archives: swanseawriters
Remains
They’d put the timber barriers in the few places where there was no sea wall. A high tide was due that night and they were prepared; the sea road would remain dry. In late afternoon the sky turned grey, and the clouds became worryingly dark. One large black cloud over the city appeared to have bloated cheeks and sockets for eyes. Somebody said it was the face of the devil.
Continue readingIt Will Never Happen
“My word professor, this has to stop. I agreed to let you use the engineering students to build that enormous building that is indestructible .But I cannot have you phoning Plantasia asking for their animals to be bought here .Your disciples have been creating panic by going around St.Thomas telling everyone a tsunami is coming .My phone has been red hot, there’s talk of the police becoming involved. They will be taking you away in a strait jacket if you’re not careful, think of the reputation of the university, man.”
Continue readingGlobal Warning
To be honest we had had enough warnings. For years there had been premonitions of what was to come. Scientists had proof that the temperatures were rising, the sea levels were rising due to the receding ice at the poles.
There had been programmes telling us, and satellites showing us but nothing had been done. Governments were unwilling to force change and definitely against putting any money into avoiding the impending catastrophe.
Continue readingArmageddon
15 year old Jake handled the Rib with great aplomb as his bedraggled family scrambled aboard at the top of West Cross hill, teenager Amy was still texting as she held her phone clear of the water. Walter, the huge Newfoundland who’d found the RIB settled down inside with a loud huff. Mike his owner had spotted the RIB spinning in circles with its dead owner. ‘Fetch,’ he’d yelled to Walter. There was grandma huddled in the corner muttering to herself, granddad was clutching ‘Sapiens’ trying to read and teenage Ian was busy checking out the RIB’s supplies. They all wore wetsuits and life jackets but were in a pretty sorry state. Swansea Bay had turned into the Sea of Swansea and disappeared under a massive 120 foot tsunami. Despite constant warnings in all the media and loudspeakers bellowing out across the town few had been properly prepared for the devastation.
Continue readingAn Act of God
It was a brave new start. Eirwen told her friends, “You must come and see me. I’m 14 floors up and the views … honestly! It’s like living on a cruise ship!”
Now she was confused. Very confused, her cheek pressed hard against the carpet. The sun fell in a sharp line across her face. She remembered a deafening sound. There had been a roll of thunder, except it wasn’t thunder, because it came from below … a helicopter, in trouble, rapidly closing in, skimming the surface of the sea … But now, everything was strangely muffled and she was on the floor, paralysed. This must be what a stroke is. Without moving her head, she could see the clock on the wall, in bright sunlight. It was 3 minutes past 4.
***
Continue readingVetch – Moving On
I was a big Swansea city fan, most Saturdays down at the Vetch Field watching some
good or not so football down there, and they were wanting to move to bigger and better things at the new stadium. Then they had a few good seasons at the top playing good football at the new Liberty but now we are playing in the Championship. We are doing well at the moment
Continue readingStarting Over
It’s hard to let go of something when you don’t see any other choice in your life. When you love someone so much to be without them is unthinkable. There is nothing else to live for.
That is how I felt when Michael walked out on me. I didn’t know that he had been playing me, that he had other women, that all his talk had been nothing but lies.
Continue readingThe Reading Room
She was there, again, long legs and arms draped around a radiator in the reading room of the city library. With her long dark coat she looked like a spider curled up in the corner of the room. I had seen her there a few times, always at the same time of day – late afternoon. Now, it was early December. Outside, it seemed the Xmas lights were diamonds, hanging and dancing between the trees. Inside the library it was warm and dry and there was a strong smell of polish.
I had taken to going to the library most days as I wanted to look at travel guides, because I hoped to go away in January – on my own, for the first time!
Continue readingMoving On
Anna peered at the ugly gnome in the elegant London house’s garden. What’s that doing there?’ She smiled at her fiancé, eyebrows raised.
‘Whatever you do, say nothing negative about that gnome. It’s Mother’s pride and joy; I’m only second-best.’
‘I think you’re perfect, darling.’ Anna was raising herself on tiptoe to exchange a kiss when the front door opened. Framed in the doorway stood a tiny, grey-haired lady.
Continue readingMmm
Only one item of mail this morning. It appears to be a card. In February? It is a card, a Valentine’s card. Who’d be sending her a Valentine’s card? Married, on the cusp of middle-age, though that threshold has of course not yet been crossed, no indeed.
She opened it and read its one word: Mmm! Who on earth had written that? Had she a secret admirer? Her husband, Steve, was away in London with senior management. Did somebody know that and was taking advantage of his absence to send her a little cheer-up? Perhaps it was more serious? Could there really be somebody out there who’d noticed her? On the lip of middle-age? Sometimes, if she were really honest, she felt a bit of a frump, she felt she was past her sell-by-date, and sliding down a long bannister to oblivion.
Continue readingIn Time
As I sit with tears flowing down my face a small hand touched my arm, looking up into the face of my six-year old son his eyes troubled.
” Are you sad because daddy has gone to prison?”
What do you say to a boy who has been abused by that man he calls daddy. That man has taken his innocence and his childhood. I nodded.
Continue readingHaving to Move On
“Wake up Joe, come on, wake up.”
“What’s a matter, what’s going on.”
“Come on Joe, I am sorry to do this but we have had a complaint.”
“What do you mean, what sort of complaint, I ain’t done nothing wrong, let me go back to sleep.”
“Joe, you need to move on, I can’t turn a blind eye anymore.”
“What am I suppose to have done?”
“It’s not about that, I just have to make sure you clear off from this shop front.”
Continue readingLiminal Space
I ran here, pursued by shrieking ghouls. And it took several years to arrive. Even longer to decide to bolt in the first place.
There’s a word – bolt. I bolted doors, windows, cupboard doors and all to keep the ghouls at bay. This became my bolt-hole and later, my place of sanctuary. Later still, well I’ll get to that.
At first I was a live bundle of nerve endings. Afraid, exhausted, relieved, hurt, someone with a past but no discernable future and certainly without a plan. The new GP I signed on with was happy to offer a medicinal route out of my troubles. But I wanted to face the ghouls, not reach for their temporary suppression. I was grateful for sick notes to allow me a couple months off work. ‘Anxiety’ it said on the note, by way of explanation to my employer. Ha, and the rest, I remember thinking.
Continue readingCastration is Liberation
He placed the offensive thing upon the chopping board, the garbage guzzler was set to shred and the stove, piping hot, should sizzle closed the bleeding wound. He held a butcher’s knife in his hand and was ready to cut away his shame.
“If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.”
Lust. The short coming of all men. Drooling gluttonous, shameless lust, caused by the enemy between their legs. Even the strictest monks still fell victim to the tumour.
Continue readingYour Number’s Up
“Your numbers up” said Gypsy Rose, “if you want to know more you have to cross my palm with silver, or in your case, make it a twenty.” I’d heard enough, I knew exactly what she meant. I collected my belongings and hurried out of the caravan.
How much time did I actually have? Word on the street was that Mac the knife was out and trying to find me. He had had his sentence reduced. That must have been some bribe as it could never have been for good behaviour. I’d left the neighbourhood as soon as he was sent down, now it would seem that it would be best to move again, just in case. Mac was not known for giving up.
Continue readingWell I Never
Strange things started happening in our estate. People started waking up to find envelopes stuffed with money on their doormats with a message ‘ENJOY’.
Ours wasn’t a posh estate but a bog standard council estate, lots people elderly or unemployed families living on the breadline. So any money was a godsend to most of them.
Continue readingLancelot Lot
Mr Smith of the local newsagents sells hundreds of lottery tickets every week. It was on one particular week that he happened to sell to a few big winners one of which was me. I Veronica. I put my ticket in a coat pocket and for a few weeks I forgot about it. On the particular week in question Veronica had so much on that she was rushing everywhere and she had no chance to check her ticket until on the news it said that fifty million had not been claimed. She had no idea that her ticket was the remaining ticket, she could not believe her eyes when she heard about the unclaimed money. The big question was what had she done with the ticket as she had moved it several times since that fateful day? Veronica searched all the usual places she put things but the ticket was not there.
Veronica needed to find the ticket fast and soon or she would not be able to obtain the vast fortune she deserved and it would not be fair on the others who shared her ticket they would want their cut.
Continue readingThe Ticket
It was the day I bought a lottery ticket. It was a problem because I was in a coffee shop and I had no change. So I said to the lady, ‘If I give you a lottery ticket, I will come back with the change.’
She said, ‘If you win, you pay me then.
‘No,’ I said, ‘because if I win, you can have half because I’m paying you for my coffee with a ticket, so you own that for the moment.’ I went and got money, I paid her for the coffee, and I had the ticket back.
She said, ‘So if you win, do I still get half?’
Continue readingThe Lottery Winner
The alarm sounded and Lisa’s hand shot out of bed to silence it. Why, she pondered, did people use the snooze button? An ex had argued about this, at some length, in fact more than one ex. The shower was hot and acoustically kind. Downstairs she made toast and coffee, black, the stronger the better. This was the cause of another disagreement. But, honestly, how was she to know other people didn’t take it that way?
She wrote her Morning Pages. There were now over 100 notebooks stacked on her shelves, containing streams of consciousness. This also seemed to be a major topic for discussion.
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