Author Archives: swanseawriters

The Reading Room

Posted on by under 2019, September

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!

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Moving On

Posted on by under 2019, September

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.

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Mmm

Posted on by under 2019, September

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.

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Having to Move On

Posted on by under 2019, September

“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.”

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Liminal Space

Posted on by under 2019, September

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.

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Castration is Liberation

Posted on by under 2019, September

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.

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Your Number’s Up

Posted on by under 2019, August

“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.

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Well I Never

Posted on by under 2019, August

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.

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Lancelot Lot

Posted on by under 2019, August

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.

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The Ticket

Posted on by under 2019, August

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?’

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The Lottery Winner

Posted on by under 2019, August

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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Money Makes the Mask Slip

Posted on by under 2019, August

It was the whoop of joy that sent a perplexed and curious Celia trotting down to the living room. Julia was in high spirts, maybe her son had proposed, maybe her daughter was finally pregnant.

But as Julia leapt around the room Celica heard the TV throb with the bombastic hum of the national lottery. She then saw the jackpot numbers flash on screen and spied the grubby ticket clenched in Julia’s fist.

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After the Lottery

Posted on by under 2019, August

He’d told them no publicity. But the news had leaked out. Leaked? Gushed more like it. Three phone calls this morning. ‘My wife needs a lung transplant and fifty thousand will enable her to…’ ‘Our donkey sanctuary desperately wants funding to the tune of…’ ‘Good morning Mr York, I’m calling on behalf of the local women’s refuge and if you can find your way to donating…’

            How long before they began calling round? And if he opened the door, how many would put a foot between door and doorstep and craftily intrude into the house, one pace at a time along the hall, until daily callers were lasering walls and nooks, and shining searchlights into hollows and corners?

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