Owen walked the dog down the lane and turned towards the Norman castle. It was very quiet there, befitting Christmas eve. The Teifi gorge around two sides of the ruin was invisible, making its threat of a blind descent into the underworld stronger than ever. The dog was nervous. Usually it loved the lane, its smells. In pitch black Owen was about to turn back when, atop one of the castle’s walls, he saw a figure, like a lonely guard defending his prince’s grounds centuries after his master’s death. He looked again and the solitary warrior had vanished. He and the dog both slunk home with their tails between their legs, unsettled.
Continue readingCategory Archives: 2025
It’s My Party
I can tell you this, it was the worst thing ever. One minute I’m whole and healthy and the next I’m draped over the pavement with a spine in two bits and no movement in my lower half. RTA they call it, huh, more like EOL, or end of life as it was.
Long story short, it could have been much worse – my top half works pretty well, but nothing from the waist down. It’s stunning what medics can do to put Humpty Dumpty together again. Family rallied round and helped where the wheelchair couldn’t go. I moved in with my parents (for a while) so they could share the work of looking after me. Carers cared, and a PA arranges things that need arranging: meals fetched, clothes washed, library books changed, shoes laced, soft voices, no rows (I miss the rows).
Continue readingCarol and the Case of the Suspicious Neighbours
“We’ve been infiltrated,” said Carol, scanning the assembled members of the W.I. “I saw our cake recipe on Val Clark’s shopping list in Tesco this morning.”
“But… it’s only a Victoria Sponge!” said Julie.
Carol flung her arms in the air. “How many times do I have to say it? Use the code name!”
It was fair to say that former Superintendent Carol was finding retirement a struggle. It had only been six weeks but already she was exasperated.
Continue readingWhich Way?
Walking out of the town hall Aldo turned to me: ”Nan, isn’t Alan Parson wonderful. He can get this country back to the way it should be.”
Looking at him, I sighed. He had the look of the converted, his eyes shining at the thought of a wealthy life for all, poor boy. I should really keep my thoughts to myself but that man was dangerous, all his talk fantasy to lure the youngsters in.
”My Mam told me about a guy who broadcast during the war; his name was Lord Jaw Jaw . The broadcasts sound very similar to that man, only he was trying to get us to surrender promising he would make us all a wonderful life under Titler. ”
Continue readingThird Party Liability
Borstad McSingewad focuses. He feels uncomfortable talking to holographic jurors, despite it being years since the Jury Security Act passed, but out of habit, he walks to the jury display.
“Binaries and nonbinaries of the jury, Jonathan Blurt, is accused under the Third-Party Liability Act of responsibility for the actions of his putative grandfather, a murderer convicted in-absentia,” he says.
“The prosecution alleges he would not exist had his grandfather, Aloysius, been convicted of his crimes. They say Aloysius couldn’t have impregnated his wife, Berenice, because of his incarceration. The prosecution has tried to establish a Prima Facie case denying my client’s right to exist.”
Continue readingMay 2025 Prompt – The Party
HOMEWORK for deadline Thursday 10pm, 22.05.25.
TASK: ‘The Party’. Write 500 words or fewer about ‘The Party’. Your story title isn’t included in the 500 words.
Homework to be in by 10pm at the latest, Thursday 22nd May 2025. (This time deadline will be helpful to both Martyn and Pat).
Meeting at 1.30pm, Sunday 25.05.25, Waterstones Bookshop,1st floor, Oxford Street. Finish about 3.00pm.
A night out on Shambhala 752B
“ACCESS GRANTED.”
The door slid soundlessly aside.
“Christ, man,” Jessie whispered, awestruck. “How’d you manage to do that?”
I smiled in what I hoped was an enigmatic way. “Easy, I hacked the list.”
“But —”
“But what? It’s uncrackable? Nothing is if you try hard enough. Now get your arse in there before a security patrol notices.”
Continue readingRat Poison
HOUSEHOLD
?Rat Poison?
Tilly had forgotten her specs. She hadn’t transferred them from the pocket of her winter fleeced Danimac to her summer cotton jacket. Always the same with April weather in Swansea; an overnight rise of 8 degrees meant searching out the summer wardrobe with the risk of a disruption in “ the system.” House keys, shopping list, pouch containing store cards and bus pass were in the left pocket as usual, but no glasses.
“Mum your phone should be in a separate pocket from keys. The screen could get scratched” Moira’s words.
Having a “system” was as important as having a shopping list … and being able to see, Tilly’s thoughts reposted.
“Never get your phone out in public.” her daughter’s words again.
Well Tesco’s <Household> aisle is hardly The Kingsway,
Tilly acted. Needs must. The snufflings, rustlings and scratchings from the bedroom next door were getting too much; she had hardly slept for the past three nights. Every year when the weather changed, it happened. Squinting around she spied a blurry Dad and toddler at the far end searching amongst the plastic buckets. Not a risk. Tilly extracted the mobile from her right jacket pocket, stooped, chose panoramic mode and photographed the bottom 2 shelves, then cranking herself back up zoomed-in to examine in detail the latest pics in her Gallery app.
Continue readingGina’s List
The policeman, I forget his name already – Masters? Marsden? – reclines in his seat and regards me with a gaze that is probably intended to be intimidating but can only be described as ‘cute.’ It’s true what they say about the police looking younger as you age.
“Tell me about your conversation with Gina Montrose on Monday,” he says. “You were overheard talking about Marco Conti.”
Continue readingThere’s a hole in my bucket
This was a row that had simmered for years but hadn’t yet been defused. It was an underground river of molten lava that threatened to erupt but, apart from the odd burps of hot magma, remained sluggishly subterranean and unacknowledged.
The accelerant was the proposed retirement, in five years’ time, of Joan and Hywel. Each had busy and fulfilling jobs – which had masked their need to discuss points of incompatibility and irritation. However, they were both keen to leave the worlds of work for the worlds of…..well this was the main problem.
Continue readingI Have Never Forgotten
For Uzma, joining her local Creative Writing Circle was the challenge she felt ready for, a therapy of sorts. When she wrote, secrets flowed from her pen, bypassing her brain and heart into prose on the page. They told of the secrets she kept, the secrets she revealed and the secrets she told herself.
It was as if this week’s writing prompt was beckoning her to confront all her secrets at once. Let’s do this, she thought…
Continue readingAre We on the List?
The Beynons woke to find a wall around their house. Hearing workmen behind the wall, Fred bellowed: ‘What’s occurring?’
‘National plan,’ came a muffled voice.
‘Keeping others out or us in?’ Dora shouted. Her mind was quicker than her husband’s.
‘I’m just doing what I’m told.’
‘How do I get to work?’ Fred yelled. ‘How does Alice get to school?’
Continue readingThat Blinking List
As Howard opened the washing machine and pulled out his clothes, his heart sank; everything was blue. His favourite white shirt was now tie-dyed, his jumper had shrunk small enough to fit Albie, his grandson.
Margy had only been gone three days and he was failing miserably. He really had tried to follow her list. Some of the things seemed a bit extreme like polishing all the surfaces every day. Why when there was only him there?
Margy, at sixty eight, had got herself a last minute free holiday with Faye, whose husband had a chest infection. It was Margy’s first holiday without him.
Continue readingNo-Fly List
NY December 2026.
There is an awkward moment on my arrival when an ICE agent insists on me unpacking my case. He tells me there is similar name to mine on their no-fly list.
I realise I can’t remember my PIN, so I put my hand in my suit pocket to get my phone, and he reaches for his sidearm.
“Phone,” I say, a weak grin on my face, withdrawing it slowly with two fingers. I can smell the heat of my sweat rising and try to suppress a tremble in my hand, but only succeed in dropping the phone.
Continue readingPrompt for April 2025
HOMEWORK for deadline Thursday 10pm, 24.04.25.
TASK: ‘The List’. Write 500 words or fewer about ‘The List’. Your story title isn’t included in the 500 words.
Homework to be in by 10pm at the latest, Thursday 24th April 2025. (This time deadline will be helpful to both Martyn and Pat).
Meeting at 1.30pm, Sunday 27.04.25, Waterstones Bookshop,1st floor, Oxford Street: subject to confirmation. Finish at 3.30pm.
Portrait of a Man on Fire
On the 29th of May, I was sent off to Joseph Dahl’s townhouse. He was often seen strolling around Caden Street or by the lake in Muriel Park, wishing everyone a good hullo, usually while dressed in a grey suit tailored from JR Parking’s and wearing a straw hat. A habit which made him the menace of a few penny counters and good Samaritans, but the local policemen regarded him as more an itch than any serious threat.
“Some people,” he said as he gripped my hand in his leathery paw, “can’t understand the spiritual life, they’ll chant their vows come Sunday but rarely put those promises into practice.”
“How about it?” asked his not wife, not girlfriend, Susannah, who at that moment lazed upon the sofa. “Do you swear by Christ or by Odin?”
H. E. A. T.
The scanner in the pilot’s cabin read 852,0 °C outside. Next to a star with a heat burst in progress… that’s expected.
“Opening airlock in thirty seconds”, Heather tweaked some switches.
In the airlock, Tony stood ready in his spacesuit, holding a space surfing board.
“Y’know, that’d be our fiftieth planet”, he said.
Continue readingMangoes and Mangroves
“Nothing worse than unripe tropical fruit”, muttered Garnet to no-one in particular as she stabbed the pallid orange cubes in their plastic punnet. Mango was meant to be fleshy, aromatic and messy, not like these bullets of sadness.
And that’s all it took for Garnet to book a one way ticket home to northern Queensland. London had seemed like a good time, at the time. Snow, centuries old buildings, Big Ben, quick trips to the continent, the promise of a French boyfriend. The reality was a low wage nannying job, a mouldy bedsit, gun metal skies and loneliness as a constant companion.
Queensland didn’t have a summer; it was either the wet season or the dry season. The wet was Garnet’s favourite. It came to her in her dreams through the smell of watermelons, ylang ylang and warm rain on hot tarmac. The memory of humidity hugged her like a long lost lover.
Continue readingLove Letter
The walk to his home filled me with anxiety.
The cold air bit at my red-hot cheeks and my boots clipped along the uneven pavement. Perhaps these were signs. Omens of what was to come. If they were, I did not heed them.
I continued to tramp briskly toward my destination and in the distance, I saw him standing outside his door awaiting my arrival.
This wasn’t the way I wanted to do this. I had wanted to drop the letter in and run away, leaving him to reel in its indulgent vulnerability alone. However, pushed by the needs of others I’d been made to forewarn him, or at least alert him to my impending presence, and now I must face him in a less romantic fashion.
Continue readingA Warm-hearted Fellow
‘Who is it?’ asked the youth astride a delivery cycle.
‘An ordinary Joe, mate,’ the fellow with a face as seamed as a nineteen fifties leather football replied.
‘Pretty popular.’
‘Well, he was a giver.’
Continue reading