The Stain upon the Wall

Posted on by under 2023, Feb 2023 - The Stain

It was a national shame. A blot on the pride of the land. The symbol of their strength and unity was ruined.

The wall. Their wall. That grand monument was smeared by the stain.

Allow us to explain, in the City of Derleth there lay a white wall. Five miles long and a thousand feet tall. Impassable, thick, smooth, and clean. It had stood for seven hundred years and might stand until doomsday.

When sunlight radiated off its surface, the wall glowed like very heaven. And the tales of older times spoke of its practical purpose as a brilliant defence. Of how barbarian hordes tried and failed to penetrate this angelic barrier, leaving the city protected and unconquered.

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Last Contact

Posted on by under 2023, January 2023 - Infatuation

Pilot Gamma-Tau 453 personal log: birth offset date 4067, relative time +220637.1.

Security code: <redacted>

The Navy’s always had a weird sense of humour, at least that’s what I’ve been told, even going back to the days of seafaring vessels in the Sol system. Lots of in-jokes lost to history, obtuse terminology, and language designed to exclude civilians and make us feel like part of a family, even as we sacrifice our personal humanity for the greater good.

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Soul Mates

Posted on by under 2023, January 2023 - Infatuation
Angry man observes young couple

Michael closed the door of his adoptive parents house for the last time.  Now was the time to make his way in the world. 

He was to transfer to his firm’s sister company in South Wales.  It was a long way from Scotland but he felt that he needed his own space.

As far as he was aware, he had never been to Wales before, but he felt that he had come home.  He knew that he was adopted when he was three.  His birth parents had been killed in a car crash, which he had survived, but had been left with both physical and mental scarring.  He couldn’t remember anything else.

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No Sweet Ending

Posted on by under 2023, January 2023 - Infatuation
Dead Squirrel on Carpet

Investigating Officer Cooper removed his topcoat, derby hat and gloves, stroked and twisted the waxed wings of a luxuriant moustache, examined the end result in the hall mirror, then satisfied, entered the drawing room. He cast an experienced eye over the crime scene. The sinking fire flashed, illuminating the agonised death mask, its heat accentuating the smell of blood welling in an advancing surge over the dislodged curtain pole, across the silk kilim, and towards the hearth.

            “What was the deceased’s name?” he asked

            “Dribbs, – a nickname,” Sally elaborated. “His real name was Driscol but due to a facial malformation since birth he had a tendency to well, you know….. dribble.”  Her sentence trailed off in a sob.

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All Change Please

Posted on by under 2023, January 2023 - Infatuation

We’re ‘familiar strangers’, you and me. Each morning, we board the 6.28 to Paddington at Swansea train station but never interact. Have you noticed me?

Familiar strangers don’t speak. If you wanted to double-check what the announcement just said, you’d ask that guy over there, who’s not a regular.

The reverse is true out of context. Say I saw you in a bar, you’d be more likely to talk to me than you would a perfect stranger.

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The Love Cry of the Determined and Crazy

Posted on by under 2023, January 2023 - Infatuation

You wake up, tied to a tree in the middle of the woods.

Tugging at your restraints, figuring out that some bastard has bound you with a rope. You kick, you scream, and nothing happens.

Last thing you can recall was riding the school bus back home, looking forward to wading the night out curled up on the couch, high on paracetamol, on account of one motherfucker of a migraine.

You’re trying not to panic over the fact you’re totally powerless, so if you starve, freeze or a wondering bear decides you’d make a good snack then Christ, there’s not a lot you can do.

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Wintry

Posted on by under 2023, January 2023 - Infatuation

In his mother’s bedroom, Christmas Day. He puts the cup of tea and mince pie by her. She stirs. ‘Thank you, son. You look after me, don’t you?’ Then she’s asleep again. Worn out, she lays there like an old sack, split, on the verge of falling apart.  

            His mind shifts. Boxing Day races tomorrow, eleven venues, seven races at each. Kempton, 2.30pm, Energy Supply. That boy’s a flyer. He opens the top drawer of the dresser, takes out the credit card, hesitates. Guilt like a barbed wire suit pricks him. He hates these tricky moments.

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Will She Never Learn?

Posted on by under 2023, January 2023 - Infatuation

Felicity handed the wine bottle around. The girls had decided on a quiet weekend, nibbles and wine, relaxing in their pyjamas, the usual banter – who did what to whom and how their romantic lives were. The subject of Kelly came up when Jodie asked why she wasn’t there.

          Felicity laughed, ”Have you not heard? She has a new infatuation.”

          Groans and laughter spread across the room. Jodie looked towards the heavens. ”Who is it this time? Thought she was still chasing Simon?”

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Laurie, Alice, and the paycheck Senator

Posted on by under 2023, January 2023 - Infatuation
vague outline of a mna holding a glock pistol

Laurie threw the empty Bud can onto the couch. It skittered among the discarded cigarette cartons, magazines, and sandwich boxes, creating an avenue of disruption in its wake before resting against the curled edge of an old Simon and Garfunkel album. His eyes crinkled, and he fingered the black shape strapped to his waist.

“I am a Glock,” he sang, laughed at his joke, and gazed out of the window at the streets below. There was no silent shroud of snow, but there was a sedan with darkened windows under a streetlamp on the corner of 3rd. He drew the Glock and sighted on the driver’s window.

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Someone I No Longer Know

Posted on by under 2022, December 2022 - The Stranger
Elderly woman sitting on a bed

I wait in the car outside the home, waiting for the Lateral Flow Test result. Part of me wants it to be positive, as an excuse not to go in. I’m unlucky in my wish as I have the all clear. I climb out of the car wearily, taking as much time as possible. My mind and my conscience wrestle. I need to do this, but I don’t want to do it.

It’s more and more difficult every day. My mother’s dementia has taken away the parent I once knew. Her long-term memories come to the fore as her most recent dissolve within seconds. Conversations circle between us. It feels like we are both trapped in a revolving door. 

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Mastering the Mountain

Posted on by under 2022, December 2022 - The Stranger
Therapy group sitting in a circle

“Are we expecting more? Roger? OK. A few minutes.” No-one else arrives.

            “Let’s start. I’m chairing. First, we introduce ourselves. Starting clockwise, give your name and a few words as to why you’re here. Then hands up whoever wants to speak. The topic this week, Mastering the Mountain. I’ll go first. I’m Reeta; been a regular for a year. My fear is meerkats. I call it Herpestidaephobia. That’s a made-up word actually,” she waits, weighing the effect, “but my therapist seems to like it.”

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A stranger

Posted on by under 2022, December 2022 - The Stranger
A faceless man stands with the universe behind him

It was a ghastly sight, twisted and unnatural. To look upon it was to feel your brain revolt as some deep-rooted and primal instinct urged you to turn away.

And Jamie, against all judgement, stood his ground, wincing in terror and disgust as the figure, no eyes, no hair, no nose or lips, but a smooth spherical face, stood opposite him.

This white matchstick seemed to move with a faux gracefulness, well maintained of course but never suggesting anything close to a homo sapiens, nothing close to organic in truth. Instead, its motions recalled a marionette’s imitation of life.

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Say My Name

Posted on by under 2022, December 2022 - The Stranger

Well, why not? Seven tasty days and nights with her in that holiday camp, fifteen years ago. She’d said she lived in the Swansea valley, place beginning ‘Ys’, on an estate. Probably married now and moved. Probably wasting his time.

            Atop Ystalyfera, a couple of streets clinging to a hillside, a deep valley dizzying below. A faded place: dogs, kids, toys on the pavement. Even the evening sun seemed grubby. He was getting in the car, about to go, when, standing by a front door, a blonde, thirties, curvy, nice.

say my name
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The Doctor

Posted on by under 2022, December 2022 - The Stranger
Man on house back riding through snow-laden western tow. A red scaef lies on the ground

Snow fell in clumps the night the Doctor rode into town, carpeting the cobblestone streets. It was as though God himself had poured clouds out of the sky to welcome him. Lit by a full moon, snowflakes gilded every surface and our stricken community glowed with hope.

He had come to save us.

No-one had visited since the plague had hit. And we were forbidden to leave, succumbing to the sickness one by one.

‘I am The Doctor!’ he said, tipping his hat to the gathering crowd.

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A stranger in the machine

Posted on by under 2022, December 2022 - The Stranger
Man in wheelchair with computer circuit background

“Everything has been going wrong for so long,” Eric thought, “I forget what normal looks like.”

He is in his garden on the last day of his occupancy. The bank forecloses tomorrow. His wife left after he lost his job, but that wasn’t what finished it for him. He looked at where his legs used to be. That was the car crash.

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An unusual Sunday “Simon”

Posted on by under 2022, Nov 2022 - The Lesson

“A-men.”

As the last notes of the hymn echoed around the rafters, and the sound of the church organ faded, the elderly congregation sat in a rustle of paper, a waft of too much perfume, and a bustle of perfectly coiffured Sunday hairdos. The vicar remained standing as his flock settled, gazing out over the one-third full church, before smiling gently.

“I’m very pleased to say,” he said, “that we’ve a visitor in the congregation today, young Michael there, who’s about to be ordained. He’s exactly the sort of person that a modern, forward-looking Church should be looking to engage with.”

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The Lesson of Catastrophes

Posted on by under 2022, Nov 2022 - The Lesson

His disruptive nights of parading nightmarish spectacles were persisting. Jonas awoke, yawned, and prepared to start the day, then realised he was still asleep dreaming of waking, yawning, and preparing to start the day.

“Catastrophes come in all shapes and sizes.” He attributed this philosophy to his untreatable narcolepsy and lamented the waste of creative energy others devoted to anticipated global apocalypses; energy that could, he believed, be more usefully employed addressing life’s immediate personal challenges. Comet strike annihilation; rebellion of the robot serfs; flooding by rising sea levels; alien invasion; all such fear fests he had let pass by.  Humankind waited for Armageddon; he waited to wake up.

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A Lesson in Life

Posted on by under 2022, Nov 2022 - The Lesson
bric-à-brac jumble sale stall

She’s at it again, using her allure to get people to do things for her. I watch jealously from my bric-à-brac jumble sale stall. I had spent the last half an hour carrying heavy bags from my car. Now, she strolls in, followed by a team of eager pleasers hauling all her boxes. I really hate her sometimes.

Angela, five foot eight and with an effervescent personality and curly blond locks. I understand what the entire male population sees in her, but what I don’t get is why she is able to bewitch the female population as well. That doesn’t include me, of course. I’m immune to her charms.

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You Chose to be Colourblind?

Posted on by under 2022, Nov 2022 - The Lesson

“Toby Metcalf!” thundered Mrs Thomas. “Are you insulting my intelligence with this effort!?”

It had been a simple request. Mrs Thomas, covering Mr Ellison’s art class, had tasked the students to colour in a black and white drawing of a king standing outside his castle. Whilst the kids scribbled on their printed copies with coloured pencils, she had marched between desks, sniffing out any miss-behavers.

“I want normal colours,” she boomed, “no purple grass or orange skies, realism is your goal!”

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My Mother’s A Witch

Posted on by under 2022, Nov 2022 - The Lesson

Billy Thomas stomped up the lane, kicking anything in his path, muttering away to himself, frustration written all over his face, every muscle tensed. She had been right again. Even when he made gestures behind her back, she knew. It wasn’t fair. Everyone else got away with things, but not him. She caught him every time.

            Plonking himself down on the river bank, he gave vent, screaming at the top of his voice, ”My mother is a witch,” over and over. Behind him, a gruff voice asked what his problem was. Turning, he saw old Mr Morris stood behind him, dressed as usual in clothes that looked too large, a wrinkled face like the bark on the trees, a flat cap, but eyes that were clear and bright. Billy didn’t know him that well, but he always had a couple of pennies when the boys went round with penny for the guy and carol singing. Embarrassed at being caught, Billy grunted. The old man then motioned him, ”Come and walk awhile and tell me your problem, bach, I may be able to help.”

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