‘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 readingTag Archives: but
Rescue dogs make the best breed
“The sedative is starting to take effect now”.
I began to tell the vet of her uncertain start to life but hesitated. That didn’t seem important anymore, it was the here and now, this exact moment, and I found myself lost in the vibrations of her gentle snores, the soft rise and fall of her warm breath.
She was absolutely and unashamedly my child substitute. As one half of a childless lesbian couple, a puppy was bound to become our baby, and neither of us ever denied it. Still, it was my idea to go looking for a pup and when I met her, I knew she was the only one that would do.
Continue readingReel Life
“NO. Not back there! Can’t do it. Don’t give me that 30/180 degrees clash shit. It’s my weekend with the kids. Surely Pika can do it?” Jon, voice rising, was fearful he had overdone it. Following the marriage breakdown he needed the money. But how he had hated that farmyard location,- the greyness, the endless rain, the sucking of his every welly step in the mud.
“Not there yet. Still learning.” Cinematographer Alastair and editor Mel joined forces anticipating his objection. They did not share his unease. AI was their bread and butter and Pika one of the most respected programmes.
Continue readingIn the rain
She told him it was over.
Sure, she loved him, but she just wasn’t in love with him if that began to make sense.
He looked down at his lap and blinked a little to hide the welling tears. Then rising without a word, he marched upstairs.
She knew he didn’t want her to follow, and she lingered there in his living room, knowing this was a heartless way to end the relationship but God, was there ever a right way? She plucked his housekey from her keychain and wondered if he’d return the key to her flat.
Continue readingPoint of no return
There was never any question of a reconciliation. There hadn’t been a dramatic rift, just a dwindling, eroding sense of partnership. What remained was an exchange of items and after that, their disentanglement : all that had been done was to be finally undone in this ritual handover.
The separation had been efficiently accomplished. The flat was on the market and new living arrangements were in place. Guy and Freya showed no animosity, indeed they intended to remain on friendly terms.
Continue readingReturn Match
When she’d entered the church, she’d felt trapped. At the altar just one thought: I don’t want to marry. But it was too late. She couldn’t let the crowd down, nor Colin, her boyfriend since schooldays. She blamed herself for her negativity, swore her vows emptily, and walked out of the chapel on Colin’s arm displaying a forced smile to the many pairs of sugar-sweet eyes offering her love. But there was no love inside her and she left Colin six months later.
That was a decade ago. Here she was again, in a registry office, no ostentation, just the two of them and a witness. Did she love Tim? The question whispered gratingly, as the woman registrar studied her with, she fancied, laser-like insight.
Continue readingIffy
The thing about Iffy is that he’s all about conspiracy theories. Not proper conspiracies like you see on the socials, these are more personal tales of his regrets and ‘if only’ flights of fancy. That’s where his nickname comes from ‘if only I’d done this or that or the other’.
Take last Thursday as an example. A few mates met up in the pub and were mentioning the imminent implosion of the marriage of two of our friends. Off goes Iffy:
‘If only I’d asked Gwenda to marry me before she met Bob. We could have been happy. Maybe we’d have moved to the country. It’s my fault they’re not happy’.
Continue readingConnection
In memory
of all friendships
lost to silence
. . .
“Hey.” Sent.
Sitting in her half-lit bedroom, Kate kept staring at the phone screen. It was more than a year between their last “goodnight” and today’s message.
Continue readingOlivia
Her living room is modest; a faded hand-stitched rug, aging armchairs, and bare surfaces adorned by little other than books. Of the latter, there is an abundance. Stacks ten deep, crammed shelves, and an overflow surrounding the chairs like learned sentries guarding against ignorance.
Witchfinder Smith rubs his chin. Not the home of a dark-artist, he thinks. It feels more professorial than satanic. Intellectuals are banned, but they aren’t witches. Besides, intellectuals are not his concern, being in the purview of the Bureau of Acceptable Knowledge, not the Witchfinder General.
Continue readingThe ballerina
The blade glints in the light that breaks through the shutters.
Dust motes lazily dance in the illumination, like galaxies spiralling away from The Big Bang, sending her mind to thoughts of fractal patterns, never-ending repetitions of mathematical formulae that are mesmerising in their complexity and beauty.
She can see everything now, the enhanced vision they gave her at sixteen just one of the many upgrades that apparently make her better, faster, stronger. She’s supposed to be more than human but, somehow, feels lesser, as if this isn’t meant to be.
Continue readingThe Rafters
I.
I have lived in the cathedral rafters for an endless number of bell chimes. At first I thought I’d count them to track the passage of time. It’s an enormous hunk of bronze, the bell, and every time it rings, it roars so loudly I’m amazed I haven’t lost my hearing yet. In fact, though, most of the time I don’t hear it at all; after so long living here I must’ve learnt to ignore it, and only when I was much younger did it used to wake me up on a Sunday.
Sometimes the chime of the bell is so incessant it’s impossible to ignore. When it rings to announce special occasions, so do my ears. I remember, as a child, church bells singing wedding melodies while beautiful women floated like clouds along the aisle. From this close there is nothing melodious about this bell. It only clangs.
Continue readingPENSIONER’S LAMENT
Liz sat drinking her oat milk latte, and seeing her reflection in the cafe window sighed. This is not how I imagined my retirement, my face all puffy and pale from the medications I had been prescribed. After an active job I had felt prepared for the future, but my body had other ideas it had decided. Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol had suddenly appeared, although I was told they had been on their radar for years!!
Having lost the ability to wear stilettos, I reluctantly admitted defeat and replaced them with sensible shoes. I loved my old shoes even kept my favourites, just in case, trying them on now and again but usually ended up going ass over tit .
Continue readingYou try so hard and yet…
Samson was fucked.
Ankle deep in thick mud, his t-shirt, jeans and even underwear were soaking wet, all thanks to the remorseless grey clouds spewing down their cold, cruel, bullets of rain.
And the ominous rumble of thunder served as a reminder that he was ideal target practice for lightning bolts.
But Samson grinned, staring at the solid structure of the library’s clocktower off in the distance. He was going to return the library book in his backpack on time.
Continue readingRESIGNED
The ambulance outside alerted two of the neighbours.
‘Is Janice OK? Mrs Hughes asked. ‘She’s been looking very drawn.’
‘I saw her come to the door. I think it’s…’
‘Alex?’
‘Janice told me he’s been worse lately,’ Mrs Phillips said.
‘That overdose. Last summer, wasn’t it? Do you think he…?
Mrs Phillips clamped her lips together. This isn’t suitable conversation her stiffly proper expression seemed to say.
/
Eirlys was everything to him. He watched her grow as a baby, kept an eye on her schooling. On her reaching puberty he became over-interested, you might say. When she had boyfriends, well he had jealousy like a bridge has rivets. Eirlys’ marriage left him grey somehow, his spirit seemed to have drained from him. But he had the blues in him right from when we first dated, just kids. He was prone to them. Having a daughter gave him some relief, I suppose; her leaving home extinguished that. I tried to help him but his empty heart wouldn’t let me in. I’ve been expecting this ever since last summer. Longer, really, if I’m honest.
Continue readingNothing but spare parts
I’ve heard tell that science instructors at the Fleet Academies teach students that the most important thing, the core fundamental need that humans have when terraforming new planets, is water.
Those two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms are used to sustain us wherever we go; no water, no humanity.
They’re wrong.
Continue readingMoments of Importance
The ochre light of the sun hugs your face through the windscreen as you smile in a way that gives the warmth of the day competition. Scenery of greens and blues and mountains and sheep fly past behind your head out the driver’s window, and it’s as though the music takes over. I hear nothing you say but I can count the lines around your mouth and the glints in your eyes. Then like that – it’s over; I can recall nothing you said or did but this image in my mind where your face convinced me magic exists in this world.
Continue readingTrapped
Mum’s crying again. That’s how my days go now, thinking she’s talking to her comatose son, but in reality I’m right here, locked inside my own body, fully conscious but unable to move or speak. I braced myself for her routine onslaught of confessions as she wiped the tears from her eyes and adjusted the stiff hospital chair.
“Oh, Danny, it’s just so hard,” she began, her voice cracking. “I’m working night and day, and when I’m not working I’m cleaning. I love Mark dearly but I wish he would just once take something off my shoulders.”
Continue readingAn event they’re not likely to forget
Everyone said Christopher was in a good mood in the week leading up to the presentation. This sullen, moody boy, often muttering to himself now walked with a spring in his step, wore a smile on his lips and went so far as to ask people about their day.
Odd because, rarely in the three years working for the company did he speak in full sentences, usually making do with nasally monosyllabic grunts and somehow, he now spoke in full paragraphs with a happy tone.
Continue readingSelling Success
The shop’s door opened with a gentle “ding”. A teenage girl walked in, looking around, getting used to the cluttered dark room. On shelves, all sorts of unusual items were put for sale: a wooden pigeon, an engraved locked box, a teddy bear; unsophisticated at first, each one contained a special purpose.
“The all-knowing glasses? Is it like Wikipedia?” she stopped in front of round glasses in a golden frame.
“Nearly”, the shopkeeper replied,” but you can’t have Wikipedia transmitted directly into your brain.”
The girl laughed. She kept walking until she found a shelf with sealed empty bottles. Just looking at them already felt unusual, like nostalgia.
Continue readingAddress to Fellow Magistrates Upon My Retirement.
Friends. Looking back on my years as a magistrate, I can offer the following insight into human nature: honesty boxes are a gateway drug to a life of petty crime. The whole concept of the honesty box is an oxymoron; a temptation to the weak. They create the conditions for dishonesty.
In a wonderful, imaginary world, humanity would show basic decency and charitable intentions towards fellow citizens; we could all be trusted. Magistrates would rarely be required. And, in truth, many do strive towards this ideal. But life is full of people taking more than their fair share of sweeties out of the communal jar.
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