Walking out of the courtroom, Zac turned to the couple who had fostered him for the last six years. His face lit up a huge grin on his face.
”I won, she is out of my life. I’m all yours, you can now adopt me.”
His birth mother stormed out, mouthing abuse at anyone in her path. Zac stood his ground his eyes blazing. Hesitating, his mother met his eyes, turned and stalked away.
Continue reading
Driving from Cardiff to Swansea, Lloyd found a passenger in his car.
‘Who are you?’ he said, slowing.
‘Your inner self,’ came the reply.
The guy certainly looked like him: older, more haggard, greyer. It could be him.
‘You’re on the wrong road, Jim,’ the passenger said, ‘every day commuting a ton of miles to that vehicle licensing hole.’
‘It’s a job.’
‘So’s being a galley slave. How about jumping ship?’
Port Talbot steelworks skittered by, its Meccano limbs tangled against the grey sky as if in agony. The other Jim had vanished, gone in a spurt of yellow steelworks gas.
Work went badly. Workmates faces resembled those of ghouls. The phone calls, a hundred ways of asking the same thing about car tax, lapped in his brain with a disturbing echo. He felt outside everything.
Continue reading
The university park stumbled down to the sea, imitating the crazy lurching of the terraced houses on the same giddy hill. Sam scuffed about the paths round the flower beds, vaguely aware of daffodils in bloom.
He had a sharp, stabbing pain at the side of his stomach that wouldn’t go away. He was utterly miserable. Three years he’d stayed away from the town, but as soon as he’d entered the park – following the route he and Nicola had often walked – the sense of oppression had just welled up from within him. Memories from the past pushed up a bit like bulbs in the soil.
Continue reading
My name is Stephen Sacks and I’m a complete faggot.
Oh, I know, I know, bluntness is discouraged these days and words like that reek of self-loathing but I’m not pussy footing around, tonight I aim for honesty.
I’ll tell you about a revelation I had last week which stoked the embers and relit my passion. I was at an outdoor pool party, held by my sister’s in-laws. A celebration over the fact they had stuck it out for fifty years.
So, there I was, meekly maundering by the barbecue when I became aware of somebody’s nephew, Johnny whatever, wafting by the swimming pool. And as that handsome youth, wearing nothing but tight trunks, beer in hand, talked to another Adonis, dear reader I felt the desire.
Continue reading
“Can you picture her face?” My words tumbled out of my mouth as soon as my sister picked up the phone.
“Huh? Whose face?” Evelyn replied.
“Mum’s,” I said.
At sixty years old, I had just learned that most people possessed a superpower. They could visualise objects, places, events and people in their “mind’s eye”. I could not. Suddenly the darkness of my mind seemed blinding. What’s more, I felt the loss of my mother more acutely than ever.
Our mother had died six months earlier, after a long battle with cancer. Evelyn and I had nursed her until the end. Now there was a gaping hole in my life. It was Larry, my husband, who had suggested giving meditation a go.
Continue readingJane almost skipped out of the clinic. She had been told by her consultant that she was free of cancer. Striding down the road, she passed the travel agents with its tempting array of holidays. Telling herself that she could do this on her own, she went into the shop and bought a train ticket to Athens and a ferry ticket to the incredibly small island of Halki.
A month before the all-clear, Jane received a letter from Stella who now lived on Halkii. Jane had opened the letter with shaking hands and felt slightly sick. Stella and Jane were the best of friends in the early 80s but in 1987 they had a row to end all rows, on a cliff top of all places! Jane told Stella she did not want to see her and Stella cut all contact.
Continue readingI had to move my bag to make room for him. It wasn’t as if the bus was even full. It being January 5th, I gave him a sardonic, “Happy New Year!”
“You a Swansea boy?”
“Pontypool,” I said.
“The Pontypool Front Row! Remember them?”
“Bobby Windsor, Charlie Faulkner, Graham Price,” I said.
“More of a Neath boy, me. From Resolven I am … you’d think I’d be one for making New Year’s resolutions, wouldn’t you? It’s in the name.”
I let the chug of the bus answer.
“The number of times I have given up fags and booze … Eventually, the penny drops, don’t it. No point making yourself miserable.”
I could smell the alcohol on his breath, just past mid-day.
Continue readingOrlando’s Café was a dreary downmarket affair, hardly Mr Barings’ idea of a meeting spot.
Pimply youths lazed idly behind the counter, a toothless black woman drowned in a million shopping bags and a blonde floozy hunched over her cup of coffee whilst her boy, one irritating snot nosed tyke waddled from aisle to aisle thumping anything with his fists.
Worst, a lovey-dovey couple, shared a Sunday with a single spoon, breaking off from time to time for a quick peck on the lips or an ear splittingly giggle which made Barings long for a shotgun.
Continue readingIn their 23 years of cohabitation, Mel and Ron had reached achieved an efficient level of consensus. Holiday, theatre and cinema choices had all passed without rancour. Co-operation in the upbringing of son Ben was effective (although Ben was unlikely to return to the family home once his college days had expired).
They had reached deep agreement over the marking of high days and holidays. Birthdays were briefly acknowledged, Christmas was not much different from other days in the way of festive food. New Year resolutions were beneath contempt – that is, until quite recently.
Continue readingThe Aurora, a Danish research vessel, had been sailing for over five years when it hove-to West of Swansea Free Port. Kaj Lydafspiller stood on the bridge looking at the structure in the distance through his binoculars.
Only a few times since fortune had favoured him with a right place, right time confluence after the “Big Splosh” had he found habitation. Mostly they were primitive, hostile or both, until now.
Continue readingShe had dreamt of winning the really big fortune
And now she had finally done so she had also won
The lottery and she had also finally learnt about politics
And got to marry her sweetheart but it was not how
She imagined it would be or feel. She was living the dream
it was not all it cracked up to be. She had thought it
Would be living the dream it was living the dream but not
living it at all it, it was not like living at all.