Tag Archives: him

The Surgery of Mirrors

Posted on by under 2025, July 2025 - The Mirror

Dr Ima Kwak hesitated. The oblique angle of the antique mirror captured him seated in his wood-panelled office; the leather olive-green captain’s chair highlighted his status. He caught himself glancing and sighed. That advert had sounded promising.

“Immersive Scenarios ensure every trainee surgeon is practice-ready for ONLY a fraction of your traditional cost.”

Still he held back from clicking the know-more link. The responsibilities of Regional Post-Graduate Dean in Medical Education had over the 26 years seeped, morphed and varicosed as if from an untreatable haemophiliac. It now included fiscal responsibility and he was at heart a clinician not an accountant.

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Staves

Posted on by under 2025, July 2025 - The Mirror

A 92-year-old woman in Maespoeth has been found dead. Police have arrested a man, 64. They said the woman and man were known to each other and have described it as a ‘very sad case’. Valleys Radio news website.

/

Perkins looks at himself in the dresser mirror. The lines on his forehead remind him of the staves on a sheet of music. He’s a semi-professional bass player, makes a bit of living from it. Those days are over now. He pulls out his mobile and taps 999.

Latterly it’s been tough. The privatised caring company, profit before people, make their first visit at eleven in the morning. No good at all that. So he’s been getting her up, showering her, changing her himself. He sort of switches off when he does it, same as when you accompany an uninspiring melody. He just makes out he is himself a paid carer, dealing with somebody else’s mother, not thinking it odd that he’s washing the naked, broken body of an elderly female. Switched off yet kind, that’s the way he does it.

‘Which service?’ the voice on his phone says.

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WHAT IF?

Posted on by under 2025, June 2025 - Sacrifice

Opening the curtains Anna looked out on a kaleidoscope of colour: the perfect day, the birds awakening, a flurry of sleepy tweets, trees rustling .

Climbing back into bed she sighed in relief. Six in the morning and since her mother’s death there was no hurry now to start her day. Turning on her clock-radio a distant memory wrapped around her, a favourite song of her and Joe. She cried, recalling all the hurt of her choices.

In Sydney, Australia Joe Harvey sat looking through the family album. Jan, his wife, had passed away some time ago. Living on his own was hard, he missed the companionship. Out of nowhere a shaft of misery drove deep into him. A name popped into his mind, consoling, one that he had buried long ago.

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Which Way?

Posted on by under 2025, May 2025 - The Party

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. ”

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That Blinking List 

Posted on by under 2025, April 2025 - The 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.

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Portrait of a Man on Fire

Posted on by under 2025, March 2025 - Heat

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?”

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Love Letter

Posted on by under 2025, March 2025 - Heat

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.

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ONLY SO MUCH HEAT

Posted on by under 2025, March 2025 - Heat

Bud pulled Jack to one side outside the cell. ”They want us to turn up the heat on the boy.”

” You telling me they actually believe that kid has an inside track on ‘THE CHOSEN ONE’?  He’s paranoid, mad as a box of hares, everyone knows.”

” Ssh, walls have ears. I know people have disappeared for saying less aloud.”

Jack snorted, ”OK, let’s get on with it, suppose we are the moral police.”

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One Scout Went to Mow

Posted on by under 2025, March 2025 - Heat

It’s Joe’s turn to tell a story by the campfire.

“One night, a boy went missing on Scout Camp,” he whispers. I shiver, despite the heat, and huddle in closer. I’m not scared, it’s just that it’s hard to hear him when he’s whispering like that. Behind him, the shadowy outline of tree branches could be horns growing out of his head.

“Every year, on the anniversary of his disappearance, another boy goes missing. But right before he does, he sees the missing boys. No-one else can see them…”

The fire spits and we all jump, then we’re laughing uncontrollably. This is way more fun than singing boring camping songs.

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IT’S NOT A BUDGIE !!

Posted on by under 2025, February 2025 - Rescue

Wilf hovered  over the birdcage, eyeing it with affection. He had to admit Polly did look a little large and she did seem to enjoy a bit of raw meat.

He’d got the chick from a stranger in the pub who said it was a baby parrot. Scruffy thing it was and looked starving. Something in the way it looked at him pulled his heart strings .

”How much for him, bearing in mind it looks half dead ?”

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I’m here to rescue you!

Posted on by under 2025, February 2025 - Rescue

Measuring time was next to impossible. No clocks, no sunlight, no signs from the outside world.

Smith had called out in his windowless cell, heard his voice echoed down the dingy corridor and yet there were no noises in response. No rumble of traffic, no coughing or shuffling of feet, no bellowing “to keep it down,” not even a crackle from the pipes or the creek of a floorboard. The silence outside was deafening and the only sounds Smith could hear were made by his own body.

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In the rain

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

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.

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Returning

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

No-one can explain the expansive nothingness of flying through space; it makes you wonder if movement is an illusion hurtling through the flat darkness – everything looking the same as though you were stood still.

Our hero, our returner, Frank 4000, had been enduring this journey for six months. His automated system forged towards his pinpointed base on Earth; that beautiful, colourful, noisy, all-consuming, wondrous place that we take for granted. His slick, silver shell yearned to feel the heat of a human hand once again and his giant eye wished to devour something other than the same stagnant view he’d experienced for so long.

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DID SHE, DID SHE NOT ?

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

Low lighting and heavy drapes held the evening at bay. Valerie Trent sat across from her new client, Anita Wallace, who was devoid of makeup, her hair chopped short, her shoulders hunched.

”Anita can you tell me why you are here?”

“My husband died six months and five days ago and I keep thinking I killed him”

”Did you?”

Her eyes filled with anguish. ” I don’t know, he tripped over my foot as I scrambled away from him and he went over the cliff to his death.”

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Je ne regrette rien

Posted on by under 2024, Dec 2024 - Regret

It was a hollow victory, Hugo thought as he tucked into his last meal. Now that the initial excitement of escaping the care home and boarding a plane to Switzerland had worn off, the stark finality of death began to sink in. 

After all his dear friend Ron had done to help him – booking the Dignitas appointment, fetching his passport, lying to the staff and Hugo’s family, and driving him to the airport – he felt bad even thinking like this.

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PAX

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

He heaved, sweating, and pulled another door from the wreckage. Crouching down behind it he hoped to gain some respite from the carnage that surrounded him. The curly-haired man closed his eyes and breathed deeply hoping to recentre himself.

When he eventually opened his twitching eyes he spied the remains of his guide a few feet away.

Carefully dodging every spike and shard that threatened his feet below, he eventually reached the guidebook and with trembling hands scrambled to find the right page. It was useless; he already knew he had gone too far and there was no turning back at this point.

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You try so hard and yet…

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

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.

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RESIGNED

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

            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.

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Thérèse

Posted on by under 2024

In the dusk is a sea monster, bulky, black and rubbery, glistening in the remnants of the light. It is almost still, as if waiting for a prey.

            A fellow waves the crowd on board, taking the last of their money. At this the youngest of our crew, Paul, averts his eyes. It’s superstition: if he doesn’t look maybe this voyage might be uneventful.

            More ragged travellers arrive. The fellow squeezes them on, extra bucks for him and his criminal smuggling network. He doesn’t care if he’s endangering people. He gives one of those on board a GPS, saying in English, ‘north west’.

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