Tag Archives: into

Suicide? Don’t Blame Me, Pal

Posted on by under 2026, Oct 2026 - Hypocrisy

Let’s be clear: I did nothing wrong. Barbara had a history of bad depression. Very trying, but I was ever there for her. I couldn’t pull her through but I stayed at her side. You can only get out of the dark tunnel by yourself, girl, I told her. But I’m outside it, ready to offer you my strong arms when you make it into the light. And get this: it was years ago when I left her. Can we be clear about that? It seems she carried on dwelling in gloom. Just listen now: don’t blame me!

‘Your face is unreadable,’ she said, ‘but I see trustfulness.’ Trust was an issue with her. Difficulties with her father. A rat, a philanderer. She claimed I broke that trust when I moved out. What can I say? I am not a philanderer.

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There Ought to be Clowns

Posted on by under 2026, Oct 2026 - Hypocrisy

Funny how you hold onto ideas, simmering away for years until they suddenly burst into flowers of insight.

With Eva it was clowns. For her 9th birthday she was taken to a circus and hated it . She found the fleet of clowns particularly distasteful and the reason for this seemed to be that clowns simply could not be trusted; they were not what they seemed with exaggeratedly painted, upturned mouths for smiles or huge tear drops to stand in for emotions. It wasn’t fear – it was distrust, a feeling that Eva thought about occasionally and eventually would associate with words such as dishonesty, gas lighting, fakery or deception. 

Clowns in stories or art rarely argued for a more sympathetic appraisal.  They were villains or emotional grifters.  On a trip to Southend pier, Eva witnessed a slot machine which, if fed a coin, started a clown figure into rolling about with faked laughter until the money ran out. Some laughed, but Eva sensed malevolence and moved away.

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The Hypos and the Waterbags

Posted on by under 2026, Oct 2026 - Hypocrisy

The Hypos drifted through CTA25OR624’s asteroid belt. Their queen, Chrissie, liked this star, but she was feeling a tad bored. Waiting for the break of day, as it were.

Her favourite event, the consummation, was still ages away. This was when their host star would bloat into a red giant, and pour energy into every Hypo within range. Then they’d feast, pack up, and swan off to the next system like a gang of interstellar freeloaders.

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Miss Take

Posted on by under 2026, Sept 2026 - Mistakes

Missy was all about stuff. Looking for stuff, gathering stuff, organising stuff and dreaming of ways to procure more of it.

If anyone was having a clear out, she was onto it. “I’ll take that”, being her catchphrase. A broken lampshade left on the street – “I’ll take that”. A friend giving away an art easel with sticky oil paints – “I’ll take that”, despite having no intentions of ever painting. Leftovers at a potluck dinner “Ok if I take that?” while simultaneously whipping the half-eaten cherry pie into a Jiffy bag.  

Although she sulked about her nickname Miss Take but could hardly argue with it.

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Huw and Cry

Posted on by under 2026, July 2026 - Confession

The pub door opened and a large figure, like a swollen keg of ale, rolled into the premises. Another equally rotund chap was at his heels. The first one, Huw ‘Jars’ Scanlan, spilt himself into the largest chair in the bar, the second, Hugh ‘Janus’ O’ Keefe, purchased two pints of stout. He carried them across to the table with the reverence of a court servant carrying an embroidered cushion for a monarch. The cream crowns atop the beer maintained unruffled dignity during their journey.

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The Anti-Santa

Posted on by under 2025, Dec 2025 - Tis the Season

“Anti-Santa!” scoffed Mr. Cushing “Dear me. Can we even admit that regular Santa isn’t a real thing.”

Mrs McCulikn merely stirred the pot on the hob, humming to herself as she did around 5:45 when Mr. Harding would sneak into the pantry and shove his hands into whatever jar he fancied, Mrs. Harding would have words with the staff when he did so but if the pantry was locked Mr. Harding would have words instead. At times such as this, it paid to be deaf.

“According to little Christopher” explained Mrs Marks “the anti-Santa is for bad girls and boys. How does it go again? Good girls and boys leave offerings to Santa Claus.”

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The Outback Mysteries

Posted on by under 2025, Dec 2025 - Tis the Season

“Fucking mozzies” muttered Bob half asleep as he swatted another of the bastards with his hand. “And fucking flies!” he yelled, batting away another attacker.

Can’t stand it here, he thought bitterly, knowing he couldn’t voice his hatred of this new homeland out loud. Surrounded by Sheena’s Australian family who were all thrilled to have her back, had put paid to that. Christmas here was all wrong. Blazing sunshine, barbecued seafood, chilly salads – where was the tradition in that? He missed carol singers, his mother’s crispy roasties and the possibility of sledging in the snow. What he’d give for a Baileys to hand, the EastEnders Christmas special blaring and a box of Quality Street to while away the afternoon.

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A Good Life

Posted on by under 2025, October 2025 - The Good Life

He stands on the corner of East Bank Way and Fabian Way, in the long winter shadow of Swansea Dockers Sports and Social Club, his tragic, asymmetrical body a cautionary tale of what might be.

The traffic is slow. It’s the usual blockage: cars, vans, buses and trucks, turning into Quay Parade, ignoring the yellow cross-hatched box that says to new drivers, “Do not enter unless your exit is clear”, but in the hurried world of nine o’clock deadlines, a warning to be ignored, along with the cheery horns of the oncoming traffic.

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There is no infinity.

Posted on by under 2025, July 2025 - The Mirror

The dead body after being held up to the mirror did indeed have a reflection, an infinite number of them as a matter of fact. The police were amused by the two-mirror illusion. The frantic scrabblings by the bedside were dismissed as the ravings of madness.

The cause of death was determined to be that of a heart attack brought on by stress. That’s how the story ended.

*

The infinite mirror trick is a lie. You know how it goes, you stand between two mirrors facing each other and you’re greeted by an infinite line of yous, disappearing into the horizon, but in truth mirrors don’t reflect 100 percent of light, so each repeated reflection is a little dimmer than before. So if you strain your eyes long enough, you can see your reflections disappear into blackness.

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Do Not Look Into … The Mirror

Posted on by under 2025, July 2025 - The Mirror

The man studied the screen to watch and absorb all of the horrors unfold right in front of his eyes.

To the left he sees a woman silently screaming at the top of her lungs, a hammer enters into the shot. With one felled swoop the hammer strikes into the womans left temple, with a violent shuddering her expression is rendered lifeless and almost blank. The wall beside her and even the screen the man is viewing are stained with fresh blood splatter. The man staggers backward too disgusted to keep his eyes open yet so morbidly intrigued he peeks. Then the nausea hits him and he viscously wretches as the slight contents of his stomach exit his mouth. Feeling a slight wave of physical relief the man lays his head down on

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Blink

Posted on by under 2025, July 2025 - The Mirror

“Did you see that?”

The man before me was a horror. It’s pale face was twisted in anguish like a Halloween mask held to the fire. It scratched at it’s scalp, at the visible, glistening wounds that ran like muddy rivulets between tuffs of matted hair. It’s eyes, milky and dull, were set deep into it’s skull. It’s jaw hung slack. Teeth haphazardly stacked like a tombstone lying abandoned upon a vandalised grave. A monster. Always watching. I hated it.

What was it’s intentions?

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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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Christmas Party for One

Posted on by under 2025, May 2025 - The Party

            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.

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The hunted

Posted on by under 2025, February 2025 - Rescue

“Hello?”

Beams of light sliced the darkness, and she shrank into the corner, shivering. Hopefully they’d not see her, move on, and she could get back to eking out her existence on whatever she could forage at night time, and the small creatures that fell into the crude traps she lay near the entrance to the cold, dark, cave system.

Maybe, she thought, as footsteps echoed, getting louder and closer, that was what’d drawn them into the depths, that she’d been careless and left signs, indicators of her existence. Whatever had got them here, they weren’t leaving.

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Returning the empties

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

“If yer want my opinion,” says Bill. He looks up at Alana, with his runtish face twisted into an intense expression.

“Frankly Bill, I don’t,” Alana interjects before he can launch into one of his tirades about the subject at hand, one of his favourites—why elves would be better employed getting some time in—and monopolise the conversation with tired but well-practised jeu de mots and superficially plausible conclusions that pay scant regard to any logical rigour.

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Perfect Day

Posted on by under 2024, Feb 2024 - Crossroads

Alfie disappears into the classroom without looking back. It swallows him whole. That’s good, I tell myself. He’s happy and I’m free to be ‘me’ again. It’s terrifying.

Turning towards the gate, I focus on the shiny new stilettoes that I hoped would bring me confidence. But I feel ridiculous. A pool of sweat is collecting beneath the too-tight waistband of my trousers, the material straining to contain my bulging flesh. Why did I let Ben convince me to pursue a career again, at my age? Asking his university colleagues to consider me for a job? They’ll see right through me. Inadequate. Embarrassing. Fat.

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THE TOSS OF THE COIN

Posted on by under Feb 2024 - Crossroads

Feeling totally confused, Jaxon lay there. He could hear lots of noise, occasional conversation that seemed to be about him. His eyes refused to open; where the hell was he? Drifting off, the bleeps seemed to soothe him.

Out of nowhere appeared a boy about his age, wearing funny clothes like you see in the black and white photos his mam had. When he started to speak to him, Jaxon’s mind went into overdrive.

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Petulant Child

Posted on by under 2023, Dec 2023 - Misfortune

My mother tells me my middle name should be misfortunate. She blames it on my being born on Friday the 13th, sliding into the world feet first, causing her intense pain, which she still remarks on today.

”AS IF ITS MY FAULT I DIDN’T ASK TO BE BORN”

I had the misfortune to have very curly brown hair and green eyes, unlike the rest of my family. Mother is still convinced that I was swapped at birth.

”SURELY SHE CAN’T BE SERIOUS!”

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