Tag Archives: were

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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Hypocrisy as a Virtue

Posted on by under 2026, Oct 2026 - Hypocrisy

Dr. John Forbes sighed as he lay down a well ruffled newspaper upon his armrest. Once again, another southern preacher had been brought low, for as a famed proclaimer of family values and tee totalism this gentleman had been caught with a mistress and a mountain of cocaine.

“Hypocrisy” Dr. Forbes pondered, “is seen as a wretched sin. But is it in a sense a virtue?”

He spoke to his audience of fellow professors lounging around in the staff room, well rested on good tea. If his lectures weren’t listened to, they were at least a comfortable background noise.

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Late Bloomers

Posted on by under 2026, July 2026 - Confession

Noah was still taking a deep, pollen-filled breath beneath the wisteria when Carrie opened the door. He hadn’t yet manifested his Cat-Shelter-Worker persona, let alone pressed the doorbell.

            He’d always thought the photos of Carrie in those speculative articles were filtered, but here she was, not a line on her sixty-year-old face. Her sharp blue eyes narrowed as she regarded him.

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ANOTHER TIME

Posted on by under 2026, January 2026 - The Movie

Looking around the empty room, Cara and Helen were lost in nostalgia. The room still held the smell of lavender, their mother’s favourite polish. Clearing their childhood home had been heartbreaking, and now there was only the attic to clear. They climbed the stairs, their heavy steps echoing through the space. Neither had set foot there for many years. 

The door creaked loudly, startling them. They saw a room with boxes packed neatly, cobwebs hanging from the rafters, and a chill air caused them to shiver. Both peered about looking for any sign of rodents. There were no sounds and their breathing relaxed. They checked the first box full of childhood toys, which looked forlorn and slightly grubby. They touched them, smiling, memories of happier times stirred.

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Christmas Lights

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

‘Twas the night before Christmas. You could tell this from the furiously furtive wrapping activities and mince pie production-lines and excited children pretending to be well behaved whilst sneakily stealing chocolate baubles from the tree.  Whilst I’ve never uttered ‘bah, humbug’ out loud, Scrooge’s words do reflect my feelings about being comprehensively ripped off by myth-making so flexible and so divorced from its origins that even Tommy Yaxley Robinson Lennon can seek to exploit it with some level of impunity.

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Soulless Wretch!

Posted on by under 2025, Nov 2025 - Traitors

Kevin Bentley is an evil, soulless wretch, and has caused me nothing but pain, misery and utter suicidal despair.

We were once (I thought) best friends. I remember the first day of school, a frightened Kevin stood all alone in the corner of the playground and only I cared enough to talk to him. Our first few years of friendship were great, we would hang out at each other’s homes, sit next to each other in class, share our toys and video games but alas then puberty arrived and although it was remorseless to me, (my nickname was pizza face) it transformed the runty Kevin into an adonis,  and that’s when his utter cruelty began.

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Pay Back Time

Posted on by under 2025, Nov 2025 - Traitors

Things can soon go downhill. One minute the town was a pleasant seaside resort, then it turned rapidly into an environmental catastrophe. There were rats of course, and seagulls ready to exploit the new chaos – much better organized than the people, as it turned out. 

It needs to be said that this was never a local matter. Far from it, it was a global problem, but that penny took a while to drop. Meanwhile the locals took a critical view of the situation, allocating  blame with a distinct lack of evidence for causes or remedies.

The refuse services did excellent work trying to keep up with clearing the constantly replenished rubbish amassing on the beaches and spilling onto roads. It wasn’t their fault the landfill sites were overwhelmed and foul smelling garbage had to be disgorged on available green spaces and parks. But blame was allotted and curses duly exchanged.

The sea as an agent of revenge was considered.

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Open To Persuasion

Posted on by under 2025, August 2025 - Persuasion

Carefully opening her eyes, Holly had a head full of bees. The noise bounding around, clanging, forced her bolt upright. It wasn’t a dream, she was in a cell!!

The smell of urine caused her to gag. There was a toilet in the corner, the sight of which made her retch even harder. Slowly her memory returned in flashes .

Shawna again, why did she always go along with her wild ideas? It had been the same when they were in college .

The trip to the woods ended in a bog, then to add insult to injury a branch swung back and a black eye for Holly, with Shauna laughing her head off. A night on a pub crawl, Holly woke up in a bush on the prom, no sign of  Shauna. Apparently she thought Holly looked so peaceful, she left her there. Getting caught trying to sneak into a posh nightclub, ejected by the scruff of their necks. The list was endless but this was the last straw. No more!

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Deliverance

Posted on by under 2025, August 2025 - Persuasion

Mick sat in his land-train on an escarpment overlooking the crossing. Below, in the valley, the bots paraded alongside the slowly shuffling line of indentured labourers, their threatening gestures accompanying each faltering step. He counted five bots, one for every twenty humans.

“It’s all about ratios,” he muttered, pulling his scarf up to his nose. That’s how corporations preferred it. Bots were costly; humans were cheap. But everything had a cost. He’d rescued slaves before… for a price.

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BILLY DON’T BE A HERO

Posted on by under 2025, July 2025 - The Mirror

Sitting half way up the Witches Hat, Billy Thomas was trying to comfort the young couple. They had tried to climb down the Hat, but had become stuck after a slip on the shale had left the young lady with a badly gashed leg.

Billy and his friends were on their Boxing Day trek and had been walking along gossamer trails, the hoar frost thick on the ground. A weak sun hung sulkily in the sky.  He was always thankful  to escape the aftermath of family Christmas Day.

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A night out on Shambhala 752B

Posted on by under 2025, April 2025 - The List

“ACCESS GRANTED.”

The door slid soundlessly aside.

“Christ, man,” Jessie whispered, awestruck. “How’d you manage to do that?”

I smiled in what I hoped was an enigmatic way. “Easy, I hacked the list.”

“But —”

“But what? It’s uncrackable? Nothing is if you try hard enough. Now get your arse in there before a security patrol notices.”

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Rat Poison

Posted on by under 2025, April 2025 - The List

HOUSEHOLD

?Rat Poison?

Tilly had forgotten her specs. She hadn’t transferred them from the pocket of her winter fleeced Danimac to her summer cotton jacket. Always the same with April weather in Swansea; an overnight rise of 8 degrees meant searching out the summer wardrobe with the risk of  a disruption in “ the system.” House keys, shopping list, pouch containing store cards and bus pass were in the left pocket as usual, but no glasses.

“Mum your phone should be in a separate pocket from keys. The screen could get scratched” Moira’s words. 

Having a “system” was as important as having a shopping list … and being able to see, Tilly’s thoughts reposted.

“Never get your phone out in public.” her daughter’s words again.

Well Tesco’s <Household> aisle is hardly The Kingsway,

Tilly acted. Needs must. The snufflings, rustlings and scratchings from the bedroom next door were getting too much; she had hardly slept for the past three nights. Every year when the weather changed, it happened. Squinting around she spied a blurry Dad and toddler at the far end searching amongst the plastic buckets. Not a risk. Tilly extracted the mobile from her right jacket pocket, stooped, chose panoramic mode and photographed the bottom 2 shelves, then cranking herself back up zoomed-in to examine in detail the latest pics in her Gallery app.

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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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Heat Hub Heist

Posted on by under 2025, March 2025 - Heat

As the poor got poorer, local councils  were inspired to think about the optics of people dying alone in unheated homes during the chilly winters. Small grants enabled local organisations with free space to keep their heating on and invite local people to come in and warm up, sometimes offering  soup and sandwiches as part of their welcome to the heat hub.

People certainly benefitted from the warmth, and they also met other people.  For some this went no further than the chat and the bingo.  For others it presented opportunities to establish some common ground: to build solidarity.

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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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Not exactly Danse Macabre

Posted on by under 2025, February 2025 - Rescue

A rather puny skeleton squeezed himself out of the cupboard and moved silently around a bedroom. It was a boring job, representing some rather meagre misdeeds needing to be tucked away, but at least he wasn’t locked up and could rove around a bit. He knew of some more burly colleagues whose cupboards were permanently locked, chained and protected by serious legal teams standing in protective readiness. What horrors they were representing was kept firmly under wraps.

The real downside of being a low status skeleton (and who knew, maybe it was the same, or even worse, for the stars of the skeleton-in-cupboard world) was that there was very little to do. He had to make his own entertainment.

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Promising Young Mind

Posted on by under 2024, Dec 2024 - Regret

UPON BEING NAMED INDIA’S most wanted criminal, Fariha went to her local shop, where she bought a bottle of bleach to drink.

She stopped briefly to look at the rack of newspapers and her worst fears were confirmed. The Mumbai Mirror – a newspaper she had previously contributed articles to – had launched a hate campaign against her. Other papers carried headlines and stories pertaining to Fariha’s crimes. These included the assault of a friend from her university days; her suspected role in the murder of a Bollywood actor; and her involvement in a conspiracy to detonate a bomb in the US embassy in New Delhi shortly after 9/11.

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Cake 1 Witch-hunt 0

Posted on by under 2024, Nov 2024 - Witch Hunt

An unexpectedly early inheritance: poor Aunt Hettie shouldn’t have died so early, and Janine hadn’t considered the implications. However, hearts wear out, and as a result, Janine now owned a largish suburban house and just enough income to enable early retirement from a dull, mid-rank civil service post. Janine stepped out of her job and (at last) from an unsatisfactory marriage, kicking them  both aside like dirty clothing. Free!

The house had a lovely garden backing on to a small copse. There was ample time in Janine’s rethought life to take on beekeeping, two hives of bees soon making good use of the garden.

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