HOMEWORK for deadline Thursday midnight, 19.09.24.
TASK: ‘Precious’. Write 500 words or fewer about ‘Precious’. Your story title isn’t included in the 500 words.
Homework to be in by midnight, Thursday 19th September 2024.
Meeting at 1.30pm, Sunday 22.09.24, Discovery Room, 1st floor, Central library. Finish at 3.30pm.
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 readingThere is one sensation that stays the same through all your days, from the day you are born till the day you die – it’s waking up from sleep. Just before you open your eyes, you float in the nothingness, feeling like you can be anywhere at all, and everywhere at once.
I walk the darkness. I explore it, and I can choose where I’ll eventually wake up. All my days are scattered here, just waiting to be picked.
Continue readingShe rests the plastic stick upside down on the sink as carefully as possible, as though disturbing it might disrupt the chemical reaction of hormones in the pregnancy test and somehow change the result. Then, just as gently, she lowers the toilet lid and perches on the edge.
Five minutes. That’s all she has to wait. It scuttles by like a mouse when you’re having fun, but she knows how leaden time becomes in this particular situation. She’s been here too many times. She’s tried distraction – scrolling mindlessly through Instagram (bad idea. Baby photos and smug pregnancy announcements everywhere); counting the mosaic tiles on the walls (4,820); and muttering prayers. She’s even tried watching the test continually, waiting for that second pink line to bleed through the stark white window, on one occasion even convincing herself that she could see it. But it was just a trick of the light. No matter how she passes the time, it always ends the same way. Tears. An argument with Gav, because he never says or feels the right thing. Another month stretching out like a desert before her.
Continue readingEveryone 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 readingI’m beginning at the end here, or at least at the start of something different. Fingers crossed that my piece of good news is sound.
Only 5 months ago I was a complete wreck.
‘Take it easy Sandy. Just relax and drink this tea. Want a biscuit with it?’
Continue readingYoung Tommie Lewis was the apple of his mother’s eye, always a dainty boy with short dark hair, a little snub nose, large spectacles and a skinny build. School days were hard for Tommie. Sports day he would run, his arms and legs spinning as fast as he could, but he always came last. Nobody ever picked him for football. He usually sat on the sidelines wishing he could be first at something. In the juniors gymnastics became the bane of his life. Once he was made to climb the monkey bars. Getting to the top he froze. A teacher had to climb up to fetch him, handing him the rope to lower himself down. Poor Tommie just slid down the rope, causing blisters on his hands and legs; his mother played merry hell. So Tommie was forced to join the girls away from hazards.
Continue readingWas the ferry late? She checked her watch. It should be coming around the head by now. That sense of foreboding again, as if her body were being gripped by a huge fist.
She’d been calmer across at the Tesco mini-store, looking for cars with Irish number plates, reading which county each was from. One or two accents floated over: your man was from Cork, your other, might that be Kerry? What’d brought them to Wales? Had any of them had to flee like her?
Continue readingWhat with the encircling memories crowding in, Engineer Ozob completely forgot to recalibrate the composter. The consequences, cataclysmal, are well-documented in the journals recently unearthed, an appropriate descriptor, given the tons of earth mixed with meteor fragments that had entombed the Obmil Annals. 110 year-books, carbon-dated 5630 AD to 5740 AD, then silence.
The previous evening, prior to Ozob’s dream, Deputy Toidi had reported, “Composter one’s out again.” with that smug look that said “You must have it done it wrong again.”
“I’m onto it. Good timing; a new rubbish cloud is orbiting.”
Continue reading
HOMEWORK for deadline Thursday midnight, 22.08.24.
TASK: ‘Limbo’. Write 500 words or fewer about ‘Limbo’. Your story title isn’t included in the 500 words.
Homework to be in by midnight, Thursday 22nd August 2024.
Meeting at 1.30pm, Sunday 25.08.24, Discovery Room, 1st floor, Central library. Finish at 3.30pm.
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 readingThe little bell above the door tinkles cheerily, and she moves through the beaded net curtain behind the counter to see who her latest customer is.
He’s looking nervous, fidgety, and like he’s bothered someone has seen him enter. She’s dealt with this type before. Probably after the… ahem, special merchandise that isn’t available to regular customers. He’s picking things up and putting them down again, trying to look nonchalant and utterly failing to pull it off. She needs to be careful how to approach him, so that he doesn’t startle like a baby deer and gallop off. That produces a smile that she has to work to suppress, the idea of this guy scampering anywhere would be worth watching just for entertainment value alone.
“Can I help you?” she asks, brightly. “If there’s something you’re looking for, we have additional stock out back, if you know what I mean.”
A look of relief washes over his face.
“Yes,” he mutters, “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m after.”
“So,” she responds, “what are you looking for, what’s your tastes? No need to be self-conscious here.”
He looks confused, then starts.
“You mean,” he says, “adult material?”
She nods.
“Oh, I think I’m in the wrong shop. I’m not after that.”
Ah. Oops. Misjudged him.
“I see,” she says as he turns for the door. “You mean the stuff in the other back room. You’d better come through.”
*
Two minutes later, they’re squashed into a too-small space rammed with miniature, carefully labelled wooden boxes, each containing a tiny vial. Within each, a cloud of viridescent gas swirls and pulses. He reaches for one, then stops, shakes himself.
“Who are you after?” she asks.
They both know what this means; one of the city’s residents is going to die tonight. Whoever owns the box controls the life expectancy of the individual whose label adorns the outside.
He mutters a name, and she steps away through the stacks to find it.
A moment or two later, she returns, reverently holding one on a small silver tray.
“You know,” she says, “the price?”
He nods, mute.
Her eyes glow gently as she holds it before him, his gaze transfixed. “So,” she says, “do we have a deal?”
“Don’t you want to know why?” he asks.
“I don’t ask questions.”
He nods again, then carefully picks it up, turning it back and forth. The life inside swirls like liquid in a half empty glass, but something is wrong. She’s seen all human emotions when people come in here; anger, fear, disgust, even lust for revenge, but his stare is flat, dull, almost lifeless. She tries and fails to repress a shudder. He seems inhuman, even to her.
Finally, he looks up.
“This one,” he says, “is me. We do not have an accord.”
He smashes it on the floor and, as the life force evaporates, he drops to his knees, finally free.
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.
Continue readingBefore she died and came back to haunt me, I lived with my mother for two years. They wouldn’t let her out of the hospital bed until they knew she was coming home to someone, and my father had the foresight to die a decade prior. I asked her doctors for a care package. No result. When they told her this, she took it to mean that no one cared.
Behind the dusty velvet curtains in my mother’s spare bedroom was a streetlight bright enough to seep around the edges and keep me up all hours of the night. At four o’clock I’d stand in the window and watch the rain fall like knives and write descriptions in my head of the garden, four metres square of concrete jungle. To the song of her snoring I’d walk along the landing and trace my fingers along the bannisters, planning how to photograph the woodwork for the house listing. When I spoke of my mother, the neighbours’ mouths gaped, horrified at my exasperation, and I made a mental note to warn the next owners they could never be honest.
Continue readingHe put the advert in the spring edition of the estate magazine. Kind heart for sale, middle-aged, male, one previous owner. Offers?
The day the mag went through people’s letter boxes the new woman in the flat above knocked.
‘I’m Liz. Just introducing myself.’
‘Jed.’
‘Some nice people round here.’
‘Some.’
‘I mean look at this in the community circular. He sounds a proper decent sort.’
‘You think?’
‘I might answer that meself!’ She laughed, a nice laugh, like a tickle.
‘Save yourself the pen and paper, Liz.’
‘Oh? Do you know him? Is the bloke no good?’
He told her.
/
Liz and Jed, hand in hand, picked over the pebbles to the sand fringing the wide bay which simmered in the summer sun.
‘How do you think we’re doing?’ she asked.
‘Doing?’
‘Us. Doing.’
‘Alright.’
‘You really are the most understated guy. But then I like a quiet fellow.’
‘My wife said I was too quiet.’
‘She’s wrong!’ she insisted, a little too loudly. ‘And, look… if you ever want to tell me more about the crash, I’m a good listener.’
He shook his head.
‘When you’re ready, I mean.’
He grimaced, as though she’d punched him.
‘If you’re ever ready, you know.’
His expression became fearful.
Talking with him about feelings was like walking on the pebbles beneath her feet. Had his ex had similarly frustrating conversations with him?
/
She swept up the autumn leaves from the front of the drive. Dead. Same as Jed? Sex with him was OK but he never kissed her before, after, or during it. It was if he were anaesthetised. He told her, once only, details of the school bus accident. Three children had been killed, one being his sister, to whose limp hand he’d clung till they cut out the survivors. Blood was trickling down his head, into his eyes, so he couldn’t see his leg. Nor could he feel it: it was broken. He remembered a claustrophobic feeling, as if he were buried alive. His parents had never stopped grieving for their daughter and passed the infection onto him. He’d become withdrawn, reticent. ‘They treated your leg but not your trauma,’ she’d said last night. ‘You need therapy, Jed.’ He’d not replied. Did he have survivor’s guilt too?
She tipped the leaves into the recycling bag. When would he kiss her?
/
Snow was falling on an unusually cold December day. The estate was white, asleep under its shroud. Liz had called it off. ‘You’ve got to get off that bus, Jed. You’re trapped on it. I can’t help you, see. I just can’t.’ He’d be alone this Christmas. For the best really. Nothing lasted, did it?
He stood outside the flat. Snowflakes settled on his head, melted, ran down his cheeks. When the bus had skidded on the ice and turned over, he’d had bodies on top of him. He’d never been as close to anybody since. He went in, closed the door, shook the snow off.
He put the advert in the spring edition of the estate magazine. Kind heart for sale, middle-aged, male, one previous owner. Offers?
The day the mag went through people’s letter boxes the new woman in the flat above knocked.
‘I’m Liz. Just introducing myself.’
‘Jed.’
‘Some nice people round here.’
‘Some.’
‘I mean look at this in the community circular. He sounds a proper decent sort.’
‘You think?’
‘I might answer that meself!’ She laughed, a nice laugh, like a tickle.
‘Save yourself the pen and paper, Liz.’
‘Oh? Do you know him? Is the bloke no good?’
He told her.
/
Liz and Jed, hand in hand, picked over the pebbles to the sand fringing the wide bay which simmered in the summer sun.
Continue readingMaryam could not quite pinpoint when love turned to loathing. She just couldn’t get her hands warm however close she held them to the small wood burner in the canal boat. Her stomach growled, her skin felt dull and was turning an odd shade of yellow. Nothing to do with her diet of bread, cheese and beer…
Maryam’s income from peripatetic English teaching and occasion au pair gigs seemed to disappear on wood, tram fares and hot chocolates consumed slowly in warm cafes. And the odd bit of hash to warm her lungs.
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Sharone did not “get” art.
To her, if a painting looked like a photo, then it was alright but when it came to terms like “colour theory,” “layout” and how the image “spoke,” she could feel the tumbleweed roll across her empty brain.
At highbrow art galleries, she would nod at the sight of melting clocks and say “Hmm, that’s interesting innit?” but couldn’t pretend it meant anything to her.
Tony though had aspirations of taste, speaking freely of the artist’s soul. When it came to purchasing a print to hang on the living room wall, he’d spend hours online agonizing over which one to pick.
“Just get one of a dolphin or tiger or someup, they’re cool,” Sharone would say but Tony countered with “No, no love, it’s gotta matter. Can’t you tell a great painter from a crummy one? Vermeer knew what he was about, Hitler tried painting and his stuff’s shite.”
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Avril Morgan, a slender woman with a handsome face, opened her front door in anticipation of her little totem pole. She was greeted by a man dragging a large coffin-shaped tree trunk up the garden path Her jaw fell, it was supposed to be six inches, not six foot
Huffing and puffing the red-faced driver arrived, delivery sheet in hand, thrusting it in her face.
“There must be some kind of mistake,” Avril’s voice quavered.
No mistake and I’m not taking it back; sign here. “
After she signed on the dotted line, the driver made a quick exit.
What the heck do I do with it now. Adrian is going to go mad.
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I do love a vintage store, but this smell is like something from Hell. At least I am out of the rain though – Britain, am I right?
Surrounding me are a litany of supposedly real leather briefcases and a couple of wooden chairs. I wouldn’t mind a fancy briefcase but where would I wear it? It feels like the flash and suave look of a well-made briefcase died after the second world war. Oh well, I’m not here for me anyway.
Continue readingPrompt for deadline Thursday midnight, 25.07.24.
TASK: ‘For sale’. Write 500 words or fewer about ‘For sale’. Your story title isn’t included in the 500 words.
Homework to be in by midnight, Thursday 25th July 2024.
Meeting at 1.30pm, Sunday 28.07.24, Discovery Room, 1st floor, Central library. Finish at 3.30pm