Author Archives: swanseawriters

PENSIONER’S LAMENT

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

Liz sat drinking her oat milk latte, and seeing her reflection in the cafe window sighed. This is not how I imagined my retirement, my face all puffy and pale from the medications I had been prescribed. After an active job I had felt prepared for the future, but my body had other ideas it had decided. Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol had suddenly appeared, although I was told they had been on their radar for years!!

Having lost the ability to wear stilettos, I reluctantly admitted defeat and replaced them with sensible shoes. I loved my old shoes even kept my favourites, just in case, trying them on now and again but usually ended up going ass over tit .

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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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Defeat

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

“Defeat, when it came, was like a pall of smoke hanging over our heads, lowering our horizons,” Yeltsin said, one boot on the boxwood table in the centre of the otherwise empty room. He lit a cigarette and took a deep draught, the livid scar near his mouth pinching into a white line as he inhaled. “That’s why we did the things we did. You would too.”

“You think we are not so different?” Major Rostowski said.

“Yeah. We are,” Yeltsin insisted. He lowered his foot, leaned forward, and drew a circle with his finger in the dust on the tabletop. “The Zjheeks had us surrounded. It would have been a turkey shoot.”

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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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Not with a Bang

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

Leela stared at the white plastic stick, silently begging the Hindu goddess of fertility for two blue lines. But once again, Parvati was not playing. Leela pulled down the waistband of her jeans examining her pockmarked belly. Countless tracked cycles and three rounds of IVF, each preceded with the optimism of ‘this time!’ followed by a dream shattered. Grief, despair, jealousy, overwhelm and other inexplicable emotions joining the rollercoaster on each trip.

“This time we’re done” said Rahul, “IVF has decimated our sex life. And in case you’re wondering, I can’t countenance surrogacy, it’s rent-a-womb exploitation on steroids and I won’t be part of it. I’d prefer a puppy, much less trouble.” he concluded.

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Precious choice

Posted on by under 2024, Sept 2024 - Precious

The girl in the documentary had a lost look on her face, it was a Sunday morning and she was sitting on the road side near the church, just across the border of the foreign country. She looked as if she was searching for words, language, meaning, a place, beyond the camera, not seeing the photographer at all. That was all that I could think of, standing in front of my five-doors wardrobe, thinking what to fit in a single rucksack. Seven months later, I would be sitting next a woman who would bring out her precious set of albums in a special well-preserved box. She would be showing me all the memories captured in distant pictures, and I would sigh, and say that I wished I had taken some photo albums with me. She would reply that people are gone, and so are the albums.

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Moments of Importance

Posted on by under 2024, Sept 2024 - Precious

The ochre light of the sun hugs your face through the windscreen as you smile in a way that gives the warmth of the day competition. Scenery of greens and blues and mountains and sheep fly past behind your head out the driver’s window, and it’s as though the music takes over. I hear nothing you say but I can count the lines around your mouth and the glints in your eyes. Then like that – it’s over; I can recall nothing you said or did but this image in my mind where your face convinced me magic exists in this world.

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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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Memories

Posted on by under 2024, Sept 2024 - Precious

It was upsetting to see Great Aunt Amy preparing for the funeral of Ted – her husband of 50 years. We took it in turns to make sure she had company, but it was difficult not to interfere when her behaviour seemed quite bizarre at times.

‘When I called round, Amy had her photos all over the place. Understandable that she wanted to be with her memories but they looked so disorganised. I took her an album  on the next visit, but she just put it to one side. ’

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Fall of Duty

Posted on by under 2024, Sept 2024 - Precious

Mike’s up before me. This doesn’t usually bode well. I check my phone. It’s precisely one minute until my alarm. That’s good. Bonus points for switching it off before it buzzes.

The children won’t be up for another twenty minutes. I say ‘children,’ but they’re practically adults. I shudder. Adulthood means uncertainty and danger. I ensure my slippers are perfectly aligned before stepping into them, then take my morning tablets in the correct order and rhythm. It involves popping the foils and swallowing each in turn, to the beat of ‘Another One Bites The Dust.’ My stomach stops churning.

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SOME THINGS ARE MORE PRECIOUS

Posted on by under 2024, Sept 2024 - Precious

In the solicitors waiting room pondering. My grandmother has passed away but we didn’t know as my mother had an acrimonious fallout with her years ago.

The door opens, I’m waved in, sitting in the only available seat. My aunts and uncles glower at me.

The solicitor, Mr Packson, a young man, says, ”We are here to read the will of Agnes Florence Whitely of 56 Millpond Road, Whisley. ”

Grunts of impatience  from people.

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The Things That Are Precious

Posted on by under 2024, Sept 2024 - Precious
Two men sitting at a bar. One man looks sad, then other is an angel.

The old man sat in a high-back chair just along the bar from where I nursed a warming beer. I hadn’t noticed him when I came in, but he seemed like he’d always been there, like a decorative feature hired by the owners to add colour.

“You look like they’ve salted that beer,” he said, his voice the timbre of oak barrels and Marlborough Reds. He hunched over his shot glass, not looking up, a heavy coat draped on the back of his chair, one sleeve dusting the floor, the other tucked under his dirty overalls, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing thick forearms.

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Trapped

Posted on by under 2024, August 2024 - Limbo

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.”

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Dreamland

Posted on by under 2024, August 2024 - Limbo

There 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.

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Schrödinger’s Baby

Posted on by under 2024, August 2024 - Limbo

She 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.

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