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.
Continue readingMy first game was not going well.
“Terger?”
Me ….“Wiktionary’s definition is ‘a person who teases, taunts, aggravates, angers’”.
As organiser and chair of the scrabble tournament Bryn bristled with self importance…. and incredulity.
“Translated from Norwegian! Come-on Charlie. You know the rules.”
Using a practised left hand to flick through the T’s of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, his right hand twisted first one greasy handle, then the other, of his handlebar moustache.
Continue readingSure, I regret working with Harlan Ray.
His studio had posters of naked women on the walls, empty beer cans littering the floor, and the company line was “Harlan Ray is God”. Should have quit when the guys dubbed me a faggot for choosing to go to the ballet rather than a football game. Well, it was winter, and I’d rather be in doors.
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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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‘Mum’s got pneumonia. You should come today.’
‘Right,’ Jeff said, ‘right.’ He put the phone down.
‘Pneumonia? Your sister’s a nurse, Jeff. She’s telling you something.’
‘I can’t leave here now!… What’s she telling me, Steph?’
‘Frail, old, in a care home? She’s saying get there before your mum goes.’
‘Christ! How can I…?’
He looked about him helplessly and put down the wet bucket he’d been using to bale out the shop.
/
‘Just a yellow warning, minister. The Met should’ve issued a red or amber.’
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The thing about Iffy is that he’s all about conspiracy theories. Not proper conspiracies like you see on the socials, these are more personal tales of his regrets and ‘if only’ flights of fancy. That’s where his nickname comes from ‘if only I’d done this or that or the other’.
Take last Thursday as an example. A few mates met up in the pub and were mentioning the imminent implosion of the marriage of two of our friends. Off goes Iffy:
‘If only I’d asked Gwenda to marry me before she met Bob. We could have been happy. Maybe we’d have moved to the country. It’s my fault they’re not happy’.
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In memory
of all friendships
lost to silence
. . .
“Hey.” Sent.
Sitting in her half-lit bedroom, Kate kept staring at the phone screen. It was more than a year between their last “goodnight” and today’s message.
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Dougal was sitting in his armchair and Marie on the settee with their son, Patrick, reading a book. At two years old he had the same copper coloured hair as Dougal, who looked over and smiled. He wondered if their next child, due in a few months, would also have it or have black like Marie.
Opening the evening paper, Dougal took a quick breath. The circus was coming to Swansea. His mind shot back to the nine year old boy he was the last time the circus had visited. He’d sneaked into the camp in the early morning to see the elephants and met Daisy and Mossie. He sighed. He could recall Daisy clearly, her sheer size, yet so gentle as she explored his body with her trunk. He had been in heaven at that moment. Mossie lived with the circus, a brown boy unlike anyone he had ever seen, Mossie had welcomed Dougal, taking him into the family that was the circus.
Continue readingFleeing Fern ran along the animal tracks she knew so well. Undergrowth lashing her legs, the tree branches closing in on her hair and skin, Fern was oblivious to the pain or the sound of the mob bellowing behind.
”Find the witch, before she puts the curse on someone else.”
Continue reading“Whisky Gamma zero-niner,” the comm said. “Hopkins, it’s time. Go shake that moneymaker.”
“Copy that,” I replied, nosediving into the canyon, a grin spreading across my face. “Let’s go fuck up E.T.”
This was the bit I loved, where adrenaline and training kicked in, asI dodged and jinked my fighter at incredible speeds in a space barely wider than the wingspan. Above me, the cruiser started laying down covering fire as I ran a few fast delta rolls and let loose with the cannon.
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Annus Dominus 1287. Western Gate, Swansea
John lifted his eyes from the gibbet and groaned at the stench. The De Braose family had trusted him with captaining the hanging party: he could smell a traitor and a murderer. William, as leader of the Oystermouth Castle Revolt, was both. If the cross beam had not buckled under the weight of that other Judas, the second hanging would have been avoided; John would have had the time to take his victuals – time denied due to William’s obstinacy in reviving… twice.
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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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At the edge of town just beyond the last sprinkle of houses was a small field. Stevie walked to it, her mind as dark as a seabed. Why me? she thought. Why have I been picked out? I wanted just one thing, never asked for anything else. And it’s taken from me.
The small herd in the field was turning, having heard the farmer’s call, fifteen or so beasts clumping slowly through the wet grass towards him.
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Winchester Hall had seen better days. Not especially photogenic or a marvel of design, it nevertheless stood proudly between tall oak trees whilst a meandering river coiled around it.
This site was infamous for the legend of Lady Elaine Winchester, accused witch who was rumoured to haunt the grounds.
“Of course,” the groundskeeper informed me, during our steady trek up to the property, “the witchcraft charge was all hogwash. Her accuser, Simon Mathers who was just eyeing the estate, cooked up the witchcraft crap, and after he had her hung, brought the house from her dissolute and estranged son. Oh, and before she died, she vowed to kill any descendant of Mathers who’d dare step foot in her house, and to do everything in her power to help her descendants reclaim their ancestral home. Do you know what happened next?”
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Her living room is modest; a faded hand-stitched rug, aging armchairs, and bare surfaces adorned by little other than books. Of the latter, there is an abundance. Stacks ten deep, crammed shelves, and an overflow surrounding the chairs like learned sentries guarding against ignorance.
Witchfinder Smith rubs his chin. Not the home of a dark-artist, he thinks. It feels more professorial than satanic. Intellectuals are banned, but they aren’t witches. Besides, intellectuals are not his concern, being in the purview of the Bureau of Acceptable Knowledge, not the Witchfinder General.
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HOMEWORK for deadline Thursday midnight, 21.11.24.
TASK: ‘Witch-hunt’. Write 500 words or fewer about ‘Witch-hunt’. Your story title isn’t included in the 500 words.
Homework to be in by midnight, Thursday 21st November 2024.
Meeting at 1.30pm, Sunday 24.11.24, Discovery Room, 1st floor, Central library. Finish at 3.30pm.
Please send your homework to Pat.
The blade glints in the light that breaks through the shutters.
Dust motes lazily dance in the illumination, like galaxies spiralling away from The Big Bang, sending her mind to thoughts of fractal patterns, never-ending repetitions of mathematical formulae that are mesmerising in their complexity and beauty.
She can see everything now, the enhanced vision they gave her at sixteen just one of the many upgrades that apparently make her better, faster, stronger. She’s supposed to be more than human but, somehow, feels lesser, as if this isn’t meant to be.
Continue readingI.
I have lived in the cathedral rafters for an endless number of bell chimes. At first I thought I’d count them to track the passage of time. It’s an enormous hunk of bronze, the bell, and every time it rings, it roars so loudly I’m amazed I haven’t lost my hearing yet. In fact, though, most of the time I don’t hear it at all; after so long living here I must’ve learnt to ignore it, and only when I was much younger did it used to wake me up on a Sunday.
Sometimes the chime of the bell is so incessant it’s impossible to ignore. When it rings to announce special occasions, so do my ears. I remember, as a child, church bells singing wedding melodies while beautiful women floated like clouds along the aisle. From this close there is nothing melodious about this bell. It only clangs.
Continue readingThe boardroom was silent for a full minute following Lisa’s presentation.
It was Callum, one of the Runners in the TV company, who broke the silence. “You’re the producer so you know best…” he said.
A bit over-confident for one so young, Lisa thought. But he had the good grace to blush when he spoke, which was kind of cute, so she let him continue.
“…But what sort of person would want to watch a football match like this?”
Lisa peered over her glasses and allowed a smile to spread across her face. “Exactly,” she said.
*
Continue readingLiz 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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