“We interrupt this programme for a newsflash.”
News reporter
“News has just come in of a giant wave hitting Swansea beach. Witnesses have stated that the wave was halfway up the tower of the Grape and Olive. Emergency Services are at the scene, over to our reporter.”
Continue readingA line of makeshift shelters fringed the hillsides above the city. Outside crude shacks groups of people sat facing the sea, looking out at ominous signs of turbulence which been a familiar part of earlier lives. Many had experienced rapid costal land erosion where homes had once been. Some had been fortunate escapees from rogue tides and surging waves that had wiped out people, dwellings and, often, all means of surviving. People had fled for their lives, joining the worldwide population of climate refugees in search of safety and clean water.
Continue readingThey’d put the timber barriers in the few places where there was no sea wall. A high tide was due that night and they were prepared; the sea road would remain dry. In late afternoon the sky turned grey, and the clouds became worryingly dark. One large black cloud over the city appeared to have bloated cheeks and sockets for eyes. Somebody said it was the face of the devil.
Continue reading“My word professor, this has to stop. I agreed to let you use the engineering students to build that enormous building that is indestructible .But I cannot have you phoning Plantasia asking for their animals to be bought here .Your disciples have been creating panic by going around St.Thomas telling everyone a tsunami is coming .My phone has been red hot, there’s talk of the police becoming involved. They will be taking you away in a strait jacket if you’re not careful, think of the reputation of the university, man.”
Continue readingHow to survive a (man-made) natural disaster, by Sophia, aged 9
The climate change scientists warned that the wave was coming. But that was before the government silenced them.
Our parents were all too busy arguing about Brexit to help.
“Dad?” I said, “Can we move to the Midlands?”
“Is this about that tsunami nonsense again?” he laughed, stuffing yet another loaf of emergency No-Deal-Brexit bread into the freezer. “It’s scientifically impossible, Sophia.”
Continue readingTo be honest we had had enough warnings. For years there had been premonitions of what was to come. Scientists had proof that the temperatures were rising, the sea levels were rising due to the receding ice at the poles.
There had been programmes telling us, and satellites showing us but nothing had been done. Governments were unwilling to force change and definitely against putting any money into avoiding the impending catastrophe.
Continue readingBringar was cold, which was odd because it was a warm summer day. Even amongst the pigeon guano and moss atop Town Hill water tower nearly six hundred feet above Swansea Bay the sun bathed everything with its glow. But he felt cold with the chill of a life reaching its conclusion.
It had not been a good life, although he had lived it as well as circumstances allowed. In truth that amounted to keeping himself fit with night-time exercises in the privacy of his room, reading the newspapers he found in the bins, tending to the old man’s needs when called upon, and suffering the beatings his daily failings earned him.
Continue reading15 year old Jake handled the Rib with great aplomb as his bedraggled family scrambled aboard at the top of West Cross hill, teenager Amy was still texting as she held her phone clear of the water. Walter, the huge Newfoundland who’d found the RIB settled down inside with a loud huff. Mike his owner had spotted the RIB spinning in circles with its dead owner. ‘Fetch,’ he’d yelled to Walter. There was grandma huddled in the corner muttering to herself, granddad was clutching ‘Sapiens’ trying to read and teenage Ian was busy checking out the RIB’s supplies. They all wore wetsuits and life jackets but were in a pretty sorry state. Swansea Bay had turned into the Sea of Swansea and disappeared under a massive 120 foot tsunami. Despite constant warnings in all the media and loudspeakers bellowing out across the town few had been properly prepared for the devastation.
Continue readingIt was a brave new start. Eirwen told her friends, “You must come and see me. I’m 14 floors up and the views … honestly! It’s like living on a cruise ship!”
Now she was confused. Very confused, her cheek pressed hard against the carpet. The sun fell in a sharp line across her face. She remembered a deafening sound. There had been a roll of thunder, except it wasn’t thunder, because it came from below … a helicopter, in trouble, rapidly closing in, skimming the surface of the sea … But now, everything was strangely muffled and she was on the floor, paralysed. This must be what a stroke is. Without moving her head, she could see the clock on the wall, in bright sunlight. It was 3 minutes past 4.
***
Continue readingI was a big Swansea city fan, most Saturdays down at the Vetch Field watching some
good or not so football down there, and they were wanting to move to bigger and better things at the new stadium. Then they had a few good seasons at the top playing good football at the new Liberty but now we are playing in the Championship. We are doing well at the moment
Continue readingIt’s hard to let go of something when you don’t see any other choice in your life. When you love someone so much to be without them is unthinkable. There is nothing else to live for.
That is how I felt when Michael walked out on me. I didn’t know that he had been playing me, that he had other women, that all his talk had been nothing but lies.
Continue reading“It was early morning yesterday,” Mike Chaikin hummed Supertramp’s ‘Goodbye Stranger’ as he lifted one denim-clad leg over the curved saddle of his red Harley Davidson. He patted the tank, “C’mon old girl, make this a clean getaway”.
It was four a.m., and the slumbering birds lining the eaves of the Georgian cul-de-sac tucked amongst the backstreets of Llandybie barely raised an eyelid as he kicked over the engine. He checked his guitar was strapped firmly to his back and rolled the machine onto the road.
Continue readingAnna peered at the ugly gnome in the elegant London house’s garden. What’s that doing there?’ She smiled at her fiancé, eyebrows raised.
‘Whatever you do, say nothing negative about that gnome. It’s Mother’s pride and joy; I’m only second-best.’
‘I think you’re perfect, darling.’ Anna was raising herself on tiptoe to exchange a kiss when the front door opened. Framed in the doorway stood a tiny, grey-haired lady.
Continue readingShe was there, again, long legs and arms draped around a radiator in the reading room of the city library. With her long dark coat she looked like a spider curled up in the corner of the room. I had seen her there a few times, always at the same time of day – late afternoon. Now, it was early December. Outside, it seemed the Xmas lights were diamonds, hanging and dancing between the trees. Inside the library it was warm and dry and there was a strong smell of polish.
I had taken to going to the library most days as I wanted to look at travel guides, because I hoped to go away in January – on my own, for the first time!
Continue readingOnly one item of mail this morning. It appears to be a card. In February? It is a card, a Valentine’s card. Who’d be sending her a Valentine’s card? Married, on the cusp of middle-age, though that threshold has of course not yet been crossed, no indeed.
She opened it and read its one word: Mmm! Who on earth had written that? Had she a secret admirer? Her husband, Steve, was away in London with senior management. Did somebody know that and was taking advantage of his absence to send her a little cheer-up? Perhaps it was more serious? Could there really be somebody out there who’d noticed her? On the lip of middle-age? Sometimes, if she were really honest, she felt a bit of a frump, she felt she was past her sell-by-date, and sliding down a long bannister to oblivion.
Continue readingAs I sit with tears flowing down my face a small hand touched my arm, looking up into the face of my six-year old son his eyes troubled.
” Are you sad because daddy has gone to prison?”
What do you say to a boy who has been abused by that man he calls daddy. That man has taken his innocence and his childhood. I nodded.
Continue reading“Wake up Joe, come on, wake up.”
“What’s a matter, what’s going on.”
“Come on Joe, I am sorry to do this but we have had a complaint.”
“What do you mean, what sort of complaint, I ain’t done nothing wrong, let me go back to sleep.”
“Joe, you need to move on, I can’t turn a blind eye anymore.”
“What am I suppose to have done?”
“It’s not about that, I just have to make sure you clear off from this shop front.”
Continue readingThe locals call her “Eighties Kate.” She drives a Ford Cortina, her hair a tangle of permed curls and her clothes the ultimate in retro-chic.
But those who know Kate Archer will know the sad story behind her vintage style. It isn’t a fashion statement. Kate is frozen in time because she has been waiting for her husband to come home for thirty-two years.
Tom Archer has been missing, presumed dead, since he drove out to buy a late-night kebab just as the Great Storm of 1987 was gathering momentum. His car was found wrapped around the railings above the arches of Brighton beach. His body was never recovered.
Continue readingI ran here, pursued by shrieking ghouls. And it took several years to arrive. Even longer to decide to bolt in the first place.
There’s a word – bolt. I bolted doors, windows, cupboard doors and all to keep the ghouls at bay. This became my bolt-hole and later, my place of sanctuary. Later still, well I’ll get to that.
At first I was a live bundle of nerve endings. Afraid, exhausted, relieved, hurt, someone with a past but no discernable future and certainly without a plan. The new GP I signed on with was happy to offer a medicinal route out of my troubles. But I wanted to face the ghouls, not reach for their temporary suppression. I was grateful for sick notes to allow me a couple months off work. ‘Anxiety’ it said on the note, by way of explanation to my employer. Ha, and the rest, I remember thinking.
Continue readingHe placed the offensive thing upon the chopping board, the garbage guzzler was set to shred and the stove, piping hot, should sizzle closed the bleeding wound. He held a butcher’s knife in his hand and was ready to cut away his shame.
“If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.”
Lust. The short coming of all men. Drooling gluttonous, shameless lust, caused by the enemy between their legs. Even the strictest monks still fell victim to the tumour.
Continue reading