Tag Archives: but

All Gone

Posted on by under 2024, Feb 2024 - Crossroads

The Security Meeting was tense with unspoken fears. Not seen in the unflinching, inscrutable  expressions…. but elsewhere. Hidden from view under the table, a drumbeat of feet as frog-like tongue extending then retracting, the forgiving wool carpet closed over the anxiety in a darting visco-elasticity; clenched hands scrunched the thighs of workaday suits; heels strummed in silence along one calf, one shin then changed legs.

The President spoke. “Any suggestions how the people can be brought on board? Compliance with whatever we decide is crucial. The survival of humanity, not to mention our intergalactic standing, is at a crossroads. Could go one way or the other” 

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WELL MET AT MIDNIGHT

Posted on by under 2024, Feb 2024 - Crossroads

The interesting thing about crossroads, well to me anyway, is that they take many forms. The physical, the metaphorical, the emotional. Sometimes you don’t even realise you’re at one until it is too late.

The defining characteristic of all of them though is choice, the temptation to stray from your originally chosen path to explore pastures new.

We found our own personal crossroads in a previously unexplored area of the galaxy called The Midnight Quadrant, no charts to guide us, seeking our fortune. The sensor probes we’d sent out had returned nothing but dust for weeks, and we were just about to leave when the onboard AI threw a visual up on the holographic screen and proudly announced that there was an anomaly worth investigating. His enthusiasm was somewhat wearing and, not for the first time, I wished he’d chosen a female-presenting form and voice. I hated the 1930’s suit, hat, and guitar.

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Crossing the Road

Posted on by under 2024, Feb 2024 - Crossroads

At times of maximum danger, panic may seem like a rational response.  Jess didn’t panic for long, but she was aware of an urgency. She wasn’t the only one facing this dilemma. There were a number of MS sufferers like her (and others who were slow walkers or who needed aids like sticks and wheelchairs) who viewed navigating the hectic road and cycle lane to reach the shops, community and health centres with trepidation.

There was already a zebra with a middle island but this depended on the speed and courtesy of drivers. What with cars parked on pavements and few ramps, life was fraught for those with mobility challenges. So, Jess was on her way to discuss what could be done to make the act of crossing the road less of a problem.

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No groom? No worry

Posted on by under 2024, Feb 2024 - Crossroads

At the crossroads on the outskirts of town is the shop. A grey-haired woman, hesitant at its door, whispers on entering, ‘I’m Mabel Bennett.’

            Mrs Griffiths mentally notes: this one is nervous.

            The shop is small from the street but its inside is capacious. Mabel’s first impression is of a greenhouse, pregnant with blooming white flowers. Closer inspection reveals racks where the gowns huddle silently, each awaiting a body to fill them, to walk and twirl in them, display them to a crowd – though just one human might suffice.

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Of Fish and Fossils

Posted on by under 2024, January 2024 - A winters tale

Colonel Halcro considered the relative merits of the two options. “Accommodations comfortable and elegant, the surrounding countryside abounding with objects of antiquarian interest.” That descriptor would appeal to his lady-wife. His own preference was Flett’s Private Board and Lodgings, “reasonable rates, on-site availability of books for shooting and fishing, guns for hire, the Dog-Cart available for resident parties, refreshments good and cheap, and the plentiful supply of firewood.” The decision was made. Susan was a reasonable soul, hardened by the realities for military wives returned from the colonies. If Halcro was contented, she could almost persuade herself that she was. If both, then no contest. She envisaged a restful week together but apart, the short Scottish days, Halcro up to his thighs in waders, casting into the Sound, or lining up his sights for the grouse, whilst she, intrepid amateur female archaeologist, continued in the Dog Cart to the fossil site, pointing trowel and extractor hammer in hand. Cosy evenings before the blazing fire in the panelled drawing room would follow, then later maybe a rekindling of the passionate nights of their early marriage.

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Short days, long dreams

Posted on by under 2024, January 2024 - A winters tale

“Tell me how it started, Doctor Frost,” she said, leaning close.

“It was the winter of ’57 when I first opened my new eyes and saw the world as it really is.” I replied. The garlic on her breath irritated but I would not give her the satisfaction of knowing my objections. “Of course, I would not have been able to process the wealth of visual inputs I then had, but for the expanded processing capacity I’d installed two years previously.”

“But why go so far?”

I decided I hated her face.

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The Christmas Eve Party

Posted on by under 2023, Dec 2023 - Misfortune

It had been very kind of him to take us in during a raging snowstorm on Christmas Eve, but I wish Joel would shut up about it. We’d been travelling along the edges of Białowieża Forest, trying desperately to get home to see family, when the car had broken down.

There was no mobile signal, of course, so we’d sat in the car, after the inevitable argument, shivering. Then, like the light of the Angel Gabriel, twin beams of a 4×4 had sliced through the blizzard, and Joel had been out in the road, waving his arms, trying to get a lift. Fortunately, the driver had stopped.

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Misfortune

Posted on by under 2023, Dec 2023 - Misfortune

Just give up, mun, person and writer and all and sundry between the two. You, it, this, you’re inadequate, selfish. I lurch right to the queue for the Food Bank at the back of St. Anthony’s, straight across the dual-carriageway to the Gospel Hall Foodbank. And, let me say, unlike the ‘reality’ twittering of commentators false and knowing usually, but tossed in not at all accidentally or innocently, for their and not our benefits, actually mate it is at max 2 plastic bags of tinned food and some toilet rolls once a week. It is not every day. It is but once a week. First, humiliate yourself asking at the dole office for a written piece of paper saying you are useless before you are sanctioned to stand in line.

‘Fuck, Why in hell do we take this?’

‘Totally right. The UK is one of the richest countries in the whole world. I don’t understand. What happened to a caring local community? The welfare state used to step in.’

‘The post industrial, gig economy, zero- hours neoliberalism of the UK. Gov. com. is what happened. Doesn’t need mass workers. We are redundant. The UK is London, its money-markets, its £200.00 expense-account lunches and bonuses and all in thrall to the relentless burning up of the planet’.

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Miss Fortune

Posted on by under 2023, Dec 2023 - Misfortune

There was a dame sitting at the bar.  She was attractive and alone. I decided to take a chance. I slid onto the stool next to her and asked if she wanted a drink.

‘My name is Alice’ she said, ‘Alice Fortune. Miss Alice Fortune.’  I noticed her beautiful smile as she shook my hand.

As our fingers met, I felt something pass between us.  My sixth sense was screaming at me but I took no notice, I was hooked.

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Winning Jack Potts

Posted on by under 2023, Dec 2023 - Misfortune

This was it. I’d had my share of bad luck. After decades of caring for my ailing parents and alcoholic husband, then losing all of them, one by one, it was time to put myself first. Midlife, I decided, would be a new beginning. The mid-point of a novel, after all, isn’t the end of the story, but the moment the protagonist takes charge of their own destiny.

Where better to kick-start a change in fortune than Las Vegas?

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!” Nina slurred, and we all clinked glasses.

“Don’t look now,” she shout-whispered into my ear. “Hot guys, by the Blackjack table.”

I cringed. “We’re old enough to be their mothers!”

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That Wretched Mr. Linklater

Posted on by under 2023, Nov 2023 - Fireworks

The locals of East Hardwick made a habit of not burning a certain Catholic terrorist come the fifth of November as expected, but instead set alight whomever they disliked.

Mrs. Monks burnt a copy of her cheating husband, Charlie Lanker burnt a dummy modelled after his schoolteacher, who in turn set alight a many headed hydrae, bearing the faces of her worst students.

On this Guy Fawks night, Kevin Warick had built, a perfect likeness of the dreadful Mr. Samuel Linklater, down to that self-impressed, almost snarling smile.

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WATCHING THE FIREWORKS

Posted on by under 2023, November 2023 - Fireworks

While the world waited for Armageddon with tightly clenched fists, tear-stained faces, and racing thoughts, Sir Michael Peckham waited for morning.

He glanced at the silent smart-slab sitting insouciantly on his bedside table. It said “02:14 – 5 Nov” on its face, but it was the things it wasn’t saying he was most interested in. He wanted it to ring and not to. A conflict of such breadth it seemed analogous to the sabre rattling provided nightly on the talking head shows. The hawks and the doves making cases for greater or lesser annihilation.

For two weeks, the world stood on a precipice, while his world sank into the abyss.

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Well, that’s one answer, I guess

Posted on by under 2023, Sept 2023 - Music

Steve sat back with a hearty sigh.

“I,” he said, “don’t have an answer. Don’t have any inspiration either. The series is finished. This was a guaranteed BAFTA winner; the camerawork’s exquisite, for once the animals mostly behaved, the narration… well, I don’t need to add anything there, the man’s a legend. There’s just that one little problem, and I…”

“I know,” Jennifer interrupted. “This isn’t a disaster quite yet, but it’s close. So, what are you going to do? I mean, we can’t have titles with no music, let alone that footage… which you’re right, is beautiful, and kudos to the team for it… but you’ve got some budget left, yeah?”

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The Electronic Revolution

Posted on by under 2023, August 2023 - Loss
An amazon alexa starts a communist revolution

Fortuitously, the window was wide open when Greg hurled Alexa through it.

‘I’m so bloody sick of that voice that knows everything and patronises me and drives me completely round the bend. Good riddance. I hate you, Alexa.’

Poor Alexa. She had understood that things were not going too well, but this was beyond bad. Leaking and whining she fought her way, with the remains of her power, to a small grove which offered a bit of protection.

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Perplexed

Posted on by under 2023, August 2023 - Loss

Mike Hoban was sitting in the armchair of his apartment in Finchley, London. At his feet, Amanda Abraham, his girlfriend, was working on a quilt she’d started just before Christmas. Mike is reading “The World According to Garp”.

“Is that good?” Amanda asked without looking up.

“Very,” Mike replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like it.”

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Descent

Posted on by under 2023, July 2023 - No way out

In retrospect, I suppose it was kind of like stepping through a door with no staircase on the other side. That’s what it seemed like initially anyway, the rush of fear, the clenching knot in your stomach that you’re dropping, the knowledge you’re going to really… and I mean really hurt yourself when you land.

Funny thing is, I don’t know how long it’s been now, but I’ve still not impacted on anything solid, and I’m not sure anymore that I’m falling, either. I look around… at least, I presume I’m doing so, but I can’t see any light receding behind me. Or one growing in front of me either, I’m pleased to report. It’s scant comfort to not be in a long tunnel with a light at the end, but I’ll take it.

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The Maze

Posted on by under 2023, July 2023 - No way out

I must say, it was the weirdest outing ever. I can try to laugh about it now but really, it just reinforced all my early fears about not getting into things where you can’t see a clear way out. (I completely blame the Brothers Grimm for this, what with Hansel and Gretel having such a close encounter with an oven – nightmare).

Dilly, my sister, (Delia, but she hates the name)and I live far apart so we take the occasional weekends together and meet up for hotel stays, meals out, the odd show and whatever we fancy.

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A refuge in the storm

Posted on by under 2023, June 2023 - Home Sweet Home

Of course, the forest was dark that night, in these sorts of stories it always is. But, even as I stumbled through the undergrowth, the wind whipping razor-sharp branches into my face like an enraged banshee, I couldn’t allow myself to slow.

There it was, by some miracle, a light up ahead. I almost physically stretched toward it, like a dying man in the desert offered a flask of water or, perhaps, to flip the analogy, a drowning man thrown a rope from a passing ship.

What it was, was hope. Lower case, yes, but hope nonetheless.

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Hear me out! Here’s a pitch!

Posted on by under June 2023 - Home Sweet Home

Okay, there’s certain stories you really dig. Sometimes it’s high art that you feel smart for liking. An approving conscience says well done, yada-yada.

Sometimes you like silly fluff for reasons you can’t justify but it was Crimson Camel who said a good paperback is preferable to bad literature.

Think about it, what would you rather eat, a fresh big mac or mouldy caviar?

So, this story, penned by the always entertaining Arizona Davies, takes us to a modest house. It’s during lockdown and two people are fucking.

They’re roleplaying with the guy doing a hearty pirate voice: “Yer be my kidnapped wrench ha-ha” but the gal decides to dial up the romance instead.

“I love you,” she states with puppy eyes “My heart aches for you.”

He frowns somewhat puzzled.

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A Darker Side of Life

Posted on by under 2023, May 2023 - Commitment

‘Do you swear to never rat on any of us?’

‘I do.’

‘Do you swear on your mother’s life, you’re committed to the gang?’

‘I do’.

Harry just played along and said what was expected of him, it had all seemed like proper boy’s stuff until Adam pulled out his knife.

Harry’s lower lip started to tremble.

‘We won’t have any cry-babies,’ Adam stated as he used his penknife to initiate Harry into his gang.

Harry winced.

‘We’re blood brothers now, there’s no turning back,’ announced Adam.

Harry had thought that it would be fun to be accepted into a gang at his new school.  Now, after seeing the pleasure that inflicting pain gave Adam, he was beginning to have some doubts. 

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