Tag Archives: end

The End

Posted on by under 2023, Dec 2023 - Misfortune

The novel, set in an indeterminate ‘past’, concerns love across the social divide. The hero is a wealthy (en)titled gentleman in love with a serving girl from a local tavern. The girl’s mother opposes the match. Chapter three, where the plot thickens, was the point at which the novel had been set aside, mainly for lack of a discernible plot.

Unfortunately, the planets were not fully in alignment for Melinda Thistlethwaite’ s most recent flirtation with the arts.  She was confident, however, that she would eventually achieve success, once her talents had coupled with artistic destiny.

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The End of Doubt?

Posted on by under 2023, October 2023 - The Curse

As a hybrid Goggapod /Cockaigian, Chief Prommy was trapped in a dual awareness. The cull wasn’t working as expected. The Goggapods, who regarded themselves as The Legitimate Inheritors, were as innovative…. and devious…. as  ever,- hiding in the tunnels of Plurian’s moons: shape-shifting so expertly that even with A.I. advance diagnostics they were routinely identified as unalloyed Cockaigians: using non-galactically recognised W.M.D: in short evading all efforts of obliteration. The new order was unambiguous, one word, “Annihilate.”

Comply or Defy,-.that was the dilemma. The sensation of Goggapods crawling over the proximal tendril’s communication device was a by-now familiar precursor to the resultant odour of a singeing short circuit. Of course the Goggapods were not actually crawling, but to The Cockaigne Higher-ups, and in a half-hidden corner of Prommy’s own consciousness, it confirmed the presence of doubt, possibly treason. 

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Lloyd x 2

Posted on by under 2020, September 2020 - Demons

Driving from Cardiff to Swansea, Lloyd found a passenger in his car.

            ‘Who are you?’ he said, slowing.

            ‘Your inner self,’ came the reply.

            The guy certainly looked like him: older, more haggard, greyer. It could be him.

            ‘You’re on the wrong road, Jim,’ the passenger said, ‘every day commuting a ton of miles to that vehicle licensing hole.’

            ‘It’s a job.’

            ‘So’s being a galley slave. How about jumping ship?’

            Port Talbot steelworks skittered by, its Meccano limbs tangled against the grey sky as if in agony. The other Jim had vanished, gone in a spurt of yellow steelworks gas.

            Work went badly. Workmates faces resembled those of ghouls. The phone calls, a hundred ways of asking the same thing about car tax, lapped in his brain with a disturbing echo. He felt outside everything.

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And in the end

Posted on by under 2020, August 2020 - The Long and Winding Road

When Jack was a kid, his family drove from their home in Dade County to his grandparents’ farm in Seminole County. This meant three small boys sitting in the back of a 55-Chevy for over three-hundred miles. It was a long, miserable trip: seven or eight hours of brothers’ elbows, mother’s scolding and potholes testing the suspension.

Colquitt was the last town they went through, and there they would stop to get refreshments. They sat for half an hour in the shade of the Tower Hotel on North Main Street, mama sipping her peach tea, the others ice-cream sodas.

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Nearing The End

Posted on by under 2020, June 2020 - Death

Scene 1.

The signs had been there for days. Steve, always a stickler for rules, had studied the conflicting government guidance and erred on the side of safety. Standing before the blinking red light, he was unrecognisable in a white Hazmat suit, respirator face-mask and blue protective gloves. Not that there was anyone else present to recognise him.

“Only one flash per second. Dear old boy, not much life left. ” He breathed out long and slow, turned away and brushing a hand to cheek, made for the door. Note to self… alcohol gel  NOW and don’t touch your face! 

Following the science of the most cautious of experts, – complete disrobing, bagging up the PPE  for secure disposal, throwing contaminated clothes in for a 90 degree wash, swabbing down all surfaces, having a hot shower and full change of clothes, followed by a UV dose of garden sun  – all this was now such a familiar  routine. 

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