Trapped

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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Escape

I heard stories about the Eternal Windstream. It will test you; it might break you, but if you’re strong enough, it will take you wherever you wish.

My search for it is finally over. I feel the flow of air and its pulsating energy before me. Excited, I step off the cliff.

The fall doesn’t last long. I spread my wings and enjoy the sensation of the wind in my feathers. And up the sky I go, gaining speed. Effortless.

I look back. The land gets further away. How far can I go now? How far should I go?

The wind gets stronger – now I have to fight with it to stay in the flow.

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All Gone

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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Go Little Queenie

The oppressive heat gave a dreamlike feel to the morning. The purple-grey clouds on the horizon seemed slumbering islands, the motionless sea a broad pane of glass, the people on the beach sleepwalkers.

            Half hidden in a rocky cove at the end of the bay, a man of about sixty was digging a hole in the wet sand with a small spade. Progress was slow, the incoming tide hesitant but sufficient to drip into his work. He retreated inside a narrow cave, muttering, ‘Should’ve come earlier.’

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LAMENT TO THE CHERRY

Three 15 year old boys sipping around a table at the back of a rugby club sipping shandies while talking about girls.

Billy Thomas and his little gang were sitting around a table at the back of the rugby club sipping their shandies.

            The steward was keeping a watchful eye, the club was busy after a local derby. Both teams were strutting their stuff to impress the girls. They in turn were pretending they weren’t interested while quietly sizing them up.

            The gang looked on from afar. Finally Owen Parry piped up.

            ”Don’t know why they bother, bitches all of them.”

            They nodded as they knew Owen had fallen heavily for a girl, showering her with gifts only for her to turn him down when he asked for a date.

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Lloyd x 2

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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Let’s go

The Mass was interminable and the priest couldn’t even remember his name. The burial was worse, raining non-stop. And in the pub afterwards, distant relatives sat gawping at her. They were part of Robert’s extended brood from the countryside. Uncouthness clung to them like agricultural muck on your shoes.

            They were the first to leave, most of them with barely a word of commiseration. A middle-aged cousin stopped by her table, as unsure of himself as a ewe before a sheepdog.

            ‘So like, y’ know… he’ll be missed. Good fellow he was… yeah.’

            Missed? By whom? she’d wanted to say. But the ‘whom’ would probably have confused him.

            ‘Time to go home, Mum.’

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