Wilf hovered over the birdcage, eyeing it with affection. He had to admit Polly did look a little large and she did seem to enjoy a bit of raw meat.
He’d got the chick from a stranger in the pub who said it was a baby parrot. Scruffy thing it was and looked starving. Something in the way it looked at him pulled his heart strings .
”How much for him, bearing in mind it looks half dead ?”
Continue readingMeasuring time was next to impossible. No clocks, no sunlight, no signs from the outside world.
Smith had called out in his windowless cell, heard his voice echoed down the dingy corridor and yet there were no noises in response. No rumble of traffic, no coughing or shuffling of feet, no bellowing “to keep it down,” not even a crackle from the pipes or the creek of a floorboard. The silence outside was deafening and the only sounds Smith could hear were made by his own body.
Continue reading“The sedative is starting to take effect now”.
I began to tell the vet of her uncertain start to life but hesitated. That didn’t seem important anymore, it was the here and now, this exact moment, and I found myself lost in the vibrations of her gentle snores, the soft rise and fall of her warm breath.
She was absolutely and unashamedly my child substitute. As one half of a childless lesbian couple, a puppy was bound to become our baby, and neither of us ever denied it. Still, it was my idea to go looking for a pup and when I met her, I knew she was the only one that would do.
Continue reading“NO. Not back there! Can’t do it. Don’t give me that 30/180 degrees clash shit. It’s my weekend with the kids. Surely Pika can do it?” Jon, voice rising, was fearful he had overdone it. Following the marriage breakdown he needed the money. But how he had hated that farmyard location,- the greyness, the endless rain, the sucking of his every welly step in the mud.
“Not there yet. Still learning.” Cinematographer Alastair and editor Mel joined forces anticipating his objection. They did not share his unease. AI was their bread and butter and Pika one of the most respected programmes.
Continue readingShe told him it was over.
Sure, she loved him, but she just wasn’t in love with him if that began to make sense.
He looked down at his lap and blinked a little to hide the welling tears. Then rising without a word, he marched upstairs.
She knew he didn’t want her to follow, and she lingered there in his living room, knowing this was a heartless way to end the relationship but God, was there ever a right way? She plucked his housekey from her keychain and wondered if he’d return the key to her flat.
Continue readingThere was never any question of a reconciliation. There hadn’t been a dramatic rift, just a dwindling, eroding sense of partnership. What remained was an exchange of items and after that, their disentanglement : all that had been done was to be finally undone in this ritual handover.
The separation had been efficiently accomplished. The flat was on the market and new living arrangements were in place. Guy and Freya showed no animosity, indeed they intended to remain on friendly terms.
Continue readingNo-one can explain the expansive nothingness of flying through space; it makes you wonder if movement is an illusion hurtling through the flat darkness – everything looking the same as though you were stood still.
Our hero, our returner, Frank 4000, had been enduring this journey for six months. His automated system forged towards his pinpointed base on Earth; that beautiful, colourful, noisy, all-consuming, wondrous place that we take for granted. His slick, silver shell yearned to feel the heat of a human hand once again and his giant eye wished to devour something other than the same stagnant view he’d experienced for so long.
Continue readingIt 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.
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.”
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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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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?”
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 .
Continue readingHe heaved, sweating, and pulled another door from the wreckage. Crouching down behind it he hoped to gain some respite from the carnage that surrounded him. The curly-haired man closed his eyes and breathed deeply hoping to recentre himself.
When he eventually opened his twitching eyes he spied the remains of his guide a few feet away.
Carefully dodging every spike and shard that threatened his feet below, he eventually reached the guidebook and with trembling hands scrambled to find the right page. It was useless; he already knew he had gone too far and there was no turning back at this point.
Continue readingSamson was fucked.
Ankle deep in thick mud, his t-shirt, jeans and even underwear were soaking wet, all thanks to the remorseless grey clouds spewing down their cold, cruel, bullets of rain.
And the ominous rumble of thunder served as a reminder that he was ideal target practice for lightning bolts.
But Samson grinned, staring at the solid structure of the library’s clocktower off in the distance. He was going to return the library book in his backpack on time.
Continue readingThe ambulance outside alerted two of the neighbours.
‘Is Janice OK? Mrs Hughes asked. ‘She’s been looking very drawn.’
‘I saw her come to the door. I think it’s…’
‘Alex?’
‘Janice told me he’s been worse lately,’ Mrs Phillips said.
‘That overdose. Last summer, wasn’t it? Do you think he…?
Mrs Phillips clamped her lips together. This isn’t suitable conversation her stiffly proper expression seemed to say.
/
Eirlys was everything to him. He watched her grow as a baby, kept an eye on her schooling. On her reaching puberty he became over-interested, you might say. When she had boyfriends, well he had jealousy like a bridge has rivets. Eirlys’ marriage left him grey somehow, his spirit seemed to have drained from him. But he had the blues in him right from when we first dated, just kids. He was prone to them. Having a daughter gave him some relief, I suppose; her leaving home extinguished that. I tried to help him but his empty heart wouldn’t let me in. I’ve been expecting this ever since last summer. Longer, really, if I’m honest.
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