Tag Archives: had

NO WAY OUT

Posted on by under 2023, July 2023 - No way out
Native girl in a cave with the body of her chieftan, a flask, and oil lamp on a low table

Aysha had been running and hiding for two days, and still they followed her relentlessly. Now laying under a thorn bush, she was quivering. Her once sleek body was emaciated, a pale grey colour, her eyes seemed to take up her whole face, a beaten look in them.

            The hunters found her the next morning, dragging her out and they set off for the krall. She had to be returned. They placed her in the care of the wise woman who set about treating her wounds, purging her of the parasites that she had swallowed in the river water, feeding her honey water and thin gruel. She slowly  recovered .

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A Prisoner in the Land of Silence and Darkness

Posted on by under 2023, July 2023 - No way out
An immortal king trapped

Unable to move, unable to die.

He couldn’t see, hear, feel, smell or taste.

This was isolation in its purest form. Loneliness inescapable. No rescue, no relief, no companionship, no comfort, and no end.

How long had he been there? A million years, merely a week? Another agony was that in his sightless, soundless state, he could not even measure time.

He would never again know fresh air, a good meal or the touch of a warm hand.

*

“Make me immortal,” he yelled at the Djinn, and it granted his wish.

He gleefully drank down every poison, feeling no ill effects. He had his armed guards charge at him, and even the sharpest blade never pierced his skin.

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Home Sweet Home

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

You know there’s something seriously wrong when the police arrive at your door past midnight.  I guessed what it was at once.  He had finally done it.

I’d moved out of the family home when I was seventeen, and haven’t put a foot inside it since.  After years of wanting my father’s attention, I finally had it once I reached puberty.  It was the wrong sort of course, “our little secret” he used to call it.

Poor Mum, the things she had to put up with over the years.  She didn’t deserve any of it. She’d never told anybody of the mental and physical abuse she had been subjected to from ‘HIM.’  Even now I can’t call him ‘Dad’, he’s such a despicable human being.  Why she stood by him all these years I will never understand.

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Festival of fun!!!

Posted on by under 2023, June 2023 - Home Sweet Home
Rock festival sufffers downpour - two people - male and female stand in the rain under an unbrella

Putting up the tent, Sam and Evie smiled at each other. They felt like naughty teenagers. It was to be their first music festival. Both in their forties, they had always wanted to go but life had always got in the way. With the twins off on a school trip for a week their time had come. The Hadfield music festival happened to fall at that time.

            They had booked a quiet field that overlooked the stage area and had showers and toilets. The weather looked fine, so excitement was bubbling. Wandering around the main area a cacophony of sound and smells assaulted their senses; so much choice and so many people. Although they did notice that a majority of the crowd were quite young, they were determined to enjoy the experience.

            The bands started playing, they wandered around getting a taste for each brand of music; some they enjoyed, others not so much. One of their favourite bands was due to play the next night, so they settled for a takeaway and returned to their tent for a reasonably early night.

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Cross

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

The summer city riots had spread to the rural north. The news eventually filtered through to the isolated mining village of Brookover. Its pit had long been closed, a sportswear assembly unit squatting on its corpse. It was the main employer for miles, the owners having brought in scores of Eastern Europeans on the minimum wage to toil there.

            The presence of the ‘foreigners’ was a grievance: Polish shops, strange languages in the market square. Their healthy diet marked out the incomers too. They were thin and fit, not paunchy and panting like some locals.

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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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The Piano Killer strikes again

Posted on by under 2023, April 2023 - Missing

“I mean,” she said, “clearly there’s something not quite right here, something’s missing.”

DI Jenkins sighed and bit down a sharp retort. Of course there was something missing. In fact, there were a few things – eyes, fingers, liver, lungs, kidneys, and, possibly most disturbingly, the victim’s trousers. His dentures had also been removed and were in the middle of a damp stain on the carpet.

He was just grateful that whoever had done this had stopped the mutilation there. After all, he already had one young constable throwing up in the back garden, and his sergeant was looking a bit queasy too.

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Fly Away

Posted on by under 2023, April 2023 - Missing

Rose settled into her nest, another busy night, sighing as she turned to the others.

            Lily poked her head up: ‘Hard night Rose. You wouldn’t believe it. I had to rummage under the bed to find the tooth, all those dust bunnies’ bits of food. It was disgusting’.

            Marigold piped up: ‘Last time that happened to me there was a mouse there, eyeing me up.’ Gasps from the girls.

            Lily shuddered: ‘What did you do?’

            ‘Chucked a bit of biscuit at it, grabbed the tooth and scarpered.’

            Hyacinth joined in. ‘I had a fright not long ago when a dog came sniffing around sucked me halfway up his nostril. Thankfully it tickled his nose, he snorted and blew me across the room,’

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Holiday from Hell

Posted on by under 2023, April 2023 - Missing

I was on my way home at last, I’d been counting down the days to my return flight since I arrived.  The ‘Call of the Wild’ was overexaggerated as far as I was concerned. I just could not wait for that blissful moment of sleeping in my own bed.  As it turned out, Africa had different plans for me.

The airport tannoy crackled into life. 

“The flight to Nairobi has been delayed.”

There was a groan from all the passengers.

“More information will follow.”

I looked down at my dust-encrusted attire, I really needed a shower; even I could smell how disgusting I was.  I just hoped that we would be aboard the turbo prop soon. 

“Today’s flight has been cancelled.”

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Waiting for the Bus

Posted on by under 2023, March 2023 - Waiting

It was a tragic sight, comical yet tragic.

As Harry waited by the bus stop, he gazed across the road at the crowd of hunchbacked goblins slumped in battered chairs, looking lost and bewildered.

Men in white coats walked amongst this sea of dithering heads, when one wrinkled nonagenarian cried out for her mummy. That soon set off the rest of those ancients, as they all wailed in incoherent distress.

God, it was a sin to keep them alive.

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Phosphorescence and The Barque

Posted on by under 2023, Feb 2023 - The Stain

A miracle; no other way to describe it. After the washing-up of Sunday lunch, she and Freddie had either taken a left out of the front gate and walked towards Mam’s parents, or turned right over the railway bridge to Dad’s. Attempted recall techniques had included a  retracing on Google Maps of as much of the route as could be remembered by a failing 90 year old brain  and cajoling her granddaughter to drive her on their weekly car trip along every exit of every roundabout in the town. Pris was giving up hope. There were over a hundred roundabouts and at least five hundred possible exits. Some she recognized; some not. Road realignments, estate clearances and the ripple-out expansion of shopping centres, had remodelled the once familiar. Every now and then something – the sight of an old industrial chimney, a stretch of stone wall, the metallic nose of rusting industrial archaeology blasting through the car’s air vents – promised to tug a distant memory chime, only to muffle, return into the unrecognisable and remain silent. Did she have 10 years?

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The Cardigan

Posted on by under Feb 2023 - The Stain

The cardigan with the paint stain on the elbow that she could never wash off: why had she kept it so long? She remembered touching up the sitting-room door, brush in one hand, Sylvie in the other, when a blob of gloss had attached itself to her sleeve almost as firmly as her baby’s fingers.

            The uncomfortable wooden armchair that guests sat on, or rather, hovered above as though it were a large hedgehog. The enormous ghetto-blaster like a plastic-armoured beetle squatting on the windowsill. Rachel’s drum: memories of a small child marching around the sitting room like an infant platoon, noisier than a massed military band. She ought to let all this stuff go.

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Unwelcome Visitors

Posted on by under 2022, Oct 2022 - The Visitor

Friday afternoon and Billy Thomas was daydreaming of all the things he and the gang had to do over the weekend. He was jerked back to reality by a piece of chalk hitting him squarely on the forehead. Mr. Jenkins was bellowing at him, ”Pay attention boy. ”

            A knocking at the door and a head poked around. A groan rippled around the class. It was Nitty Nora who had come to look for nits; always bad news. No one wanted the pink note telling their parents they had nits.

            One by one they trudged into the hall for inspection. Nearly all of the class had pink notes. Disaster! Nora came into class declaring an epidemic and sent them all home. The boys huddled together, scratching as they walked, knowing their plans would come to nothing, each knowing what the weekend held.

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THE PERFECT MURDER

Posted on by under 2022, July 2022 - Chance
Dead body with baseball bat and name written in blood

Two words sprang to mind. Fat Chance.  What were the odds on a crime scene being this neat?  The victim, a message written in his own blood, and the murder weapon all within a few yards of each other.   My gut told me something was wrong.

The boys in blue were happy enough to sign off on it. Even though the accused had a cast iron alibi, but I smelt a rat. 

I went over the evidence again.  There was only one fatal blow to the victim’s head.  He’d have been dead before he hit the floor.  The baseball bat had been wiped clean.  The question was how could a dead man write his killer’s name in his own blood?

“Follow the money”, my instincts shouted. “Who was set to gain by this murder?”

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Survivor

Posted on by under 2022, July 2022 - Chance

“Go,” Mother whispers, “you’re our last chance.”

I stand, confused, as she presses an activation key into my right hand, then runs along the corridor towards my father and the mob pressing against the hangar’s blast doors.

*

We’ve been spacers all our lives, living on the margins of existence. Trading goods wherever we can make credits, salvaging wreckage, fighting off pirates and raiders. The Federal Planetary Government doesn’t hold much sway out in the void, even though they’re becoming more authoritarian and imperialistic on the inhabited worlds. Rebellious types from beat poets to guerrilla militias had been crushed mercilessly according to rumour, but Father had dismissed the hearsay with a wave of his hand.

“No matter to us, girlie,” he’d said. “Go help your mother with the hull repairs.”

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The Magic of Auto-correction

Posted on by under 2022, April 2022 - Magic

Hubert was struggling. Progress on the Business Improvement Plan requested, rather mandated, by the Directors of News Wales Live Radio was tortuous. Analytics had diagnosed a 25%  audience fall -off after the third quarter- hour. Perhaps change the bumper music. Done. Replace the liner front-selling the next guest…. possible. Could be a one hour programme was simply too long. Rearranging the playlist would address the former. The latter was frightening, heralding a possible cut to his hours and a corresponding reduction in salary. With the legally- enforceable  encumbrances of 3 ex-partners and 7 children to support, a Bentley Meteor to maintain and fuel, plus his 10 tank collection of non-native reptiles and amphibians to feed, house and heat, Hubert had decisions to make. He compiled a list of friends and professional acquaintances and started.  

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A Different kind of Magic

Posted on by under 2022, April 2022 - Magic

Packing up his dad’s old kitbag, Billy excitedly rushed downstairs. The camping trip beckoned. The gang had finally persuaded their parents to let them sleep over at Devil’s Cave near their home.

Summer holidays had started. Most of the boys had jobs for the holidays but this weekend was a boy’s right of passage. His mother had laid out food for them, some bread, a bit of dripping, and some jam tarts. That was my contribution.

Gathering at the end of our road we set off. It was quite a climb to the cave but there was a stream bubbling away alongside the path, so we stopped to fill our pop bottles frequently.

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Pumpkins

Posted on by under 2022, February 2022 - Wealth

            Smayle’s concrete grey face was a Niagara of perspiration. War was ongoing with the slugs and snails. He had three large dustbins on his plot, where he mulched food waste into fertiliser. Little burrowing creatures got in there sometimes, and partook of dinner. Birds, butterflies, and he didn’t know what, slipped under the netting around some of his raised beds. But none of them had inflicted damage on his most prized growth: his pumpkins. His wheelbarrow bulged with them, fat, comfortable, like the heads of yellow turbaned oriental aristocracy.

None of the other allotment holders grew them in such volume Once fully grown these mighty plumped fellows were allowed access to his house, just yards from the allotment gate. Sometimes there were so many, he believed they could practically march down there in military columns.

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Double Trouble

Posted on by under 2022, January 2022 - The Promise

“I’ll get you Lewis! And that’s a promise.”

With his words still ringing in my ears, I hastily packed a suitcase. I just had to get away.

A new town, a fresh start, I could only hope.

I picked up a job quickly and began to settle down.  My jangled nerves were slowly uncurling with each passing day.

It took him six weeks to find me.

I awoke one morning to find a note on the doormat. Things started to spiral out of control.

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Stopping the Santa Invasion

Posted on by under 2021, December 2021 - Christmas
Female protestor in front of Season's Greetings banner

After the speeches, people drifted away from the demonstration, some still wearing outfits representing the main focus of their complaint.

Having responsibly abandoned their placards, a group of five in search of food and drink settled themselves in the Hog’s Head and placed their orders.

These were veteran activists. They had witnessed mounted police moving through the crowds at the poll tax rebellions; they had collective memories of the ‘not in my name’ protests; they had stood with the miners during the long strike; two could even look back to the anti-apartheid rugby protests in 1969. Between them they had been kettled, abused, arrested and beaten.

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