Tag Archives: he

Return Match

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

            When she’d entered the church, she’d felt trapped. At the altar just one thought: I don’t want to marry. But it was too late. She couldn’t let the crowd down, nor Colin, her boyfriend since schooldays.  She blamed herself for her negativity, swore her vows emptily, and walked out of the chapel on Colin’s arm displaying a forced smile to the many pairs of sugar-sweet eyes offering her love. But there was no love inside her and she left Colin six months later.

            That was a decade ago. Here she was again, in a registry office, no ostentation, just the two of them and a witness. Did she love Tim? The question whispered gratingly, as the woman registrar studied her with, she fancied, laser-like insight.

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Returning

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

No-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.

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Carpe Diem

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

“Save it for best,” Mum always said, squirrelling away the fancy china and silk pyjamas.

The saddest thing about sorting through Mum’s possessions is that there are no memories attached to most of them. The house is full of relics that, like Mum, have gathered dust for decades, waiting for a day that never came.

What would have been a special enough occasion to don her finery and leave the house? A meeting with the Queen? Certainly not lunch with me. My wedding. A day out with my children. That is why I stayed away, even as her health declined. It made sense that Adrian, my brother, should look after her, given his closer proximity and the fact that he doesn’t have children.

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Returning the empties

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

“If yer want my opinion,” says Bill. He looks up at Alana, with his runtish face twisted into an intense expression.

“Frankly Bill, I don’t,” Alana interjects before he can launch into one of his tirades about the subject at hand, one of his favourites—why elves would be better employed getting some time in—and monopolise the conversation with tired but well-practised jeu de mots and superficially plausible conclusions that pay scant regard to any logical rigour.

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DID SHE, DID SHE NOT ?

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

Low lighting and heavy drapes held the evening at bay. Valerie Trent sat across from her new client, Anita Wallace, who was devoid of makeup, her hair chopped short, her shoulders hunched.

”Anita can you tell me why you are here?”

“My husband died six months and five days ago and I keep thinking I killed him”

”Did you?”

Her eyes filled with anguish. ” I don’t know, he tripped over my foot as I scrambled away from him and he went over the cliff to his death.”

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Je ne regrette rien

Posted on by under 2024, Dec 2024 - Regret

It 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.

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Iffy

Posted on by under 2024, Dec 2024 - Regret

The thing about Iffy is that he’s all about conspiracy theories. Not proper conspiracies like you see on the socials, these are more personal tales of his regrets and ‘if only’ flights of fancy. That’s where his nickname comes from ‘if only I’d done this or that or the other’.

Take last Thursday as an example. A few mates met up in the pub and were mentioning the imminent implosion of the marriage of two of our friends. Off goes Iffy:

‘If only I’d asked Gwenda to marry me before she met Bob. We could have been happy. Maybe we’d have moved to the country. It’s my fault they’re not happy’.

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The Miracle of Twice Hanged William Cragh the Scabby; or The Wealth of Wax

Posted on by under 2024, Nov 2024 - Witch Hunt

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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The Laelaps Hound and the Teumessian Fox

Posted on by under 2024, Nov 2024 - Witch Hunt

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?”

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Olivia

Posted on by under 2024, Nov 2024 - Witch Hunt

Her living room is modest; a faded hand-stitched rug, aging armchairs, and bare surfaces adorned by little other than books. Of the latter, there is an abundance. Stacks ten deep, crammed shelves, and an overflow surrounding the chairs like learned sentries guarding against ignorance.

Witchfinder Smith rubs his chin. Not the home of a dark-artist, he thinks. It feels more professorial than satanic. Intellectuals are banned, but they aren’t witches. Besides, intellectuals are not his concern, being in the purview of the Bureau of Acceptable Knowledge, not the Witchfinder General.

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The Slaughter Games

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

The 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.

*

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PAX

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

He 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.

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You try so hard and yet…

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

Samson 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.

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RESIGNED

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

            The 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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Not with a Bang

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

Leela stared at the white plastic stick, silently begging the Hindu goddess of fertility for two blue lines. But once again, Parvati was not playing. Leela pulled down the waistband of her jeans examining her pockmarked belly. Countless tracked cycles and three rounds of IVF, each preceded with the optimism of ‘this time!’ followed by a dream shattered. Grief, despair, jealousy, overwhelm and other inexplicable emotions joining the rollercoaster on each trip.

“This time we’re done” said Rahul, “IVF has decimated our sex life. And in case you’re wondering, I can’t countenance surrogacy, it’s rent-a-womb exploitation on steroids and I won’t be part of it. I’d prefer a puppy, much less trouble.” he concluded.

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Thérèse

Posted on by under 2024

In the dusk is a sea monster, bulky, black and rubbery, glistening in the remnants of the light. It is almost still, as if waiting for a prey.

            A fellow waves the crowd on board, taking the last of their money. At this the youngest of our crew, Paul, averts his eyes. It’s superstition: if he doesn’t look maybe this voyage might be uneventful.

            More ragged travellers arrive. The fellow squeezes them on, extra bucks for him and his criminal smuggling network. He doesn’t care if he’s endangering people. He gives one of those on board a GPS, saying in English, ‘north west’.

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Trapped

Posted on by under 2024, August 2024 - Limbo

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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An event they’re not likely to forget

Posted on by under 2024

Everyone said Christopher was in a good mood in the week leading up to the presentation. This sullen, moody boy, often muttering to himself now walked with a spring in his step, wore a smile on his lips and went so far as to ask people about their day.

Odd because, rarely in the three years working for the company did he speak in full sentences, usually making do with nasally monosyllabic grunts and somehow, he now spoke in full paragraphs with a happy tone.

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