“Did you see that?”
The man before me was a horror. It’s pale face was twisted in anguish like a Halloween mask held to the fire. It scratched at it’s scalp, at the visible, glistening wounds that ran like muddy rivulets between tuffs of matted hair. It’s eyes, milky and dull, were set deep into it’s skull. It’s jaw hung slack. Teeth haphazardly stacked like a tombstone lying abandoned upon a vandalised grave. A monster. Always watching. I hated it.
What was it’s intentions?
Continue readingThe robin is perched on the railing of the balcony outside. I can tell without even looking out there. I’d know its song anywhere, though I wouldn’t have expected to see one here, at this time of year, and in this idyllic holiday cottage where I’m staying. I smile to myself and finish making my morning coffee. I picked up these coffee beans in the local market yesterday, and their chocolate-rich aroma fills my nostrils as I stir in the milk, the spoon jangling pleasingly against the china cup.
A robin used to arrive in our garden every year on the anniversary of Grandma’s death when I was a child. Mum would ask me to help write a newsletter for the bird to take to her, wherever she was, updating her on all that we had been up to that year. I used to love sticking in photos and drawing pictures of all the activities we had done and all the holidays we had been on.
Continue reading‘Morning, my lovely, I’m campaigning on behalf of the Resettlement party. You’ve heard of us? But of course. Who hasn’t? We’re setting the pace, aren’t we? We’re on all the front pages. Can Resettlement rely on your vote?’
‘Well I don’t rightly… I mean who are you going to…?’
‘If you’re born here, you’re OK. You’re in, you’re one of us.’
‘And if you’re not…?’
‘You’re looking at a package to help you return from whence you came. A tidy sum.’
Continue readingOpening the curtains Anna looked out on a kaleidoscope of colour: the perfect day, the birds awakening, a flurry of sleepy tweets, trees rustling .
Climbing back into bed she sighed in relief. Six in the morning and since her mother’s death there was no hurry now to start her day. Turning on her clock-radio a distant memory wrapped around her, a favourite song of her and Joe. She cried, recalling all the hurt of her choices.
In Sydney, Australia Joe Harvey sat looking through the family album. Jan, his wife, had passed away some time ago. Living on his own was hard, he missed the companionship. Out of nowhere a shaft of misery drove deep into him. A name popped into his mind, consoling, one that he had buried long ago.
Continue readingHoneysuckle Kumar wanted More. More of what, she was not quite sure. Perhaps more space to figure it all out.
Theoretically Honey (as she was known as to friends and family) had Enough and should have Nothing to Complain About. A high earning husband, a software developer who took his role of provider seriously. Twins, Hari and Jasmin, who recently took up places at good universities. The mortgage on their detached three bedroom house in a middle class (albeit boring) area was paid off.
Continue reading“We’ve been infiltrated,” said Carol, scanning the assembled members of the W.I. “I saw our cake recipe on Val Clark’s shopping list in Tesco this morning.”
“But… it’s only a Victoria Sponge!” said Julie.
Carol flung her arms in the air. “How many times do I have to say it? Use the code name!”
It was fair to say that former Superintendent Carol was finding retirement a struggle. It had only been six weeks but already she was exasperated.
Continue readingHOUSEHOLD
?Rat Poison?
Tilly had forgotten her specs. She hadn’t transferred them from the pocket of her winter fleeced Danimac to her summer cotton jacket. Always the same with April weather in Swansea; an overnight rise of 8 degrees meant searching out the summer wardrobe with the risk of a disruption in “ the system.” House keys, shopping list, pouch containing store cards and bus pass were in the left pocket as usual, but no glasses.
“Mum your phone should be in a separate pocket from keys. The screen could get scratched” Moira’s words.
Having a “system” was as important as having a shopping list … and being able to see, Tilly’s thoughts reposted.
“Never get your phone out in public.” her daughter’s words again.
Well Tesco’s <Household> aisle is hardly The Kingsway,
Tilly acted. Needs must. The snufflings, rustlings and scratchings from the bedroom next door were getting too much; she had hardly slept for the past three nights. Every year when the weather changed, it happened. Squinting around she spied a blurry Dad and toddler at the far end searching amongst the plastic buckets. Not a risk. Tilly extracted the mobile from her right jacket pocket, stooped, chose panoramic mode and photographed the bottom 2 shelves, then cranking herself back up zoomed-in to examine in detail the latest pics in her Gallery app.
Continue readingThe policeman, I forget his name already – Masters? Marsden? – reclines in his seat and regards me with a gaze that is probably intended to be intimidating but can only be described as ‘cute.’ It’s true what they say about the police looking younger as you age.
“Tell me about your conversation with Gina Montrose on Monday,” he says. “You were overheard talking about Marco Conti.”
Continue readingFor Uzma, joining her local Creative Writing Circle was the challenge she felt ready for, a therapy of sorts. When she wrote, secrets flowed from her pen, bypassing her brain and heart into prose on the page. They told of the secrets she kept, the secrets she revealed and the secrets she told herself.
It was as if this week’s writing prompt was beckoning her to confront all her secrets at once. Let’s do this, she thought…
Continue readingThe Beynons woke to find a wall around their house. Hearing workmen behind the wall, Fred bellowed: ‘What’s occurring?’
‘National plan,’ came a muffled voice.
‘Keeping others out or us in?’ Dora shouted. Her mind was quicker than her husband’s.
‘I’m just doing what I’m told.’
‘How do I get to work?’ Fred yelled. ‘How does Alice get to school?’
Continue readingThe scanner in the pilot’s cabin read 852,0 °C outside. Next to a star with a heat burst in progress… that’s expected.
“Opening airlock in thirty seconds”, Heather tweaked some switches.
In the airlock, Tony stood ready in his spacesuit, holding a space surfing board.
“Y’know, that’d be our fiftieth planet”, he said.
Continue reading“Nothing worse than unripe tropical fruit”, muttered Garnet to no-one in particular as she stabbed the pallid orange cubes in their plastic punnet. Mango was meant to be fleshy, aromatic and messy, not like these bullets of sadness.
And that’s all it took for Garnet to book a one way ticket home to northern Queensland. London had seemed like a good time, at the time. Snow, centuries old buildings, Big Ben, quick trips to the continent, the promise of a French boyfriend. The reality was a low wage nannying job, a mouldy bedsit, gun metal skies and loneliness as a constant companion.
Queensland didn’t have a summer; it was either the wet season or the dry season. The wet was Garnet’s favourite. It came to her in her dreams through the smell of watermelons, ylang ylang and warm rain on hot tarmac. The memory of humidity hugged her like a long lost lover.
Continue reading‘Who is it?’ asked the youth astride a delivery cycle.
‘An ordinary Joe, mate,’ the fellow with a face as seamed as a nineteen fifties leather football replied.
‘Pretty popular.’
‘Well, he was a giver.’
Continue readingShe’s a good egg, our Fi. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be suitable for the job. That’s why we allow her keep us. We are the keepers of the keepers.
We see everything. When we buzz around waggling to one another, we’re not only chasing nectar. We’re assessing the mental state of the people and communicating potential danger. Forget being a ‘fly on the wall.’ Flies don’t care. It’s the bees who watch, listen and help.
Take Ian Jones next door. He had a near-miss with death only last month. He was smoking a cigarette beside the azaleas in his front garden whilst I busied myself with the foxgloves. What’s dangerous about that, you ask, aside from the obvious? It’s true that the smoking will get him eventually, but that’s not the sort of thing we get involved in. On this occasion I could tell from his stance, the faraway look in his eyes, and the slightly acidic smell of his perspiration, that he was planning on this being his last cigarette before taking his own life. Well, those things and my complex assessment of his mood over recent weeks.
Continue readingWilf 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 reading“Hello?”
Beams of light sliced the darkness, and she shrank into the corner, shivering. Hopefully they’d not see her, move on, and she could get back to eking out her existence on whatever she could forage at night time, and the small creatures that fell into the crude traps she lay near the entrance to the cold, dark, cave system.
Maybe, she thought, as footsteps echoed, getting louder and closer, that was what’d drawn them into the depths, that she’d been careless and left signs, indicators of her existence. Whatever had got them here, they weren’t leaving.
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 readingHe swept into the room as if he owned it; every head turning as he strode across the parquet flooring, his heels clicking. Even Queen Elowen Lumina looked up from the sheaf of demands she was studying.
“This is,” she started to say, ‘this is a meeting of the Royal Council to which only members and invited guests can attend.’
But then he pulled back his hood, and recognition spread across her face. “Oh, Inspector Ironbell, I hadn’t expected to see you.”
“Ma’am,” Inspector Camden Ironbell kneeled at her side and took her hand. “I believe you have a problem.”
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 readingWhen 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.
Continue reading