Tag Archives: his

Reel Life

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

“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.

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In the rain

Posted on by under 2025, January 2025 - Returning

She 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.

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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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TERGER

Posted on by under 2024

My 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.

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Promising Young Mind

Posted on by under 2024, Dec 2024 - Regret

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.

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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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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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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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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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LIMBO LIMBO

Posted on by under 2024, August 2024 - Limbo

Young Tommie Lewis was the apple of his mother’s eye, always a dainty boy with short dark hair, a  little snub nose, large spectacles and a skinny build. School days were hard for Tommie. Sports day he would run, his arms and legs spinning as fast as he could, but he always came last. Nobody ever picked him for football. He usually sat on the sidelines wishing he could be first at something. In the juniors gymnastics became the bane of his life. Once he was made to climb the monkey bars. Getting to the top he froze. A teacher had to climb up to fetch him, handing him the rope to lower himself down. Poor Tommie just slid down the rope, causing blisters on his hands and legs; his mother played merry hell. So Tommie was forced to join the girls away from hazards.

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