Tag Archives: them

PENSIONER’S LAMENT

Posted on by under 2024, Oct 2024 - Defeat

Liz 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 .

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Purgatory

Posted on by under 2024, June 2024 - Retribution

Rees’ Motorpark, out of town industrial estate, 8am.

            They begin to arrive, hand their keys over the counter to Jed ­– I’m here to help – then sit down at plastic tables in a foyer overshadowed by a vast showroom where new electric Fords gather before them like a row of tanks.

            ‘Annual service,’ explains a skeletal old boy, leather jacketed. Former biker? Jed ponders. ‘Aye, down here on the paperwork, Mr Holland. Can I give you a token for the coffee machine?’ ‘Door latch,’ says the next in the queue, a woman in a trouser suit that is nearly as creased as her face. Jed nods politely.

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Degrees of Ruin

Posted on by under 2024, April 2024 - Ruin

It isn’t hard to ruin the life of a thirteen year old. I seem to do it all the time. Take yesterday:

‘Mum, you are ruining my life. Everybody has an iPhone. You need it to look things up in class and to talk to people. I’m completely humiliated without one. Who  knows  what people are saying about me?…’

‘I accept that your life is in tatters, and I’m sorry for you. But in 20 years you will come and find me, throw your arms around my neck, and  thank me. You will be able to think without the help of influencers and you will not have a repeating backdrop of porn movies and pile-ons to spoil your dreams.’

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Faith, Hope and Clarence

Posted on by under 2024, March 2024 - Tomorrow

Clarence had been a disappointment to his mother from the day he was born. He had been expected to be a she, to fulfil the prophecy of the seventh daughter to the seventh daughter.

            Throughout his life, she had never forgiven him for spoiling her dreams. His sisters on the other hand, were delighted that they didn’t have a sister who would rule superior over them. He grew up, being showered with their love and also all the things they didn’t want to undertake themselves.

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Sweet Little Lies

Posted on by under 2024, March 2024 - Tomorrow

Mother and daughter, Dilys and Martha, sat around the kitchen table. Sian and Gareth were playing in the other room. An argument broke out. Martha sighed and, calling them into the room, gently chastised them, explaining they should love each other not fight.

Dilys snorted, watching them leave the room, pinching each other out of sight of their mother. She was thinking she didn’t approve of this soft love, as Martha called it. Loving her grandchildren, she realised that times had changed but in her opinion not for the better.

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No groom? No worry

Posted on by under 2024, Feb 2024 - Crossroads

At the crossroads on the outskirts of town is the shop. A grey-haired woman, hesitant at its door, whispers on entering, ‘I’m Mabel Bennett.’

            Mrs Griffiths mentally notes: this one is nervous.

            The shop is small from the street but its inside is capacious. Mabel’s first impression is of a greenhouse, pregnant with blooming white flowers. Closer inspection reveals racks where the gowns huddle silently, each awaiting a body to fill them, to walk and twirl in them, display them to a crowd – though just one human might suffice.

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Not yet a shooting star, baby

Posted on by under 2023, Nov 2023 - Fireworks

Red and gold, green and yellow. Riotous explosions of colour, searing through the night skies against a backdrop of the universe.

“They’re beautiful, Momma,” she whispers, bundled up in her best winter coat, with mittens keeping her fingers warm, holding hands and staring in wonder.

“I know, baby,” I say, checking my comm bracelet, anxiety spiking. It’s linked to his.

“Where’s Daddy?”

Thinking back, we should have expected it really.

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Open Chakras: Second Class Delivery

Posted on by under 2023, October 2023 - The Curse

The postmistress had a bad reputation and specialised in being irritable with everybody. She was perhaps in her fifties, but almost of a geological age. You were put in mind of a slab of granite behind the serving hatch in the corner of the mini-supermarket. Her face was stony, her resentment hard.

            ‘NEXT!’ she barked from behind her counter. ‘First or second? Put it on the scales. ON them, not under them. Where’s it going? WHAT? Gib-raltar?’ She pronounced the word as though it were the most awful place on the planet. Then she forked the parcel off the scales with a plump paw, eyeing her customer in the manner of a prison guard with a felon.

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The Art of Growing Wings

Posted on by under 2022, Sept 2022 - The End

It will be a parting gift. Something to remind him of “us.”

Clouds skid across the darkening September sky, nudged along by an insistent wind. “It’s time,” it seems to hiss as it whistles around the rooftops.

The swallows have heard it too. They gather on the telephone line overhead, their slit-throats lined up and their tails criss-crossing in different directions like scissors, ready to cut ties.

It’s a time for bursting out of the summer haze into vivid autumn colour and activity. A time for new starts and sowing seeds. I prepare the soil, loosening and enriching it.

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A Rush Through Time

Posted on by under 2021
Old Father Time in his office.

Sitting at his desk Father Time, opening his journal, gave vent to his frustration. Why, oh why, couldn’t people be happy with their lives? Time after time they try to hold back time, or pelt through, as in a race against it.

            Mothers wanting their babies to arrive quickly; at months old they wanted them to be walking and talking, and to know what ails them at three in the morning. And once in school wanting them to little again, holding back the natural rhythm of time.

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What Counts as Wealth? 

Posted on by under 2022, February 2022 - Wealth

…”The health of our nation is dependent on the wealth of our nation.  The poorest of our society has had to endure great hardships …”

Kathleen gives the remote control button a vicious prod.

“Oi, I was watching that!”

She turns and gives her husband a look of disbelief.

“The last thing we need right now is some stuck up government speaker telling us what we can’t afford, I already know that.”

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

Posted on by under 2020, Jan 2020 - New Year Resolutions

Helen sat down with a sigh. It was time to think of a new year’s resolution.

Why do I do this to myself? she pondered. Each year promising myself to do something useful. My spare room is filled with things from years past. The cross stitch still unopened, the exercise bike which I generally hang my ironing on. Shelves stacked with books I never get round to reading, exercise videos that maybe were watched once, and I nearly put my back out with them.

Think I must have tried every avenue to a healthy life. It cost me a fortune in gym membership, even personal trainers. They all fell by the wayside. Even tried volunteering with charities, every time finding out I couldn’t give them the time required with my work schedule.

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