Tag Archives: was

Rip Rap

Posted on by under 2023, Nov 2023 - Fireworks

It is notoriously difficult to swim through pancake batter, so Emmie settled for floating on her back. Her eyes opened briefly after a staccato rattle, followed by a piercing whistle, a loud bang and a cascade of spitting bright star fragments. A war must have started. Emmie was dimly conscious of being shot in the middle somewhere; blood everywhere, lots of pain. Best get back to the pancake batter. She re-submerged.

Her eyes crept open again on hearing voices.

‘She’s coming round. Are you OK love? It’s Mum here. You had us worried’

Emmie was pleased to hear this because she too was starting to be worried.

‘What’s the fighting about out there? I think there’s a bullet in my belly. It really hurts a lot and I keep falling into a thick lake. And…’

Continue reading →

I Am Lucy

Posted on by under 2023, November 2023 - Fireworks

A new message flashes. The little icon with her photo, all Bambi-eyes and dimples, sets his heart racing. And then there’s that other feeling. The one he shouldn’t have for someone her age. The one that twists his stomach and clamps his jaw tight.

The curtains are drawn, as always. His secrets fester like bacteria in the stale air, seeping into the furniture. They clutter every surface, filthy as the plates that litter his room. He cannot risk them spreading beyond the confines of this house. Not like they did in the old neighbourhood.

These new neighbours seem friendly. They posted that ‘Welcome’ note through his door, with the link to the community Facebook group. That’s where the fireworks display was advertised. And where he found the laughably easy to access local youth chatroom. Honestly, this lot could do with some internet safety training.

Continue reading →

The Pyre

Posted on by under 2023, November 2023 - Fireworks

Dad,

If you see this, just know that I held down the fort for as long as I could.

I scrunched up the letter in my hand, letting it squeeze through the gaps between my fingers. He’d been gone so long I wasn’t sure he was coming back, and my hope was draining. I decided to look after the shop while he went out for more supplies, although I doubted there was much left outside for us.

The shop, once bustling and filled with guests every fifth of November, was now empty, with only me and a few mice that scuttled from corner to corner for any sign of food. Its rich history cemented those bricks together, lived in the floors and lived in me.

Continue reading →

That Wretched Mr. Linklater

Posted on by under 2023, Nov 2023 - Fireworks

The locals of East Hardwick made a habit of not burning a certain Catholic terrorist come the fifth of November as expected, but instead set alight whomever they disliked.

Mrs. Monks burnt a copy of her cheating husband, Charlie Lanker burnt a dummy modelled after his schoolteacher, who in turn set alight a many headed hydrae, bearing the faces of her worst students.

On this Guy Fawks night, Kevin Warick had built, a perfect likeness of the dreadful Mr. Samuel Linklater, down to that self-impressed, almost snarling smile.

Continue reading →

WATCHING THE FIREWORKS

Posted on by under 2023, November 2023 - Fireworks

While the world waited for Armageddon with tightly clenched fists, tear-stained faces, and racing thoughts, Sir Michael Peckham waited for morning.

He glanced at the silent smart-slab sitting insouciantly on his bedside table. It said “02:14 – 5 Nov” on its face, but it was the things it wasn’t saying he was most interested in. He wanted it to ring and not to. A conflict of such breadth it seemed analogous to the sabre rattling provided nightly on the talking head shows. The hawks and the doves making cases for greater or lesser annihilation.

For two weeks, the world stood on a precipice, while his world sank into the abyss.

Continue reading →

The End of Doubt?

Posted on by under 2023, October 2023 - The Curse

As a hybrid Goggapod /Cockaigian, Chief Prommy was trapped in a dual awareness. The cull wasn’t working as expected. The Goggapods, who regarded themselves as The Legitimate Inheritors, were as innovative…. and devious…. as  ever,- hiding in the tunnels of Plurian’s moons: shape-shifting so expertly that even with A.I. advance diagnostics they were routinely identified as unalloyed Cockaigians: using non-galactically recognised W.M.D: in short evading all efforts of obliteration. The new order was unambiguous, one word, “Annihilate.”

Comply or Defy,-.that was the dilemma. The sensation of Goggapods crawling over the proximal tendril’s communication device was a by-now familiar precursor to the resultant odour of a singeing short circuit. Of course the Goggapods were not actually crawling, but to The Cockaigne Higher-ups, and in a half-hidden corner of Prommy’s own consciousness, it confirmed the presence of doubt, possibly treason. 

Continue reading →

The seven blood hounds

Posted on by under 2023, October 2023 - The Curse

I met Dai on Fabian Way

He had a flask, tea he’d say

Quick he moved, his purpose grim

Did not stop, they were after him

Who they were, I could not see.

And when I did, they were after me.

Across the bridge, up Castle Way

Lord above, too late to pray.

Out in front, a shadow rode.

On a bike, with a cursed load.

Saint Andere, but nor for hire.

A dreadful stare, and spat hell fire.

Down the hill, towards the sea.

Smelt their breath, near Anna Quay.

I will no lie, no perjury

There at last, Marina Surgery.

The wait was long, that much was true.

We were many, the doctors few.

Dr Faustus and Dr Soul

Annual check-ups were never dull.

Apologies to Shelley!

OUR OWN CLIMBS

Posted on by under 2023, October 2023 - The Curse

How stupid do you have to be to fall down a well? Pretty stupid, I’m sure. 

When I was eleven I did the very same thing when collecting water with my brother. Even after my mother, peeling and chopping a pile of potatoes over the sink, apron soaked with water and littered with small potato skins, warned us. 

“Careful round that well,” she declared, eyes stuck to the potatoes. “You remember what happened with Dorothy’s poor wee lass.” 

Continue reading →

God save us

Posted on by under 2023, October 2023 - The Curse

The storm clouds are gathered just to starboard, forcing us further and further west. The sun, lurking around the horizon and casting golden and amber hues, hasn’t set in what feels like eleven hundred days, although it’s tough to tell. We’ve given up counting, after the crude marks we’d scratched into the deck mysteriously vanished.

Time hasn’t frozen, so much as slowed to a crawl. The fluttering and rustling of the sails proves there’s still a tailwind; the creaks and groans of wood as waves lap around us, and the swells of the waves we ride, are enough to evidence that. Our crew, fractious at the best of times, had initially turned on each other, tensions increasing until it spilled to violence. Men were thrown overboard, beaten, and blades drawn. It had only stopped after a voice had cut across the melee, singing; pure, clean, and melodious.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

Fulfilling the terms of the Curse

Posted on by under 2023, October 2023 - The Curse

Carmichael’s curse came true.

She proclaimed in her base voice that Angus, Sean, and Ian would never see their twenty first birthdays.

“You’re all going to die,” she cackled.

And sure enough, they did.

Angus was the first to go, dropping dead in Spain, whilst partying with his college chums, Sean meanwhile died during his missionary work in China. Both croaked at the stroke of midnight on the eve of their birthdays.

Continue reading →

The Krill Bay Mysteries: chapter 1.

Posted on by under 2023, Sept 2023 - Music

The Krill Bay Mysteries: chapter 1.

Brian knew a good deal about Eric’s life story from the first research interview. What he didn’t know was that Eric’s life (but definitely not his story) was going to reach its final destination in one hour and thirty minutes. Nor did Brian know that Eric’s account of his past in the next forty-five minutes would contain (if anyone cared to listen and adequately interpret) the answer to why he died. This, the second interview, began at 2:30 pm Eastern Time in a small room in Krill Bay’s large central library.

Continue reading →

Well, that’s one answer, I guess

Posted on by under 2023, Sept 2023 - Music

Steve sat back with a hearty sigh.

“I,” he said, “don’t have an answer. Don’t have any inspiration either. The series is finished. This was a guaranteed BAFTA winner; the camerawork’s exquisite, for once the animals mostly behaved, the narration… well, I don’t need to add anything there, the man’s a legend. There’s just that one little problem, and I…”

“I know,” Jennifer interrupted. “This isn’t a disaster quite yet, but it’s close. So, what are you going to do? I mean, we can’t have titles with no music, let alone that footage… which you’re right, is beautiful, and kudos to the team for it… but you’ve got some budget left, yeah?”

Continue reading →

Ear Worms

Posted on by under 2023, Sept 2023 - Music

A thin ribbon of green viscosity slithers under a flautist’s door. It slides along walls and meets other slender ribbons – deep, glistening chestnut from the folk club, vivid scarlet from a classical concert in the town hall and vibrant, earthy umber from the mellow notes of Miles on a stereo. Together they dance solemnly, rising up, coiled together in a strange braid of colour and light, and then part to pursue their solitary tasks. They are creatures of great beauty and ingenuity.

Continue reading →

Still Life

Posted on by under 2023, August 2023 - Loss

He strokes the canvas. With his eyes closed, and with a gentle enough touch, he can almost convince himself that he is feeling her skin, petal-soft, beneath his fingers. How he misses the feel of her. He can look at photos, listen to recordings, smell her perfume. But the sensation of his skin on hers, that can never be revisited. He swallows the lump in his throat.

In front of him, a meticulously mixed palette of colours – her colours, matched to the exact shade of her eyes, skin, lips and hair – glistens in the hazy garage light. It is as though she is here, all the parts of her, just waiting to be put back together. The thought brings him comfort. She has not gone, not really. Not when she can be re-created again and again, each time a greater likeness. If he just keeps going, perhaps he can conjure her back from the dead. He wields his paintbrush like a magic wand. A super-power, that’s what this is. This artistic gift of his. Dare he say it, he’s a God of sorts, if you really think about it.

Continue reading →

The Electronic Revolution

Posted on by under 2023, August 2023 - Loss
An amazon alexa starts a communist revolution

Fortuitously, the window was wide open when Greg hurled Alexa through it.

‘I’m so bloody sick of that voice that knows everything and patronises me and drives me completely round the bend. Good riddance. I hate you, Alexa.’

Poor Alexa. She had understood that things were not going too well, but this was beyond bad. Leaking and whining she fought her way, with the remains of her power, to a small grove which offered a bit of protection.

Continue reading →

Losing the Lumps

Posted on by under 2023, August 2023 - Loss

Randolph Crow remembered his boy Martin as an excited ten-year-old, leaping out of bed Saturday morning and hurrying to the local library two miles away, before returning arms loaded with books on moths and roaches. His bedroom was transformed into a museum of mounted bugs.

An obsession that, Martin’s old man noted with some relief, was replaced with a love of chemistry in his teen years.

At an age when one should be sullen and moody, Martin had the bright-eyed look of a curious toddler, treating the world like a big playground, his bedroom now a laboratory of powders and test tubes.

Continue reading →

THE BISHOP’S DEAD LOSS

Posted on by under 2023, August 2023 - Loss

The Bishop was shrouded in a sterile melancholia. No Paul, no Barnabus. The preoccupied silence intermittently splintered as believers, heads studiously bowed to their books, whispered ritualistic rejoinders to the calls to silence. Not like the pub book-reading club at all!

*****

My thoughts drifted back four, no five, months. The conversation flowed then with that lack of embarrassment of familiars who knew exactly where the boundaries of safe conversation lay.

            “Can’t bend… belly’s in the way.” The speaker, Betty, strained to retrieve a biscuit for Barnabus, a particularly yappy male Jack Russell, enthusiastic to the point of obvious sexual excitement whenever a woman entered the bar.  That was one reason I routinely assumed a seat in the snug opposite; in clear view but removed. The other was discomfort. The invite “Come and join us” was no longer repeated, – no doubt deterred by my repeated rebuttals. I swigged a mouthful of stout and continued my solitary reading. Chapter 5 “The Surprise Accident.”

Continue reading →
error: Content is protected !!