He died with his arms out, nudged downstream by the current to the bank at the foot of the graveyard where local boys swam, belly-diving in and chasing the geese away. (One of them found him. He used a stick) When the police came to take him away, those arms, held as if he was […]
Archives for 2014
The Rapture Came and you Missed It
Later, after it all died down, they agreed that it was a very tidy, very safe apocalypse. The Event began at precisely 02:54 on the seventh of May, in a year which wasn’t particularly important. At first, the few people left behind thought themselves the survivors of some kind of titanic energy discharge, or flesh-eating […]
Confession
If I could truly move mountains and ensnare women and ravens alike with nothing but the delicate dance of my tongue; and fly closer and closer to the sun without burning my golden angel wings and falling to the vast deathbed of mankind; if I was the unbroken knight of old tales returned from the […]
The Moment
Dylan Meadows can’t stop staring at what the lady’s about to buy. Next along in the queue, she’s currently rummaging around in her handbag and so hasn’t fully noticed him yet – hasn’t noticed his mouth hanging open, his hand frozen at the till keypad, mid-scan. She hasn’t yet sensed how his eyes are enraptured, […]
The Umbrella Garden
Make tiny holes in the earth And into it pour The glossy black sea of a February morning…
Untitled
You lay on the grass for a little too long and it seeped into you and chilled your body. Small pieces of leaf clung to your hair and you felt that you were part of the ground. You had thoughts with your eyes closed and your mouth a little open to taste the air. You […]
In for a Penny
The Busker He didn’t earn much, playing music in the square every Saturday – but he wasn’t in it for the money. He was in it for the people. The children who danced like no-one was watching, all jerking limbs and wide grins as they tried to persuade their parents to join in; the tired, […]
Withnail
I wonder what would happen. Daniel Prowse had asked himself this many times, and, now that he was at university…
Natural Selection
There was a bullet-hole in my school. They didn’t even try to cover it up with educational posters. The perfectly circular hole exposed the brown plaster underneath, white paint peeled around the edges. I suppose they assumed none of us would guess what it was. The teacher, Miss Jones, didn’t address the issue. She must […]
Warm Pearls
There is nothing quite as sublime as a string of warm pearls against a cold neck. The juxtaposition is beautiful. Perfect, even. The urge for life is all consuming, so to hold it, to clutch it wrapped between your fingers, and cut it off pearl by pearl is a feeling you will never know. No […]