short story

March: ghost story attempt

March 2, 2014 — 4 Comments

She showed up in a taxi. The sort that trawl the train station picking up tourists and children making brief prodigal returns. She took from the taxi a re-purposed cardboard box. Its four flaps were folded closed rather than taped shut. Her only other luggage was a hard plastic case on wheels.

She introduced herself to the receptionist as Shona Omara. The receptionist, who was also the proprietress Mrs Headle, told her how to find her room.

Shona pulled her case up three flights of carpeted stairs to the third floor. Along the walls of the staircase Shona noticed scuff marks, presumably made by other guests dragging their own luggage. She made a second trip to the lobby to collect the cardboard box.
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February: The Grand Tour

February 15, 2014 — Leave a comment

In this story a young man, older than a boy but not so mature that he would be expected to have as many regrets as he in fact carries around with him, leaves his home town, Hull, for an odyssey he himself cannot see the end of but in which the reader or listener of the story thinks they can predict where his story will take him.

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January: Brünnhilde (ii) (backwards)

January 19, 2014 — Leave a comment

I love your abused mouth; your lips pad together with final words.

I will die here too in a place where no-one can say my name, except for you. And you are dying mouthing not my name, but his.

Cities have fallen and cities will fall.

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October: Brunhilde (i) (forward)

October 31, 2013 — 3 Comments

I lived on a mountain. My house had thick walls made of mud which men had carried on their backs all the way from the river banks of my home country. They were whipped up hillsides, forced over rocks wet with pure river water and through gullies slimy with stinking moss. The rugs in my house had been stitched by the women of my father’s house. They cried over each stitch. I could taste their tears when I put my tongue on the rugs.

It was a good place to live.
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August: Attempt at modern folk tale

August 31, 2013 — 6 Comments

The third child of the third daughter fell asleep beside a lake at the edge of a forest. Although the woods were ancient, thick and dark, the third child wasn’t afraid. As soon as night came she fell asleep just as she always had.

The spirit that lived on the edge of the lake and that carried the memory of the old world within it saw the third child sleeping, and without hesitation ate her.

Hiroshige

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July: Arrival

July 23, 2013 — 4 Comments

Schiele, Mother and Child 1908

For weeks her belly as wide as an ocean. It ripples. Time spent checking the packed bag, cleaning the prepared room, folding clothes.

Cooking then eating a curry. Its golden flavour rich rolls around her tongue, and the spiciness brings beads to crown her head, but the ocean is calm. Boiled eggs with crumbling sunlight yolks.

Even the clock ticks slow. Count these moments

before

the clenching. Sea-sickness, a tempest.

Her chair is on its side. There is blood on the towels cleaned just this morning. Thrown to the floor in the room cleaned just this morning. The packed bag stays shut. There is ringing. She screams.

Emerging from the eye of the storm, he arrives squalling.

June: Park Story

June 16, 2013 — 2 Comments

Up above, the sky is open blue. Down beneath, the grass is living green. Kelly watches as the smoke from his mouth curls out into the blue. Near to him, in a group to his left, a girl plays bongos. She is wearing a tan fringed jacket. She has feathers in her hair. This morning she gave Kelly a flower. Someone else is playing an acoustic guitar. Maybe it’s Dan, muting the chords with his fat fingers. Reedy voices that have been up all night and into today attempt to keep pace with the stumbling guitar.

Somewhere off to Kelly’s right, away from his people, he can hear the thunk pause thunk of a cricket bat. Spattered clapping. There are families over there. He saw them arrive, before his come-down made him lie-down. The June sun sinks – into Kelly’s face, exposed arms, feet in sandals.

A shadow touches his right leg, nearabout the ankle. Kelly looks.

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May: Voyeur

May 18, 2013 — 4 Comments

They’ve always been a good-looking couple.

I said, ‘you’ve scrubbed up well,’ to Charlotte when I found her after the ceremony, in the still centre of an eddy of well-wishers.

She smiled. I felt a wash of everything run off her when she smiled, happiness, exhaustion, nervous energy. She smiled with her teeth shut together.

disco

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April: The Expanding Universe

April 16, 2013 — 2 Comments

I’d do it. If you wanted me to.

I have taken you to Dr Somerset. He told us there was no more help he could give. I have taken you to Dr Trevellyan. She told us, ‘Could be three months. Could be a year. Some people can continue indefinitely on the medication.’ She told us that you’re not technically suffering. Your pain is deadened by the medication. She said a nurse would come and show me how to soften food and thicken fluids for you. I told her I used to be a nurse and I knew how.

Jolie visits once a week to check on you. She is checking on me. She takes your blood pressure and looks in your eyes. She checks your padding. She inspects your chair to see that it is clean and dry.
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