Rosie wrote her list on a sheet torn from a telephone directory. Mrs. Durkin wanted dusters and wax. The Reillys needed bedding; blankets, sheets – whatever could be salvaged. Eileen at number 64 was running out of flour, salt and patience. On the blue Formica top a gallon canister of used vegetable oil glugged its [...]
A bit of a cheat this one… first draft was done in 15 minutes – but polishing doubled the word count. Not so much fast as medium paced, then. I turned the brass doorknob, bigger than my hand. Mr Crampton was waiting, trumpet poised, turning pages. A Sugarloaf Mountain silhouette against arched, white-out windows, he [...]
When I was eleven I tried to hang myself. Face wet, grubby from rubbing and bramble scratched, I wound a length of clothesline around my neck, tied the loose end to a tree branch and allowed my feet to slip from the wall. The twine tightened. Scrambling to regain a foothold on the mossy stone, [...]
An old, flawed and frequently interred story, of which I’m still fond. It was late in the evening, so when a knock came at the front door my reflex response was to search for a place to hide my stash. Then I remembered it was 2005, not 1987. Damn my short-term memory. A decade of [...]
We called it “the tar pit”, but there was no tar there. It was a sticky black patch in the woods where sump oil had been dumped, where a fire had been lit and more oil poured on top. In the same clearing we would build a den from asbestos offcuts and come home with [...]
Everyone’s heard the noise about prison showers. A few months back, before my last date with the magistrate, Tom Belcher down the Spade and Gravedigger gave me his ale-scented opinion. “If you drop the soap, you never bend to pick it up,” he said, “Never”. And then he did this thing where he wiggled around, [...]
“Cashier number 7 please,” I love pressing that button. I wasn’t quite ready yet, but I couldn’t wait any longer, so I pressed it anyway. “I’ve got this I’d like to deposit,” he said, this bloke with a bag of pound coins and a face like a Mr. Man. “Just one moment,” I said in [...]
I’d almost forgotten about Parsley. There were times, not so long ago, when I had thought that impossible. I would wake with the noise of pipes, of doors creaking and kitchen voices, and waking was remembering. Waking was starting to grieve again. That was in the Winter and now June sunshine cast toast-rack shadows. The [...]
Hearing the bell, the shopkeeper hid behind a rail of coats. A man in a dark suit entered and stepped over to the counter in silence. Dropping to his knees, the merchant crawled behind the till, unseen. When the customer wasn’t looking in his direction, he quietly rose to his feet. “May I help you?” [...]