All my life I’ve been told the story of the tulip that had grown from the pavement, but I never really believed it until I saw it for myself. She was as enchanting as a fairy tale. Her bright red petals were awash with orange and gold so that she burned like a sunrise in …
Category Archives: Fiction
Fiction: ‘Paradise’
He chips away at the stone with a blunt axe, pausing only to brush away the flakes which have built up around him. His hands are coarse and weathered. The skin on his palms is a patchwork of callouses, each at varying stages of healing. He stops to look up at the roughly hewn ceiling …
Fiction: ‘Firebug’
Skeletal trees splashed with silver and charcoal glare down upon the winding road. If you stand on the very crest of the hill, they look like an army of charred trunks and twisted limbs. No animals move about within the shadows. No birds nest in the trunks of the trees. No insects make a sound …
Fiction: ‘The Pearl’
She lies peacefully beneath the currents, nestled in a bed of tangled seaweed. A tiny silver fish darts by. Following closely is larger fish covered with striped frills of white and orange. The smaller fish weaves between the reeds, desperately trying to lose its pursuer. First it turns one way, and then another. Its little …
Fiction: ‘Abyss’
Three poisonous wells situated three kilometres from each other in a near-perfect triangle. Three lush hills overturned into valleys, the bare earth exposed to the elements. Three towers of acrid smoke rising from the horizon and curling over the rim of the sky. People wonder why so many have fallen sick. That’s why. Those three …
Fiction: ‘Dust and Cut Flowers’
Like dust floating through a stream of sunlight. Like a small chip in the paint that resembles a tiny elephant. Like a scrap of that beloved floral pattern on an old sundress discarded to the rags basket in the laundry. I see these relics everywhere. Reminders of those tiny beautiful things. There’s an infinite sadness …
Fiction: ‘The Shoemaker Who Made Toys’
Finn Dreyer was a shoemaker who didn’t really like shoes very much. No, he didn’t like them at all. Every day he would rise early in the morning, walk across town through the slushy snow to his master’s workshop, and spend hour after hour, day after day, year after year, making shoes. First he would …
Fiction: ‘Weightless’
He leans back on the couch, his right hand firmly clasping his left and his eyes fixed on a thread dangling from her sleeve. Her office is small, but it feels cosy. Intimate. Every object is exactly where it needs to be, from the desktop calendar by the phone to the yellowing cactus on the …
Fiction: ‘The Oracle’
Prometheus first shaped mankind out of mud, and Athena breathed life into his creation. He loved mankind more than any of the Olympians. I know because I was there in the very beginning. I saw how he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man to better arm them against the cruelty of …
Fiction: ‘99 Bottles’
The circular room has only one window. Coated with a thick layer of grime, the light comes through dimly, as if it’s always the twilight hour. Shelves which stretch all the way up to the ceiling line the walls. There are ninety-nine bottles of various shapes and sizes sitting along these shelves, as well as …
Writing on Tangents 