Every time I see a crocus, I feel sad. So sweet and blue: it is no-one's favourite bloom and never the crown jewel of a garden. Florists never include it in their arrangements. Few artists paint it. And rarely has there been a poem or even a limerick to honour this poor little flower. The …
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Hope
Fiction: ‘The Piper’
Far away in the north was once a grand city famous for its splendour and beauty. The inner city of this wondrous place was filled with twinkling lights, no matter how deep into the night it was, while beautiful people in their finest clothes passed each other in ornate carriages. The scent of champagne lay …
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Fiction: ‘Famous Red Dress’
It’s five in the morning and a grey light is starting to pierce the air. The frost melts beneath its touch. Trains begin to rattle down the line, their carriages empty, the platforms still and bare. You stand upon that same spot where you first saw her. No-one passes you at this hour. And even …
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Fiction: ‘Beats and Breaks Part 3’
The keys tap beneath my fingers with a constant rhythm. Data appears in the spreadsheet. I don’t have to think while I’m doing it, I just let my fingers walk across the keyboard and enter the figures. Downstairs I can hear the roar of machinery clanging through the factory, metal beating on metal. The joints ...
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Fiction: ‘Oxytocin’
When I wake up in the morning, and that heavy black cloud hangs over me, blocking out the light, I can see the sun rising in your eyes. I breathe a little faster. My heart beats a little heavier. That cloud dissipates, broken apart by the seed of bliss you’ve planted. You juggle the stars ...
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Fiction: ‘Hunger’
It looked just like any other well in any other city; deep and dark with smooth sides worn away by the years and an echo as sweet as a bell. The water had dried out long before the eldest living generation had been born. But that never took away from the true value of the ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Fiction: ‘Through the Wall’
Last night I could hear them through the wall again. Our walls are very thin. You can hear everything, even when you don’t want to. The voices were angry and started yelling all those words that mum made me promise never to say.
Laney started crying. She’s my baby sister. She’s only one year old ...
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Fiction: ‘Message From a Loved One’
Your heart has wings. Just about everyone should know this about themselves, yet so few do. Your heart has the capacity to soar beyond the sky and into the outer reaches of the atmosphere, where the temperatures drop to below freezing and Noctilucent clouds drift across the planet. It can also drop from these heights ...
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