The middle of the day feels like the dead of the night, and I'm never so alone as when I'm with you. I don't remember the exact moment of fracture, but we drifted apart like continental plates; imperceptible up close but forever changing the shape of things. Why can't we say goodbye? Why can't we … Continue reading Fiction: ‘Better Days’
Writing
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 …
Continue reading Fiction: ‘Famous Red Dress’
Fiction: ‘The Crow’
He sits on a branch, shifting from one foot to another as he puffs his feathers out against the cold. His beak, once a sharp point, is now blunt. Even his lovely charcoal feathers have lost their gloss and sit raggedly like an ill-fitting coat. He stretches out his tired old wings. For a moment ...
Continue reading Fiction: ‘The Crow’
Fiction: ‘The Physicist’
They say that time moves slower for the people down there upon the Earth. But only when compared with those that inhabit the space stations that orbit our planet. For the purpose of this research, I’ll be referring to them as ‘People of the Skies’, and ‘People of the Earth’. They were the opening lines ...
Continue reading Fiction: ‘The Physicist’
Fiction: ‘House of Ash’
‘Welcome! Welcome everyone!’ he announces in his booming voice. It carries far over the heads of the gathered citizens who buzz with excitement at the bottom of the steps. There’s a flash of cameras from the crowd. For the first time in recent history, the reporters have all gone quiet. The house behind the man ...
Continue reading Fiction: ‘House of Ash’
All my words were stolen by the wind…
I sit in a bare patch in my garden, covered in dirt, the scent of soil thick in the air. A drizzle covers everything in a fine veil. Wearing nothing but a thin waterproof coat and gumboots, I hold the notebook open in my lap, my fingertips drumming on the empty page. I can’t stop ...
Continue reading All my words were stolen by the wind…
Fiction: ‘The Bookshop’
She pulls the thread taught down the crease between the pages and around the spine. The book creaks as it stretches wide. She ties the string in the centre of the spine and hangs it from a small hook on the ceiling. She does this over and over until the ceiling is covered with books ...
Continue reading Fiction: ‘The Bookshop’
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 ...
Continue reading Fiction: ‘Beats and Breaks Part 3’
Fiction: ‘Beats and Breaks – Part 2’
There’s a rhythm that runs beneath the clamour of life as strong and constant as a heartbeat. It strings all the noise together into coherence. But sometimes life’s tempo grows unsustainable; it gets faster and faster, racing out of control until the music becomes noise, and the beauty pure chaos. When you lose track of ...
Continue reading Fiction: ‘Beats and Breaks – Part 2’
Fiction: ‘Needle and Thread’
All summer long he sat by the docks and sewed. Day after day his little fingers would work as he sewed together cloth to make sails for the local fishermen. For just a handful of pennies, the little boy would make sails as fine and strong as any man who called himself a sailmaker, but ...
Continue reading Fiction: ‘Needle and Thread’
