The door

There was no shop front. No displays of the latest gadgets lying on carpets of fake snow; no posters encouraging passers-by to pre-order the next release; there wasn’t even windows of bumper stickers announcing yet another final sale. There was just a parsley green door. The paint was cracked in long thin lines as if […]

Mobility Scooters

Sitting there, on that bench, wasn’t something he particularly enjoyed.  But, as the years crumpled at his feet and the summit slowly revealed itself, he had been drawn to it.  He guessed it was because of the noise.  There was always noise. The bench was at a cross section in the shopping centre, between the […]

The Waiting

She sits there, waiting, like an old man in a doctor’s surgery.   An old man who no longer feels like he is a participaint in life, whose very skin is gloved from the world by all that he has seen and all that he hasn’t done.  Trembling thighs that mark every laboured heartbeat, aching shoulders […]

The Clinic

I first heard about the Clinic when I was in Soho.  I was alone in one of those generic bars that cling to the area like limpets on an industrial liner.  Awash on an ocean of poisonous drivel distilled from privilege and prejudice, I could feel myself sinking.   I wasn’t really listening to anything anyone […]

Stalled

He sat there, pen in hand and hand on head.  The world before him had paused.  It wasn’t a modern pause, though.  It wasn’t a clean break where nothing moved and the whole world was drenched in a silent calm.  No, it was a VHS pause; the old stuttering and shaking that kept catching your […]

Seeking Pigeons

 Charlie stroked his hand up the side of his cool beer, causing small droplets of condensation to scurry away and hide under the pint glass. The pause was getting longer; he knew it was his turn to say something but the words just didn’t want to find their way out. His friend, Sam, sat patiently, […]

Suited Bike

  She didn’t like him. She knew she didn’t like him. It wasn’t that she was trying to convince herself that there was something between them, or even that she thought she would find something in him in which she could fall in love. No, she wasn’t fooling herself. She liked his clothes and she […]

Normal

He knew he should put it down.  He really did.  He knew, deep inside his heart that, if he could only open his fingers another few centimetres and let it fall, then his world would be back to normal.  Ah normal.  The word itself sounded funny in his head these days.  He remembered a time […]

Uncontrollable Rose

He found it behind his shed.  A tiny pale green shoot, hiding from the world.  He’d been fixing his fence in a hopeful effort to keep the neighbours dog out of his garden, but as soon as he saw this miniature speck of life he had to stop his work.  He felt compelled to.  Immediately […]