He woke beneath a kitchen table. Scattered crumbs rose like far-off prairie mountains on the tiles. Through a slice of window he could see a deep crusted snow, shining on a rooftop. The sky held more snow. He was wearing someone else's jumper. Heavy, handwoven, Hebridian: blue with a daisy motif. He stared at the … Continue reading The Kiss.
The sun dropped behind the bruised horizon and the sky became plateaued in fading orange and blue. A car, bearing the legend Weston Taxis, appeared on the quiet street, stopping opposite The Playhouse. The sky was held in the theatre's windows; a ghost crowd, too; foyered. A man and a woman climbed from the taxi … Continue reading Pan & The Fluted Mimosa.
'An easy to moderate climb', the guidebook promises. But, halfway up Catbells' spine, she turns to me and says, "I cannot carry on." * We had followed in footprints of dead Roman legions. I'd seen her walk on her hands on Tynemouth beaches. But she cannot carry on. We measured maps by millimetres, drank goats' … Continue reading An Easy To Moderate Climb.
We sat, the six of us, on two black, vinyl settees facing each other and waited in the waiting room to be interviewed for the orthodontic apprentice technician position. A clock ticked on a wall, a cheese plant slouched by a window, old magazines were splayed on a glass-topped table. The nearest publication had a … Continue reading English Teeth.
Fading This is from when he was still a young boy; hip-slung, just so; nothing very much to say. Three lances of sunlight, emanating from beyond the top right-hand corner, fall forever across the photograph, piercing a number of the sitters - pupils and teachers. The headmaster (Mr. D) - front row, centre - has … Continue reading Fading Beehive.
Perched on a bough in a black alder tree, trench rot soaking his booted feet, armpits and groin and tunic unkempt, teeming, a pale airman watched two strangers beneath. They were stood in shirt and tie, pinstripe beneath mackintosh and tucked into black rubber boots, ankle-deep in the river he knew to be the Quaggy, … Continue reading A Pale Airman.
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