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Ian Craine

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2024

Stories (24)

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8 Followers

3 Following

24 Stories

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In Khorezm

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #328

The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some more real substance in the invisible fabric. Sir Thomas Browne IN KHOREZM From the journals of al-Biruni (973-1050) Ghazni 418AH And did I dream you also, Roxalana? The seventh child of a seventh child. Seven sisters all called Roxalana and no...

0 likes

St Paul's Cathedral (a fragment; a shaggy cat story)

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #327

ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL (a fragment; a shaggy cat story)In his youth Chris fronted a bar blues band. He was tall and blond and charismatic. Phil was the lead guitarist, more intense, kept his head down as he played. Mike, Chris’s brother, played bass and like the rest of the band favoured black and brown pullovers. Mike hated summer when you were supposed to wear bright colours. Russ was the drummer, and kept himself a little apart from the others. Of course there was another bar blues band starting up in those days. In fact they were myriad but...

2 likes

Histories of the Sea

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #324

HISTORIES OF THE SEA Part 1- In Times Immemorial Cuckoo wrasse change gender. Male sea horses give birth, their young emitted like spurts of semen. Portuguese man o’war create houses of multiple occupation. And all the strange creatures too that forsook the sea that was once their common home. At first they lived ambivalently before declaring that terra firma was their permanent and only home. Some took to the skies, others found new eggless ways to procreate. Fierce beasts roamed the earth so the more timid and vulnerable made trees their ...

6 likes

A Young Woman's Guide to Ambition

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #322

A YOUNG WOMAN’S GUIDE TO AMBITIONThey used to say (maybe some still do) that ambition is what gets you out of bed of a morning. Though it does depend on the ambition. If you want to write a novel why bother? Write the novel by all means. But do you need to get out of bed? Is ambition a good thing? The obvious answer is, depends on the ambition. Yeees. But it’s a little more complicated isn’t it. Why do people have ambitions? Maybe they want to be famous. Maybe they want to be rich. Maybe they want to be fulfilled. In this day and age we migh...

12 likes

Orlando Juvenescens- A Reverse History of the Knight

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #317

ORLANDO JUVENESCENS- A Reverse History of the Knight In Memoriam Lodovico Ariosto 1474-1533 The stirrup made the knight. A man and a horse are separate creatures and the man chooses the trappings he puts on the horse. A man can ride a horse without bridle or harness or saddle or shoe. He can certainly ride without stirrups. But a knight cannot. A knight is a composite of man and horse. When the man dismounts at the end of the day he may still be addressed as “Good Sir Knight of…” but he knows he is really only a knight when he sits astride...

5 likes

Closing In

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #316

CLOSING IN“Look at those trees”, she said.She had already been gazing at them for some while, How their long thin leafy tops reacted to the autumn wind. How the centre held but the outer layers with nowhere to blow except outwards all went their separate ways before returning to the others. This Rosy carefully explained to Derek as they sat on the park bench.“You know I think on the return they hug each other tighter than ever”Derek was not over-imaginative as far as tree behaviour was concerned but he felt Rosy was saying something about th...

5 likes

TALES OF RAGGED ALBION

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #313

TALES OF RAGGED ALBIONAnd this was Albion, the White Land. A ragged place, a ragged remnant of old Rome left to its own succour. There is darkness everywhere, The darkness of the Irish and Scots pirates to the west, the wild Picts of the north, and the grim Saxons and Frisians in the East. Lost legionaries whose shouts still echo. Empires of marble, we hear your peoples scream. They flee into forests and crawl through briar, their lips crimson with the juice of berries. Terror has made a palimpsest of their minds. Lesions and boils spread on...

3 likes

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ARGENTINA or Keeping an Eye on the Inverted Commas

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #313

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ARGENTINA or Keeping an Eye on the Inverted Commas I last saw Martin in Barcelona. We had dinner in one of those restaurants by the harbour where they serve fish in huge iron skillets. We ate a zarzuela of hake and swordfish, and mussels that looked like ebony sculptures. Martin had insisted on red wine. Outside the street-lights came on, and I saw a young woman wrap a cardigan around her shoulders. A gull called out in the dusk. As the waiter passed our table Martin picked up the empty...

5 likes

The Last Thing She Said

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #309

THE LAST THING SHE SAIDEverything in life is coincidence, and much more likely not to have happened. But the coincidences are often tied up in consequence, the results of actions we have taken or not taken. Brian as a lawyer was reasonably good at his job, affable when necessary, so clients were never in short supply. Indeed one or two of the more desperate ones may have called him their hero. But Brian was losing focus on his day job as he turned to scriptwriting movies and should have known that all heroes have fatal flaws. Money was his....

5 likes

London Pride

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #306

(NOTE: This script is proving difficult to format here. Hope it doesn't look too bad. We're not Robert Mckee here are we) FADE IN INT. LONDON HEATHROW DEPARTURES – DAY ALBIE CANNING, well into middle age, sits in a Caffè Nero at Heathrow with his younger wife JACKIE. ALBIE You’d better be going. Jackie nods. JACKIE This isn’t right. ALBIE I know, but you’ll be better off with your Mum and Dad. Then when I know mor...

4 likes

Chronicles from the Left Field

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #305

CHRONICLES FROM THE LEFT FIELDAt the intersection I could go right and head home but turning left would take me to the field where I would spend the rest of my days. A beautiful day it was, the sun spattering its light and heat all around. I lay under a tree and closed my eyes, and the world turned red. I closed my eyes tighter and ancient men on a retinal carousel went round and round, not before my eyes but behind them. They looked wise and many were earnest; some had beards. Some seemed to accuse me of unknown or forgotten crimes but then...

1 like

The Sea Giveth ...

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #300

THE SEA GIVETH… WARNING: The use of one word, albeit by an unsavoury character but germane to the story She had always appreciated an excuse to come into town. She had walked the arcade so many times but still it refreshed; it cleared her mind and lifted her spirits. Motivation and concentration, the awareness of her surrounding, were the beneficiaries. She sat outside Duckie’s Bar facing the sea. On one side there was Barth’s Chandlers, spick and span with a fancy astrolabe in the window and a gleaming weather vane atop the roof. On the...

7 likes

Tatiana Was Everywhere

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #297

TATIANA WAS EVERYWHEREThe first building Him came to was a ruined dovecote. The house was yet further into the woods. It was in a clearing that itself seemed to be returning to nature. How quickly such things happen, Branches of trees were scratching against the high razor wire that surrounded the place. The wooden gate was padlocked and encased in more razor wire. A huge sign proclaimed the names of a development company and a security firm, and strictly forbade any acts of trespass. There was a silhouette of an Alsatian on the sign. He t...

3 likes

Ruby Dreams

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #295

                                     RUBY DREAMS Incorporating annotated excerpts from a greater work (Brave Rivers That Dream of the Sea) concerning a Confederate exile in Mexico, and a broken hacienda wherein live Ruby and her father and an old American judge. The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Herm...

8 likes

Back to School, Via University

Ian Craine

Submitted to Contest #294

                   BACK TO SCHOOL, VIA UNIVERSITY “Inothewayurthinkin”, said Adrian The words seemed slurred into each other. His wife looked at him. There was worry and concern on her face but skilfully woven in with less dramatic emotions. He was older than her; of course he was, since he had been her don at Oxford. It was the special subject she had to do as part of her modern history course that had really brought them together. The choices ran...

4 likes