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Ian Craine

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Oct, 2024

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33 Stories

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TALES OF RAGGED ALBION

Weekly 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...

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

Weekly 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...

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The Last Thing She Said

Weekly 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....

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London Pride

Weekly 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...

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Chronicles from the Left Field

Weekly 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...

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The Sea Giveth ...

Weekly 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...

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Tatiana Was Everywhere

Weekly 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...

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Ruby Dreams

Weekly 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...

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Back to School, Via University

Weekly 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...

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Leaving Home

Weekly Contest #293

                         LEAVING HOMEHow much can a man take before he breaks apart from the inside? He was looking out of the train window to try to calm himself- he’d just read that line in a newspaper’s book review. The three concrete Camden slabs each with its own primary colour roof- one red, one blue, one yellow- were passing by. They were a famous sight, the first out of Euston, council blocks, though since Magg...

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The Embarkation of St Ursula

Weekly Contest #291

      THE EMBARKATION OF ST URSULA The water hustled round the quay plashing at the walls of customs houses and the apartments of sea captains. On the opposite side of the bay trees caught the lingering summer sun. There was a sense of concentrated magic. Kinsen soaked up the atmosphere willing it to remain. Somewhere a door creaked. The nurse entered a room with walls of dirty beige. They were bare save only for one picture. Her own linen too was ragged and stained. There was no quay now.Today’s the day”, she s...

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We Are All Works in Progress

Weekly Contest #289

   WE ARE ALL WORKS IN PROGRESS There is little in us that has been there from the start. Our cells are forever changing so that after a few years nothing is the same as it once was. So perhaps it’s not surprising that who we think we are changes over similar time scales. There are so many levels, from passing fashion to deep half subconscious identity. I am an only child. Just about. My parents met before the War. A note for later generations. When old gits like me talk about “the War” they mean what is more generally known ...

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Sister Breda of the Carmelites

Weekly Contest #288

     SISTER BREDA OF THE CARMELITES That afternoon I drove south. At lunchtime I had touched base with that windy desolate coast, and I saw the great white ball that is Sizewell B. It was a dismal day. The air was full of threat and portent. By three the sky was a bruise of blue and green and purple, and the darkness was closing in on it. Leaving the shore I saw a last church white against the sky and there was a corposant adhering to its steeple. This alone may I save, said some Lord. The wind got up. A strand of po...

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When Night Again Meets Day on Equal Terms

Weekly Contest #286

TILL NIGHT AGAIN MEETS DAY ON EQUAL TERMS On those days the water returned. It bounced and flowed across the wild grasses. It pounded the old stone wall. Spume and spray rose into the air. The grassy twiggy abodes of the nesting birds were washed away, and the rats were swept under the promenade to enter the piping and the inner runnels of the old houses. That night I looked across the water to the dim lights of Bagillt, far away and crouching on the shoreline. Now a man could swim all the way to Wales. It happened twice a year. I turned bac...

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The Times of Remembering, The Times of Forgetting

Weekly Contest #285

  THE TIMES OF REMEMBERING, THE TIMES OF FORGETTING Memories like islands now in the silted waters of his mind. He remembers the times of remembering. The child who could not but remember when there was so much to learn. The sight of the green leaves of summer on a perfect smudgeless blue sky. The sound of grinding metal from the goods railway at the bottom of the road. The smell of soapy sticky tar new pasted on the road. Then the teenager sitting in smoky Kardomah basements forcing a coffee to last two hours. And the young adult ...

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