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Weekly Contest #272
The pub was noisy, but to a level that wove a cocoon around the two friends. A log burner churned out a lazy heat, there was the promise of more from the dance show behind the glass, but that promise was breathless and lacklustre. Besides, Jake found the temperature suited him just fine. He’d undone his coat, but not bothered to take it off. Toby however, had shrugged his coat off like he was shedding skin, and now the coat lay around him on the bench. A marker, so no interloper would attempt to take his place. Not that the two of them would...
The bookends to Winter are drab and dismal. The branding of Spring lifted it to a position of renewal and positivity. The poster boys, lambs disco dancing in green and pleasant fields. But that is the end of Spring with the promising warmth of Summer already on the horizon and underwriting the proceedings. Equally, the vast majority of autumn is miserable, grey and wet. Seldom are there crisp mornings decorated with banks of artfully crafted leaves of every hue of brown barring the awful beiges sported by geography teachers. Nor the alarming...
CW: This story contains themes of emotional neglect, childhood trauma, mental health struggles, and unhealthy relationships. Reader discretion is advised.The You Are Here sign and accompanying arrow was nowhere to be seen, but then neither was the map upon which it would have been situated. She wasn’t even looking for the map, but had she been, she’d have looked in all the wrong places. The confusion of that unborn search was not helped by the fact that it would never be clear whether the map was one of life’s paths or of her mind itself. We...
In life, one action leads to another and another. A single domino can topple a thousand. A seemingly insignificant ripple can encourage and cajole her brothers and sisters to join her in a dance that brings colossal waves to crash upon the shore and cause fatal devastation. The causality in life is due to connection. Connection cannot be avoided, for if it is, the destructive nature of isolation is even more vile. The dark ingenuity of an isolated mind is truly evil. The hateful intent that finds the button to press or the lever to pull, abs...
Weekly Contest #271
Despite everything, I didn’t want to like him. And so I didn’t. That was that and we formed an uneasy arrangement which meant that we kept out of each other’s way as far as was possible. This arrangement was made all the more uneasy by my so-called friends. But you’d like him.He’s quite like you.I really don’t know what your problem is. I didn’t even know that I had a problem, and that was the way that it remained for quite some time. The entirety of secondary school, in fact. Then we went our own ways. Not exactly problem solved. More that ...
Latin wasn’t John’s bag, but the phrase annus horribilis had stuck like snot on the periphery of his mind. The Queen had had a bad year and had labelled it in this manner. John found this to be amusing. There were some words or phrases that weren’t expletives, but could be spat from the mouth in the very same way. He imagined The Queen firing annus horribilis out of her mouth with maximum disdain, sending courtiers, ambassadors and long-suffering servants this way and that in a blind panic at this hilarious expression of rage. Now as he suff...
Monday’s were an increasing struggle. They shouldn’t have been, and they hadn’t been for an age. Eons in fact. Time was of no consequence to him. The consequences of time were applied to those he encountered. In fact, he was surrounded by time. Even when he went home. Home. Since when had the space he occupied become home? He stroked his nicely named horse on the head as he led him from the stables. Binky snorted affectionate approval. I KNOW, said death to his steed, WE’RE BOTH GETTING A BIT OLD FOR THIS. Death missed the curious look...
Weekly Contest #270
It’s the small things. Of course, it’s the little, seemingly insignificant things. Big things have a habit of being conspicuous. Big things are like grizzly bears. They don’t gradually insinuate themselves into your lives. They don’t delicately become a part of the very fabric of your life. They are either miles away in their usual habitat, or they are wrecking your home as they smash their way towards you, intent on eating you from the feet upwards, with no regard whatsoever for your pitiful screams. The neighbours may be banging on the wal...
Weekly Contest #269
Two weeks before Halloween, and a display changed on the pedestrianised high street I walked through on the way to the office. Now, this was of interest to me for two reasons. Firstly, I am a bah and I am a humbug when it comes to Halloween. Bonfire night, yes. Halloween is just plain silly though. A fright night for children that has been ruined by the Americans. The whole trick or treat thing sickens me. Stylised begging, and for hyper-processed food stuffs that are killing entire generations now. That’s the true horror at play on the last...
Weekly Contest #268
John gazed out of the kitchen window in a fantastical trance. The world outside this window was a carefully crafted fantasy. The garden was overgrown now, but still it described a form of order that he could not exert on the aspects of his life that really counted. Life was wayward and chaotic. It presented a pretence of order for a while, and then it would unravel however a person reacted to the undoing of all their efforts. This John knew, was a death of sorts. A harsh end that handed him an opportunity to begin again. The assault course t...
Weekly Contest #267
The weather was a fickle beast in these parts. Wayward and cruel. At times, it would create a false sense of security. The sun would shine hard enough to warm the bones and clouds were a thing of distant past memories. But those cruel clouds could swoop in in a matter of minutes though. Carried on freezing winds. It were as though they lay in wait for unsuspecting walkers, intent on catching them unawares and mugging them of their lives. Soaking them, blinding them, draining them of their will to live. Only a fool would be out on the moors i...
Weekly Contest #266
I’m not the only one, but it feels like I am. Writing is a supposedly lonely occupation but you’d think you’d get a bit of support from your own bloody wife! Sometimes I feel like a burden. A deadweight. A strange loner child whiling away my life in the pursuit of a stupid, childish fantasy. She makes me feel like that. She makes me feel bad and worthless. She’s crushing my dream, even as I try to realise it. I need someone to boost my belief. Mine alone is not enough. I’m only human after all. I am frail and have moments of weakness. I some...
It took Craig an age to get into The Zone. He’d read that writers needed a familiar and comfortable space within which to write, and so he had gone about building his writing nest. He’d begun gradually, but as he worked on his own, special space he built up a fervour and an excitement of anticipation, discovering hidden antique places and poring over knickknacks as though he were searching for his own personal grail. In a way, he was. He was searching for a space that did not exist in the world beyond him, but within him. He was acquiring sy...
Weekly Contest #265
They all looked up attentively. Craning their necks to discern the truth of the situation. Facsimiles of strange meerkats. Vigilant. Impatient. The energy in the room was twisted out of kilter. Something was happening, but no one knew what shape it would take, let alone what it was. The uncertainty created a vile razor edge that would draw blood and poison its host. It wasn’t a question of if. Only when. When. All the flights in the small airport were delayed. The old and obsolete TV was the oracle of the delays, but between the lines was wo...
Weekly Contest #264
At the grand old age of fifty five years old, I’m invited to a wedding. As a kid, weddings seemed to be a regular occurrence. I had a crowd of older cousins and marriage was an expectation sometime after they left school. Then, when I reached my cousins’ age, my friends got married. I think I was meant to follow suit, but the choices I made precluded that. One of those choices was my first ever serious girlfriend. I think at some point she was serious. I never spotted the point where she stopped being serious and turned her attentions to a s...
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