Warm baths on cold nights. Sea flowing between sunburnt toes. Spraying siblings with a hose. Catching minnows in the canal. Drifting on park ponds. Bombing friends at the lido. Wild swimming in northern lakes. Today, these former joys have evaporated. Wading through the rising slurry, I splash my way from[…]
I’ve prepared this letter so many times. My head is blasted by draughts. During endless night-time silences, I find the perfect words to convey my regrets and sorrow. Tears stain my pillow. Yet, in the morning, my fingers remain untouched by ink. Those midnight phrases, like dreams, fade into an[…]
The priest referred to him as the ‘Mirror Music Man.’ ‘A talented person, who took popular songs, reversed a few notes and created new, unforgettable melodies.’ He held up a phone and pressed play. ‘This was his last masterpiece – David had taken The Beatles ‘Yesterday’, flipped a couple of[…]
A recipe for disaster. Take a spicy, young couple. Slowly sprinkle in two pieces of well seasoned baggage. Smother with a large debt, line with bank statements and layer with a redundancy notice. Stir in generous amounts of undiluted alcohol. Dust with an unpeeled lie. Grind in an affair. Bring[…]
It is clear that your mother has been back again, with another bunch of cheap flowers and her roll of Sellotape. It is not the original lamppost. The council had quickly removed the remnants of that one. The replacement one is now mummified by your mother’s tape. Scarves and shirts have[…]
Big trouble was surely heading my way, if Dad ever found out. Not that he even liked Smokey that much. But he sure wouldn’t tolerate any cruelty towards her. And, to be honest, I didn’t really feel I was being cruel, as I dangled her over the steamy bath. It[…]
I am so worried about it. The teachers’ negative reactions. The lowering of grades. The friends’ false sympathy and secret mirth. Do these educators realise how stressful all this is? Do they know that school just doesn’t work at home? And, do they see me crying over the empty screens?[…]
She didn’t approve. Betty had said to him, in no uncertain terms, that he was far too old to buy a driverless car. He argued that not having to worry about driving would mean less stress on his weak heart and he’d have the freedom to go wherever he wanted.[…]
When the escalator drops me at the top, I will be at my life’s lowest point. The smoothly passing world does not calm my rioting mind. Ellie is just in front of me. The last time we’ll be physically close. She leaps off and crashes straight into him. He is[…]
Dear Mum, I don’t think that Aunt Jen planned to tell. It was an accident. Our family is prone to accidents, as you know. We were on our way back from ‘Your Lamp Post’. It was our twenty first monthly visit. Twenty one times we had been there since the[…]