I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce my new short-story and poetry collection, Burn The Word.
Tag: short story
Social Audit
“The thing I don’t understand,” Shirley was saying as she’d shooed his hand away from the screen, scrolling and sliding through various pages, “is that we give you people so many areas in which you can thrive, work, play, and talk to fun, interesting and creative people. So why do you feel the need to go back to the web?”
The Devil’s view
‘“D’you mind?” called the corpulent chap she’d collided with seconds before and whose second Evening Standard, slipped the fold of the first and slid to the floor.’
Mirror me
‘The reflection had only existed for a matter of moments, but it already knew what it thought of the man.’
Silverfish
‘Everything about that time of morning, from the way my eyes work, to the way my limbs move, is just so easy I don’t even consider it.’
Mr Morrison
‘He was never under any illusion that he could fix all of the world’s problems, or even those of the tiny world he had inhabited for over three decades, alongside criminals, degenerates, low-lifes and innocents of all descripts.’
Boys like them
‘They all started walking back to where we’d been about ten minutes before, but I didn’t move. I had this horrible taste in my mouth, so I spat on the floor, and realised they were all still walking away.’
Minutes, months and years
‘He fidgeted in his seat and realised he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. Wouldn’t that be the thing, he thought as he plugged it in and considered being launched through a windscreen in some horrendous head on collision.’
What happened?
‘What happened? You’re buried, and your arms are stuck. OK. What about your legs. OK, OK. Yes, you can move your leg, and your foot. Not that leg though, not that leg – that’s bad, that’s bad. ‘
Another line
‘Within the tombstone lines of seats in the open plan office, no-one was within fifteen desks of her.’
No kind of man
‘“You’ll listen to me, and I’ll tell you when I’m finished. Do you hear? Do you hear me?”’
A Fall
‘If you were me, what would you have done?’
No-one’s first rodeo
‘Catherine Thorpe had been with Michaels, Michaels and Alnwick since long before the second Michaels got his name above the door and Alnwick dropped dead at his desk.’
Ticket 047
‘They went into the bathroom and I went downstairs, running my hand over but not quite holding on to the handrail.’
Plastic cups and cheap whiskey
‘His watery eyes focused on me for a moment, opened, narrowed, then faded away back into their own gloom. Did he want a top-up, I asked.’
Book of Pye 