The world outside was black and sodden when the sombre clock struck midnight, and concurrent with the last vibrato of the pendulum, there was an almighty bang at my front door. I lowered my book, listening. A silent flash lit the room as I sat, and moments later a slow thunder rolled and belched in the distance. Perhaps I had imagined it. Continue reading
fiction
Swallowed By A Big Whale
Let me see now, if I can recall correctly, it was about quarter past four on a blustery Tuesday afternoon in May when the whale swallowed me whole. Continue reading
Fox Hunting in the Desert
Blackness and swirling drunk dreams of conversations with people I’ve not seen or even thought about in ten years. Continue reading
Travelling Back In Time To Break My Father’s Nose, or, The Weirdest Story I Have Ever Written
Do you think you could beat your father in a fight? What about when he was in his prime? My uncle asked this very question at my father’s birthday dinner last weekend, and my father, without a hint of irony or humour, gazed straight into my eyes and told me he would ‘massacre’ me, even now. He’s 59 years old with a hernia and a beer gut, I am 25. The hubris. This simply won’t stand. Something must be done.
I am going to break your nose, old man. Not now, not today, while you’re old and feeble and your best years are behind you. There’d be no satisfaction in that, there’d be no challenge. No, father, I’m going to go back to the 1980’s, I’m going to find you, and I’m going to make you wish I’d never been born. Continue reading
Companions – Short Story
I did my fly up and rinsed my hands in the sink. My paper hat was skew-whiff in the mirror. I took it off, parted my hair, repositioned it, then for the fifteenth time checked I hadn’t got any sauce on my shirt. I shook my hands dry as I turned, and through my own interminable bad luck I found myself flicking water over James Dean’s groin.
“Shit, sorry man,” I murmured as I bustled past.
“Ah, it’s nothin’,” he shrugged, undoing his belt and slinking past me into a cubicle. Continue reading