Wednesday 31 October 2012


Grotto
I felt secure on the eighth floor. I wouldn’t be bothered by children Trick or Treating but the scream did seem real and that was how I found myself on the next floor down, how I found myself calling my neighbour’s name.
‘Hello? Mrs Brownson? Hello?’
Her door was ajar by inches; I pushed it further and stepped on to broken glass. I called again but hoped she wasn’t there, the hair on my neck told me something I couldn’t see.
Thousands of coloured shards twinkled, shined and reflected as I crunched into her apartment. A myriad of bottle green, cobalt blue and brown merged and shone, prisms bounced and a kaleidoscope of colours blinded and I shielded my eyes. It was stunningly beautiful.
The kitchen revealed apparatus for blown glass. Some hobby. I spotted a clear vessel, a vase in the making, now broken, it was embellished with a smudged blood red pattern and I didn’t want to see more. I knew what lay on the other side of the counter.

Wednesday 24 October 2012



Park Life

I’m sitting watching. Watching the children run around screaming that awful high pitched squeal that hurts the ears. Watching as new coats are dragged round and round the roundabout with ticking buttons scuffing. School shoes being leathered. Waste of bloody money. Who is disappearing into the bushes? Why the frantic shouting? Oh bloody hell, fat mother has found him and is yanking his arm out of its socket. Silly little sod.
 Must get back to the old man and bounce on his knee like a kid.

Wednesday 10 October 2012


Mahogany
Cutting, sawing, cutting, sawing. Save for the lone birdsong it was all she could hear. Then it stopped. He was coming back. Was he walking on crushed stone? There was silence before fourteen bangs of a hammer. She tried to blink, tried to close her eyes, tried to dislodge the duck tape and willed her breathing to slow. She needed to hear. She could smell leaves, wood smoke. Was he close? Footsteps and silence. Footsteps and silence. An engine started, it sounded like the pick-up he had carried her in. It faded and the frantic struggle for freedom began.
Held upright in the hardwood box hurt her knees; her clothes were caked in crap. She had to get a grip.