Cherrypicked stories
True Love
God, as I knew, was very unforgiving. Most folk think of prophets as old guys with long beards. She said cheerio to half the people in the room. That...
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- 1664 reads
Watching You Chapters Eleven and Twelve
Chapter Eleven Black slipped through a fence as dilapidated as the house he was about to enter. As he strode through the weeds, moonlight flooded the...
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- 901 reads
Monday morning's inner voice
You sit there, slumped in your chair, eyes glazed as you stare at the mountain of tasks before you. From above, I watch you, observing the weight you...
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- 2267 reads
Caught In Charm Of What I See
Dear diary... My senses experience significant aura caught in moments like this, in my mind lightness flutters... shimmering even in absence of sun...
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- 4871 reads
My First Poem on ABCtales
Echoes from the past
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- 21 comments
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- 2996 reads
The Crow
The Crow Jennifer Pickup, 17.08.2024 I am the crow and I fly Fast as a dart, and straight as a die, Observing the world with my watchful eye. I see...
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- 861 reads
No Country for Cold Men
Made in the shade of our covered terrace late in the afternoon on one of those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.
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- 4140 reads
Death where is your sting?
I am too late. Much too late. That is what rustles through my mind as I read the message. I stand with my mobile phone in my hand in the living room...
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- 898 reads
Here Comes the Rain Again (Dead Reckoning series - Part 22)
In which Samantha makes progress, at last, and Josiah and Archibald find their feet...wet!
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- 1124 reads
Bleeding Rainbows
Bleeding Rainbows Jennifer Pickup, 16.08.2024 I’ve had many labels stuck on me, But wearing them always has been with pride; ‘One of a kind’, I’m ‘...
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- 7 comments
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- 1295 reads
A Martian Sends a Postcard Home 2024
(with apologies to Craig Raine) Smart-phones are electronic gadgets with many apps. Humans treasure them for their frivolousness. They cause...
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- 22 comments
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- 10010 reads
Chapter 9: Psychological Warfare
The ship was groaning again. It had been doing that more frequently lately, or maybe I was just more attuned to it now, more aware of the eerie...
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- 323 reads
Lambs
An awful cry from the field. The sound trapped in the morning fog as if the wail itself had become lost in the low haze. It sent the crows batting...
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- 259 reads
A hundred moments in autism - My own personal dress down Tuesday
An autist’s relationship with societal rules is complex. We don’t innately understand them the way a neurotypical does. Many autists learn to follow...
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- 834 reads
Benches & Hedges
If you turn off your mind, relax and float downstream you might just find there’s a lot more than botany to discover in a garden, especially in Leeds.
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- 5740 reads
Conditions That Please or Displease Flowers
In the heart of a clean room, where sunlight spills, A window frames the world, a clear portal to dreams, Here, flowers blossom, nurtured by tender...
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- 10 comments
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- 2296 reads
Chapter 8: The Abyss Within
It started as a vague worry, the kind that creeps up on you in the quiet moments and takes root in the back of your mind. Clyde was missing. Not just...
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- 561 reads
Chapter 7: Discovering new routines
Days on the Leviathan bled into one another, each one an indistinguishable echo of the last. Time had a way of warping out here in the middle of...
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- 302 reads
Chapter 6: Unearthed Secrets
The Leviathan groaned as we touched down on her rusted deck, the helicopter’s blades whipping the air into a frenzy before finally settling into...
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- 306 reads
La Tomatino versus The Terminator
In less complicated times a typical robot was made of tin, stood about twenty cms high, trundled back and forth on squeaky little wheels, swivelled...
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- 657 reads