Cherrypicked stories
Matchbox-cars and Lucky Packets
“There was a saviour, rarer than radium, Commoner than water, crueller than truth.” – Dylan Thomas - In my bed going to sleep sometimes I imagined a...
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- 19 comments
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- 2931 reads
Fixing the calendar
One hour lost in Spring, in autumn found again! and every year …progressing problem, so …
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- 12 comments
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- 2255 reads
New Directions (14)
‘Christine, Julian and Margaret worked on this until eleven last night. They wouldn’t go home until they found something.’ Dev stayed calm, but I...
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- 7 comments
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- 1608 reads
Clehonger to Ruckhall Circular
24/2/24 I do like 3-dimensional walks, with ups and downs (though the ups not too long, but bringing new views throughout the little walk). We hadn’t...
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- 10 comments
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- 2017 reads
"Willow's Missing Tail" 13
Perfidia looked at the large tome on Martha’s bookshelf. “This thing is going to follow me around? For how long?” “Until it decides you’re a capable...
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- 8 comments
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- 2200 reads
"The Coffee House Spy" 15
Thies and Brent shared a look that telegraphed they were at an impasse with the non-agent, fake, fat guy. Thies narrowed his eyes on the smug captive...
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- 421 reads
Conscript
This was a true story (the name has changed). For a twenty year old it was National Service by conscription, the yearly intake chosen by birthdays. (Image courtesy of Wikemedia Commons)
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- 9 comments
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- 1995 reads
New Directions (13)
With Dev hanging on to the door handle with one hand and thumping the window with the other I couldn’t drive away without injuring him. Before the...
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- 5 comments
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- 1248 reads
Unsaid (A Villanelle-ish)
Unsaid (A Villanelle - ish ) Jennifer Pickup 2 6 .02.2024 I have all these words that remain unsaid , They disappear when I pick up the phone –...
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- 8 comments
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- 2228 reads
Muscle memory
My father never went away he just became a yesterday he told me people swing the bat he wasn't willing to do that his father taught him to be free...
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- 14 comments
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- 4951 reads
Land of Make Believe
Being human, what pain, what peril! I can probably count on one and a half hands the times I’ve felt truly happy, at least as an adult, and they...
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- 23 comments
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- 5430 reads
Ophidian at Four O’Clock
Happiness is a hot Balkan afternoon...
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- 16 comments
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- 3111 reads
The Fish Hawker
I wonder! Did Mary Kelynack's strength come from the briny? For as weary flow of watchful tide fishing boats did arrive, then waves bringing ravenous...
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- 20 comments
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- 4183 reads
Catch-me-if-you-can
Painting of Will-o-the-wisp by Herman Hendrich from wiki commons
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- 7 comments
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- 1439 reads
whispers.
Everything seemed perfect. It is not. I am strong. To everyone else they think I am. I am in control. Someone all powerful controls me. I had a...
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- 2 comments
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- 740 reads
Weeding
Who decides what enhances? Speed doodle
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- 12 comments
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- 2562 reads
Damp cloth
All cellophaned up in wraparound plastic nothing left of it, just dust and German Shepherds English-speaking watchmen. This weather’s like a damp...
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- 14 comments
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- 2600 reads
The moon is all bluish tonight
It is a fierce, hard blow. I close my eyes in fear, my hands hold the steering wheel as if it were a lifebuoy. My breathing is heavy and difficult...
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- 2 comments
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- 545 reads
Like What You See?
As an admirer of M R James I thought I'd try a tale in the same mode - the unacanny and fatal, found in the everyday - for the unwitting victim!
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- 18 comments
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- 3675 reads
Parcel for you...part 20
There was a headline, just a small one, alongside the main headline which was about the phasing out of car ownership. In the news sites, on Facebook...
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- 8 comments
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- 1668 reads