Cherrypicked stories
The lyre of Orpheus
There was a summer, not long after Breathless came out, when I listened to it on repeat. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds — a song unlike most of theirs,...
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- 25 reads
There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Engels
Dyado Petr, Baba Stefka and Todor Zhivkov are/were real people, the earthquake and appointment of a new head of state really did happen, and the places I’ve mentioned really do exist, but much of the rest of this tale is a fig leaf of my imagination. However, it describes an event that could have taken place in my part of Bulgaria seventy years ago. Superstition is so strong and diverse here that it’s possible to make it up and get away with it. Maybe I did make it up and maybe I didn’t.
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- 61 reads
Sausage (Episode18 - The Further Chronicles of a Young Lady (and her Maid))
In which a message is delivered that causes a number of departures!
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- 57 reads
A Poet's Greek Mythology
If I knew grace amid embrace of time, that declares how encapsulating and alluring this lyre of blessed energy; then lull of many women surely...
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- 56 reads
Cap And Crown
I didn’t just earn a degree I found myself, Inbetween nappies and deadlines, tucked into lunchboxes and long nights, stitched into nursery rhymes and...
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- 92 reads
Ghigau part 10
Catherine Booth was in her kitchen, cooking Halloumi burgers and salad, with fruit and Greek yoghurt to follow, and sipping wine. She checked her...
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- 28 reads
The face is what forbids us to kill
“Harder! Much harder!” shouts the teacher. “You have to attack! You mustn’t wait! Faster, quicker, meaner! They can’t let you down! You must stay...
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- 53 reads
The Bomb Shelter (chapter two, p 2)
Final part of chapter two.
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- 79 reads
The Bomb Shelter (Chapter Two, p1)
And finally, here is chapter two. Please enjoy. Provide any feedback
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- 137 reads
The Bomb Shelter (the remainder of chapter 1)
This is the remainder of Chapter 1, the start of which I posted about a month ago.
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- 67 reads
The Vale - Part 4 (Adam Believe)
I can remember the exact moment I saw Adam Berry. It was on the first day of secondary school and we had been instructed, via a letter in the post,...
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- 86 reads
The Patrolman - 33
Carruthers continued up Weidlake Drive toward the Reservoir.
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- 40 reads
Ghigau 9 part 2
Sam stood, “Would you mind if I looked around the house? You can show me round if you have time.” Lenny looked taken aback at first, but then readily...
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- 73 reads
Ghigau 9 part 1
DS Sam Tate climbed the four steps that took her to the Talbot’s porch and stood before the maroon, panelled door, wishing she had worn less clothing...
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- 54 reads
You are
Even though the only sound you hear is a melody of birds; the ratata of a distant woodpecker. Even though the coffee carried in plumes that play in...
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- 224 reads
Hollyhock Tears Or Whispers Of Gods.
This poem is based on a Greek tale. When rain came and flowers grew, Pieuronian princess wept for her son, glazed eyes weakened by distress at what...
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- 236 reads
The Vale - Part 3
Lori’s mother, Linda, is just leaving when I return to the cave. She is a lovely woman, warm, level-headed, unassuming and ever mindful of being in...
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- 177 reads
Hear the children cryin'
Some mornings I wake from dreams that don’t announce themselves as dreams. They slip into the day like breath into fog. One in particular lingered...
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- 85 reads
You are surprised as a published writer…
You are surprised, as a published author, by how many people have not read your book. You board a train, you look at all the faces as you walk down...
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- 399 reads
The Vale - Part 1 (d)
I lie in bed staring at the patterns on the ceiling, the trees twitching in the wind casting shadows of branches like veins inside a lung, pulsing...
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- 195 reads
Prophesy: The Immortal Witch (4)
Part three at: https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/prophesy-immortal-witch-3 To the east of Brean Down, dawn brings an orange ball of candescent...
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- 13 comments
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- 269 reads
Xion Island Zero: Chapter 42
If he could keep him talking, maybe he could buy some time. Even now, Travis’ ego was overwhelming, and he needed him to see that Nash hadn’t given...
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- 74 reads
The Trip To Spain
I never knew my dad. He left Mum and me when I was just a year old. Mum never spoke of him, and so neither did I. A mate of mine once asked me, “Don’...
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- 272 reads
"Art of Trouble" 2
24 hours earlier Jade was critiquing her outfit choice in her mirror, not sure if it did anything for her, and was about to change when her cell...
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- 123 reads
Xion Island Zero Chapter 40 and 41
Chapter 40 I am filled with hatred. I am done! Chapter 41 The room pulsed with heat, making Nash’s head spin. He was drowning in the stink of sweat...
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- 99 reads
Homage
Homage … a warm velvet morning, over silver spun sand, the seashore in sight… The lighthouse blinks a warm welcome and the foghorn booms out a salute...
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- 237 reads
Butterfly in a Storm
The wind stripped the petals of dandelions The rain poured from a burst cloud The branches on trees were wrestling each other Leaves were flying to...
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- 84 reads
When I searched for you
When I searched for you If I used the forbidden eye to bring back the old wooden bridge over the slow streaming brook, the gnarled carvings of names...
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- 242 reads
Put Out Fewer Flags
All too obvious, no doubt, but here it is anyway.
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- 197 reads
Chronicles of Trumpenstein : The Dumbed Down Day of Trump (and Elon!) Has Arrived! by Alfred N.Muggins
Image:
19/4/25 (16/5/25) The Day of Trump (and Elon!) has long been awaited according to the popular culture of recent decades! Society was waiting until it...
harmers 2
She dabbed the scab at her wrist shaped like a keyhole. Picking at it. Although she knew she shouldn’t. Dr Malik was on the phone. Always on the...
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- 114 reads
wonkness test
Mussolini, Mein Kampf and our British Empire’s ideology Our struggle, not only on land and sea Our struggle to define ‘we’ Was never wonk work...
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- 157 reads
The Turd Age of Humankind
Oh my word! The unrelenting turd. Any watching god, would give us the bird. Positive proof of a glorified herd. Buried alive in our own foul curd. A...
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- 132 reads
Worst Case Scenario - Being Peter To Save Paul (Part One)
“Thing is mate, you do your day's work and get $80-100 dollars easy - that covers yeh sack and grub, the rest goes on yeh piss, know what I mean? ”...
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- 394 reads
Search (Episode 17 - The Further Chronicles of a Young Lady (and her Maid))
In which Aefelthrith tries to use her womanly wiles and Gwladys gets a shock!
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- 119 reads
The Fox and the Elm Tree
For Julia and Robert. And for Coral and Sarah.
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- 9 comments
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- 294 reads
Holidays in Time 1
Some very strange things had been going on outside my neighbour's house. All sorts of unfamliar vehicles were pulling up in his designated parking...
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- 53 reads
Merman
Fishhooks in your pocket jangle as you wade away to the fog-pressed pier. You use a knife to descale fish, split bone. The kettle screams, I flinch—...
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- 73 reads
Xion Island Zero: Chapter 39
The smell hit Nash. It made his throat close. His eyes watered. Then it twisted, punching him in the throat. It was acrid and human. The stench raged...
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- 75 reads
After the Geese
After the Geese The last of the geese have flown, migratory release, a summer sown, snows due soon, polar winds biting, phases of the moon, new year...
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- 483 reads
Lausanne Epilogue
Some mornings I wake before the alarm. The dog lifts her head, watches me for a second, then exhales and settles back into herself. I sit there in...
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- 206 reads
Rue (following on from Funeral Games)
Now that the central figures were gone, the anger hollowed into silence. The performance had ended. No one was left to fight but ghosts. I found...
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- 117 reads
Funeral Games
The worst part about my father’s death wasn’t the death. It was the circus that formed around it — a slow-moving horror of corridors, signatures,...
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- 74 reads
After Geneva
There’s a kind of comfort in failure. It softens the edges of expectation. My father welcomed me home like a prophecy fulfilled. I hadn’t just...
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- 119 reads
Watching You Chapters Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Five Black’s denims were filthy, dyed the same liquid brown as the canal. They no longer felt soggy, but his legs stung as though he’d...
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- 40 reads
What do grown-ups mean by a ‘short’ walk?
Kick a ball and climb a tree – [‘If Daddy says it’ll take about twenty, that means it’s probably twice that far – say forty mins. to reach our car.’] …
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- 212 reads
The Patrolman - 32
Mr. Slate hung up the payphone and headed back to his apartment building.
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- 38 reads
1967
1967 Look at this! A photograph taken at my parents wedding reception. A snapshot from olden times. My dad grimacing, all Vinolia brilliantine,...
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- 6 comments
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- 484 reads
harmers
‘First the good news,’ Dr Malik offered a soft smile. ‘You’ve put on almost a pound.’ She tugged her sleeve over her wrist. But not quickly enough...
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- 12 comments
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- 199 reads
bmw
bmw the sun casts its shape across your lounge dusty china and faded photographs a radiator key you no longer understand your arrival grander now...
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- 3 comments
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- 184 reads
After Lausanne
Messages continued to trickle back and forth — a song here, a film there, a shared memory plucked from the 90s like an old dry flower still faintly...
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- 187 reads
The Obituary Reader
I looked to see how you died. We once were similar. Knew people, moved in circles. Then you died and became very different. And I, no longer wishing...
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- 183 reads
The Irritating Gentleman (part two)
‘Wow,’ Martin got out and looked around at the garden which was very overgrown. Everything was unnervingly tall; white shasta daisies reaching up to...
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- 717 reads
The Irritating Gentleman (part one)
‘You go first. I can see you’re eager..’ Hayley glanced at the irritating gentlemen as she glided past him, a little too close for her liking within...
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- 355 reads
"Willow's Missing Tail" 30
Martha was on her way to the kitchen with the two cups of tea to try to talk sense to Miriam but she stopped before she reached that room, feeling a...
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- 4 comments
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- 284 reads
3 oz of Insanity
Mine weighs 3 oz +/-. I'm sure it weighs heavier on us all.
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- 14 comments
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- 388 reads
No Johnny, No! ( 2 of 2)
We kept up our meets every few months, then sometime in 2004, I met him in a bar in Fenchurch Street. He didn’t look good. He’d lost weight, which...
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- 148 reads
Prophesy: The Immortal Witch (3)
Part two at: https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/prophesy-immortal-witch-2 Marie’s mother was standing at the front door as the car pulled up...
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- 19 comments
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- 511 reads
Average Guy
His poetry pamphlet having not been the success he had thought it would be, Gary binned the lot of them, in the same way as many folks in his...
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- 70 reads
Bastille Day, Barbecue Smoke, and the Weight of History
It’s Bastille Day. All across France, sausages sizzle on supermarket grills, fireworks crack like toy guns in the evening sky, and municipal...
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- 200 reads