Cherrypicked stories

And now, as you stand there splitting two worlds, high upon the aching shoulders of the void, what is behind you is everything you have ever done, your whole life, and ahead of you, glaring up at you, the abyss in the eye of a fish as big as the world and unknown and futureless and uneaten and unloved and all that other stuff and the difference is her, a few breaths between right now and never again, a few dumb breaths between two worlds, just one last swim she said, and as you stand there a voice reaches over from the dead world behind you and all that's gone before, and asks you if you need some help.

The confectionery of our lives...

I blame 'The Double Life of Veronica'. Had I not seen that a few Sundays ago, I'd not have bought it. But I did, so I did.

Poem

I am telling you I put the new firewood in the coal shed and the firelighters are in the kitchen drawer with the bottle opener and the Marlborough Lites and the coupons for money off Barbecue Pringles

I think of that Tolstoy line, "If she goes to her cousin first...she'll be my wife It's wise, in such moments, to remember that the next line is "What rubbish sometimes enters one's head!"

'Found 'ee in the road, y'say?' 'Yes. Just lying there, unable to get up.' I saw again in my mind the absurdly oversized gull ' still speckled from youth ' squatting in the narrow street, panting its distress as cars edged around as best they could and sped away.

After much soul-searching, Lemon finally decided he'd lived in his bed-sit above the Pink Pagoda Take-Away for long enough.

2 sonnets