Cherrypicked stories

The prologue to a book I started to write about 10 years ago but never got round to finishing. Sort of a comic fantasy thing involving the Horsemen Of The Apocalypse and a time machine.

'Do you think I am fat?' Clara's voice sounded anxious. 'Well of course you are. But it's normal, you are pregnant after all,' John replied. The table fell silent. Most of the women were looking at their plate or at Clara, awaiting for her reaction. Sarah turned towards her brother and raised her eyebrows.

Poem has been temporarily removed and will be re-posted in October 06

A mere dot on the state map, Dearing was more a religious cult with a sizable tract of cooperatively owned land than a community. Although it contained a bank, a general store, and a doctor's office, Dearing's population consisted of retired carnival freaks and their offspring for the most part. The good doctor, Rudolph Morton, had traveled with, practiced medicine on, the occupants of Dearing for many years, and had delivered most of the babies.

My Life Oy Vay 9 Ex girlfriend phoned me after we spent a couple of days shagging and drinking together, after which remorse and a hangover set in. I told her it will never work between us because we always end up getting rat-arsed and ill. And one of us will die prematurely. Can you do that? Die before your time? It's one of the great ontological riddles of our time. So she accepted that I was right and left. So she called two days later when I was rattling like a pair of maracas. She said "Goodbye Stephen I said "Oh yeh goodbye. I put the phone down. I thought that she was just coming to terms with the separation, then I thought is she going to jump out of the window? But the way I felt at that moment I really couldn't care.

She's bought a purple hat. But why??

She struggled at first, still refusing to look at him, her heart thundering loud enough for Tillman to find its cadence and work within its beat. Her eyes on him and filled with approval was his only goal.

Framed on a wall, a pretty picture with a piece missing;

I was putting out the rubbish when a loud giggle caused me to look up