Cherrypicked stories
Anticipating
10 to 9 You left Waterloo at 5 past 8 Must be coming into the station Walking to the car Checking messages 6 minutes max If I could have you now 5 My...
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- 61 reads
Caratacus 3
The year is 51AD. The British warrior king Caratacus has been captured and paraded through Rome. Unexpectedly he is granted clemency by the emperor Claudius. Now he prepares for his new life far from the dense forests and marshes of his homeland.
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- 30 reads
g81
I lived in the armpits of the world, but it wasn’t like me to leave work early. I’d a good job at Boots the Chemist, with prospects, but my skin...
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- 7 comments
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- 67 reads
Windows

April 2020 Window One. Rain streaks make it hard for me to see, so I grab the binocs and catch a glimpse of Amelia Jones’ bright red overcoat as she...
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- 19 comments
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- 612 reads
Rainy night empty hand
Heavy breathing underneath a zipped up anorak it is raining and I am on my favourite street. You are a different person on the way home. An entirely...
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- 32 reads
My eggshell head
The cafe has a downstairs that not a lot of people know about because it feels like you're going down into the stockroom. I once had a relationship...
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- 34 reads
Impressing Miss Axelrod

Ahh...nostalgia. It's always the music, isn't it? Image author's own, as for its subject, Go Ask Alice...
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- 9 comments
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- 151 reads
Craven Gets Flashed VIII

Delaney’s was sprinkled with its usual mid day barstool denizens: Mel, Joey, and an assortment of guys who just got fired. “What can I get you ladies...
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- 4 comments
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- 79 reads
The Vaccine Hunger Games
The Vaccine Hunger Games In the year of our Lord, 2020, the Earth was stricken with a great plague called “The Corona Virus.” Originating in Wuhan,...
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- 5 comments
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- 67 reads
A Bit of A Do

A kerfuffle in my hometown. (Image Attribution: Geoff Royle)
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- 8 comments
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- 126 reads
Corinne of the School Disco

Steve “Stevo” Mason looked at his watch. He was always checking the time like it might go faster through the power of his gaze. He knew the bell was...
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- 6 comments
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- 94 reads
The Child Inside

Sometimes life doesn't give us those things we'd hoped for; sometimes those things are small, sometimes they are big; and sometimes poetry is the only way to do justice to those feelings which emerge from it all. (Wikimedia image copyright)
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- 32 reads
Steinmätscher (Muddier of Stones)

I learned something from @LevParikian (Twitter's premier Twitcher if you're interested in birds) this morning. So, as is my wont, I went off on a tangent and wrote this. Image licence is CC-BY SA2.5 source Wikipedia photographer Andreas Trepte.
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- 84 reads
Boxi Market
You turned from the array of fruit The rows of pretty flowers To gaze deep into me You turned from your thoughts Of apple pies and soups From the...
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- 23 comments
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- 463 reads
276 Portobello Road

She was wonderful to us – always dressed to the nines and often in a fur coat, beautifully made up and scented; she was called ‘A lady of the night’, my parents said, which meant that she was up in the west end a lot...
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- 6 comments
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- 337 reads
SUNDAY CLOTHES ON THURSDAY
I started this in early '19. the goal was to have it ready to sing on a visit to Donegal that Summer.
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- 38 reads
My Pal, Jack Dempsey

Just North of Times Square and a little further uptown from Tin Pan Alley is where I met the Manassas Mauler, Jack Dempsey. Before Joe Louis, before...
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- 74 reads
Letters in the attic

8 th October 1988 Dear Mike, Well the first week of University has been a blast. As you rightly predicted there has been a lot of drinking. You'll...
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- 8 comments
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- 272 reads
Craven Gets Flashed VII

“Why do you mean she’s attempting a coup?” “You heard me, Mr. Danger,” said Jenny. “I heard it with my own ears. She just promoted herself from...
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- 6 comments
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- 82 reads