Cherrypicked stories
The Vale - Part Two
Wendy Hooper from IT looks like ET, it’s funny but I’ve never thought of it before. I’ve known her for years but this has only just occurred to me...
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- 7 comments
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- 671 reads
The Patrolman - 25

Jake Lacey crouched in the bushes and waited.
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- 123 reads
Xion Island Carrier: Chapter 19

It was Tuesday, not that it mattered with working turnaround shifts, but Tuesdays were difficult to feel thrilled about. They should come with a free...
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- 2 comments
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- 267 reads
Perverse Future
Dear diary... How I long for breathing space, Evoking past is all it takes To fulfill measure of time... Hiding doubts reflected in Disenchantment...
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- 3521 reads
Immersed in barley!

Sometimes a crop the farmer sows, then clears a line where the footpath goes across his field. Sometimes he leaves the crop to grow and thinks the walkers all will go across and trample down that bit, and so others the footpath’s track will know …
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- 9 comments
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- 921 reads
These Are The Lines

Not THE lines maybe ... some of them. The (mis)use of the homonym is deliberate.
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- 3 comments
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- 446 reads
Steelie 19

The boy was growing tired. Von Stehle could see it in the way his head lagged to one side and the way he no longer caressed the material like he was...
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- 12 comments
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- 1225 reads
Xion Island Carrier: Chapter 18

The interview room was cold, but James McAlister didn’t seem to notice. He was still. Paler even than the day of the funerals, and the room was...
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- 282 reads
Death by Selfie

strangely unaffecting to see lives lost in this way is that a shocking thing to say? guy falls from building filming himself doing handstands on the...
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- 8 comments
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- 848 reads
Xion Island: Chapter 17

I am filled with hatred. And, to my disgust, something close to nostalgia. The flesh remembers things the memory has never known. I tell her my name...
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- 2 comments
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- 267 reads
"Mr. Nothingsworth"

Mr. Nothingsworth, proprietor of the “Whatnot” shop of castaway things and oddities, was a self proclaimed curmudgeon. The old coot loved to annoy...
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- 8 comments
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- 825 reads
Spring
I heard it again for the first time in a very long time, through cheap earphones while walking over uneven ground, wind clattering against...
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- 224 reads
New Directions (38)
The idea of going up North to stay at Karen’s temped me. I figured at least I’d get to sleep with her when she got home. Then I remembered the last...
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- 7 comments
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- 769 reads
Undisentanglable!

Been having shopping delivery for a few years due to Covid and personal health issues. Works well most of the time, but last week the pies I’d...
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- 7 comments
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- 836 reads
Murder in the Tesco Express

Based on a series of events witnessed over a number of years in my local convenience shop when I lived in the sleepy English town of Chippenham.
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- 18 comments
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- 2221 reads
Xion Island: Chapter 16

Barrow had precisely two pubs that didn’t belt out karaoke on a Friday night. Nash had picked The Townhouse—a low-lit place with real ale, decent...
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- 10 comments
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- 1094 reads
Question (Episode 11 - The Further Chronicles of a Young Lady (and her Maid))

Aefelthrith is posed a question and Gwladys has to give an answer.
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- 4 comments
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- 614 reads
Fussbuckets

Rain came on as I walked. Naturally. If only I’d had that emergency umbrella I purchased the other day, the one now sitting in my hallway unused,...
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- 1256 reads
Treasure of Sensory Impressions

that solitude that excites the mind, where time is of no importance; wealth of meandering purple view pleases senses, such miracles are like a lovers...
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- 14 comments
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- 1780 reads
Alfredos: After Michael Donaghy’s ‘Shibboleth’
Alfredos After Michael Donaghy’s ‘Shibboleth’ Vacationers at Tahoe windows. The morning sky painted by seven year old boys wild on their birthdays...
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- 4 comments
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- 650 reads