A room with a Glasgow View

The past is not past, but just lurking.

Comments

A wise sentiment, indeed!

 

The older I get, the more time feels like a loop or a mobius strip: the past replays, morphs, things end, different things begin, patterns are repeated, and gradually, the past 'composts' to become fertile ground for future growth. This short but sweet piece conveys much of this in few words.

 

Cherry

Bill and the UFO

no UFO sited-as yet.
Cherry

bully for you

away from the footie. a bit rough. go on feel free to point out the errors of my ways.
Cherry

Coal Bags

More grime and grimness
Cherry

The best f**** team in the world

There are winners and losers in all walks, but only one team can be the best!
Cherry

Too late to talk to Benny

It was everybody’s local -if you were local-an old man’s pub, that had been slapped about a bit, with paint, tarted up, to look younger.
Cherry

Milk Boy

re-edit 31/1/ visions of the Clyde
Cherry

Uncle Stephen

old sea dog tale
Cherry

Tommy Turner

you need faith
Cherry

The matchmaker

short story-long tail
Cherry

Harley Street

‘Mary,’ Ma shouted up the stairs, ‘there’s somebody at the door for you.’
Cherry

Harley 2

more of the same nonsense
Cherry

Harley 3

gruff guff
Cherry

Hughie Gringo

Opportunity Knocks
Cherry

Duckin' day

old stories.
Gold cherry
Story of the week

on the last day of Christmas

Sometimes it’s better not to be born. I’m a dreamer. That’s worse than being normal. I play that tune in my head and look out the eight floor window...
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Cherry

Life in bits

I picked up a photo of Billy Quinn the other day. Don’t ask me where I got it. He’s handsome. I don’t remember him being handsome. I never remember...
Cherry

Cadogan Street

‘Hi, it’s me. Phone me back.’ ‘Hi, it’s me. Phone me back.’ ‘I’m a bit worried. Can you phone me back?’ ‘Is there something the matter with this...
Cherry

uncovering oneself (3)

The downstairs bar shut. I bought a bottle of Buckie from the Off Sales. It was more expensive than usual, but I was more flush than usual...
Cherry

uncovering oneself (4)

Bogey was glad to see me. Charlie wasn’t, but he held the back door open to let me in. Mum stood in the doorway between kitchen and hall and frowned...
Cherry

uncovering oneself (5)

With money in my pocket I walked quickly to the Atantis bar. Sammy Small Talk was perched in his usual seat at the bar, a half pint of lager in front...
Cherry

uncovering oneself (6)

My head throbbed like a man stuck upside down on the Big-Wheel carousel. Blackouts were called blackouts for a reason, not knowing which way was up...
Cherry

Hope Street

She loved that story of how they met. Telling it to her friend Julie on a rare night out made her smile and her voice shine. She is tender with...
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Cherry

Shadow

Dan’s birthday. Their bedroom stinks of stale fag smoke, booze and the acrid burn of hash. After giving him his present, and another kind of treat,...

the tug boat

The Tug Boat pub was infected by McAllisters. He turned to go before he was spotted, but he made his move too late. ‘Happy Anniversary’ went the war...

flockers 2

‘You were in the wrong waiting room.’ The lawyer shook my hand, introduced himself as John Cameron, Charlie’s advocate. ‘I’m sorry,’ Myra apologised...
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Cherry

flockers 3

Judge Morrie adjourned for lunch. Just as the big cheese advocate said he would. Stood outside on the stone steps with Myra. Lawyers and normal folk...
Cherry

flockers 4

The day hadn’t started the way I’d hoped. I wasn’t late for work, which would have been a bad thing. But I was late for court, which wasn’t too bad a...
Cherry

flockers 5

Had a few days to think about how wronged I’d been by the court system. Off work. Phoned in sick cough, cough, with the flu that needed careful...
Cherry

flockers 6

Days passed in a shuttle of discomfort. My skin went to war with my body. Blisters appeared round the skin in my hands, soles of my feet and toes...
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flockers 7

Myra’s studio flat had heating and hot water. I could have cuddled her. She ran a bath with all the suddy and splashy smelly stuff. She dipped her...
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flockers 8

When Myra told me she went back with Charlie after he raped her I didn’t understand it, but in a way I did. She made a bed up for me on the settee...
Cherry

flockers 9

Felt better. Scrubbed up as best as I could in the morning, a complexion like boiled pink ham, showed a face no mother would kiss. Breakfast a...
Cherry

flockers 10

Must admit the journey home was constrained, especially on the train. Didn’t see much of Myra in the next few weeks. Neither of us had a phone. Put...
Cherry

flockers 11

Swirled whisky around my tongue. Listened to the shrill see-saw cadence and frenzied excitement in his voice and the little gulps of silence. Poured...
Cherry

flockers 12

Went to see Myra the next day. Wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. Wasn’t sure she’d want to see me. Whenever I appeared things got worse...
Cherry

Bible John 2

I clutch the handle of my holdall, with my purse secure inside. ‘I’m not sure,’ I say. I hold a leaflet out as a shield. ‘Perhaps she’ll get some of...
Cherry

quickie

I’d a bad night. The guy upstairs had a burst pipe on Tuesday, which he didn’t know about. Next thing it’s Thursday, the ceiling comes down, and I’m...
Cherry

Countdown

Countdown When Helen got the telephone call that her Da was dead she was curled up on one end of the couch watching Countdown, painting her toenails...
Cherry

Plot without a story

The note flapped through the letterbox and lay on the linoleum. I pulled open the door, just in time to see a denimed back sauntering up the street...
Cherry

Blood is thicker than water

Rain splatters the pavement when I set out. My sister, Teresa, doesn’t live far, but then the moon isn’t that far, and I don’t particularly want to...
Cherry

Forbidden Fruit.

‘Put your false teeth in,’ I said, ‘maybe then they’ll believe in you and believe in your prophecies more’. Old Joe had taken up a position between...
Cherry

the things that we buy and don't know why?

The thought came like a First World War telegram – he assumed that she’d thought his family were marvellous. His mother was short and plump as a...
Cherry

Last Call

She clumped up the middle of Singers Road ignoring the pavements, damp and slippy with the mush of fallen leaves darkening pools against the wire...
Cherry

Don't talk back

I slept through the Russian missile crisis when John F Kennedy called the Russian’s bluff and sent them homeward to think again. It was a simpler...
Cherry

organist and monkey

The organ, off-kilter as a bagpipe chord, begins the first hymn. Major keys and minor key dance around the usual dirge. Funeral music. The...
Cherry

bergy

It’s strange when you get out hearing soft, whispering womanly voices – he’s been sick—licking of soft strawberry lips to create a sympathetic sound...
Cherry

shitehouse to shitehawk: a user's guide

I jot things down. Sometimes I order them later, or they order me. Usually, I don’t. That’s called the first draft. It’s full of grammatical mistakes...

the gothic line

Dinner begins with a closed door Smell of mince and totties Worse than the dentist’s chair Shut-up and sit over there Plate piled high as a rabbit...
2 likes
Cherry

ghosts not spirits

The pale green Audi with a ladder strapped to the roof jerks to a stop in the angled strip of road before the bus stop and the Irish Pope bursts into...
Cherry

Le Cock: My Struggle.

I’m reading ‘The International Literary Phenomenon’, Some Rain Must Fall: My Struggle, Book 5 , by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Cliché after cliché so it...
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Cherry

IQ 2

Cinders Disco was bound to be hoaching, Tina Turner so loud that it vibrated through the walls and brought out goosebumps on my eardrums. Tony, Boaby...
Cherry

IQ test 3

Somebody had flung a scratchy blanket over my body to bury the unwashed. I woke up to the stench of my own body bathed in sweat. Eyes plumped by lack...
Cherry

Jimmy Savile and me

I was lying in bed when my mum rushed up the stairs, barged into my room, mouthed that it was Sir Jimmy Saville on the phone. I had to shoo her away...
Cherry

Grimms

Dad pushed the room door open. I hadn’t heard him, or the door going. I was sitting side saddle on my bed, one leg a comfortable numbness, bare feet...
Cherry

Grimms2

Dad was better fun than an alarm clock. I used to watch him before I was old enough to get locked up in school. The light in my room was on the death...
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Cherry

Grimms3

Pizza Face is smaller than me, but with a big square head, so we’re really the same size. We’re standing in the smirry rain with duffle coat hoods up...
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Cherry

Grimms4

Pizza Face ducked his head down when he took a drag on a fag and hid it behind his leg when he wasn’t smoking. He’d stolen a dout, almost a full...
Cherry

grimms6

Light shimmered and shed its hat of cloud and shadows. Snowfall drifted down setting the world to white. Our street was smaller and larger,...
Cherry

grimms7

The hall is not much warmer than the landing, but the light left on in my room lets us see each other a bit better. Angela looks up at me, her golden...
Cherry

grimms9

We’re playing statues in the hall. I’m at the front door, trying to sneak up on Angela in her house. Her mum has come into some money and bought her...
Cherry

grimms10

Outside the wind carries the rain and it spills against my room window, but it’s not really that cold. I’m tucked up cosy in bed. I know all the...
Cherry

grimms11

Despite smirry rain, Jaz and his two pals, Godge and Rab are drinking bottles of wine and messing about on the canal. They've hollowed a shallow boat...
Cherry

grimms12

Pizza Face has a size- 4 Mitre ball at his feet, keeping it under control, caressing it into going the way we’re going by touching it with the instep...
Cherry

grimms13

Traffic sloshes through the rain on Dumbarton Road. We pass a woman holding a brolly at forty-five degrees against the wind and to keep her permed...
Cherry

grimms14

Jaz didn’t like wearing a hat, even though it was raining hard, because he thought it made him bald. Not that anybody would laugh at him. They wouldn...
Cherry

grimms17

Jaz and Rab guard the bottom of the close, the wind scouring the back courts. The bins are on fire again. Flames leaving smouldering debris, the...
Cherry

grimms18

It’s closing time when Dermot leaves the pub. The last round of drinks with his mates he’s downed a couple of goldies, the whiskies flowing through...
Cherry

grimms19

Dermot picks up Angela and carries her into his wee boy’s room. His son, a step ahead in the lobby, slips into the room picks up his book of fairy...
Cherry

grimms20

The fog lifts from the tops of the buildings leaving them stranded in light rain. By the time Dermot gets back to his close he spots pedestrians...
Cherry

grimms22

Tony is lying in bed sleeping. It’s a Saturday, no school, and a long lie. But he hears his Da arguing with Geordie the milkman outside the front...
Cherry

grimms23

There’s nothing else for it. Jaz decides to go and see Rab. There’s been talk – Rab’s old man wittering, he might be able to do something for them...
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grimm24

‘You’ll never guess who the Rhetor was?’ Jaz says to Rab. Despite the dim light, Jaz had recognized Chief Inspector Collins at once. He was a tall...

grimms25

The chaffing of barmaid’s singing lullabies, ‘Last orders,’ and deftly nicking the glass out of their hand before they are finished, Jaz and Rab are...
Cherry

grimms26

Jaz can’t find his house keys and hammers on the front door, flipping the letter box with an untimely rat-a-tat-tat, echoing through the close. Karen...
Cherry

grimm27

The school nurse’s grey hair resembles an unkempt blackbird’s nest, with a pokey wee white hat stranded on it. She has squeezed into her white...
Cherry

grimms28

When Dermot answers the door, he’s not sure what to expect. ‘I’m Marie,’ she says, holding a soft hand out for him to shake. ‘And I’m a social worker...
Cherry

grimms29

After a while Tony and Angela get sick of hiding from a giant dinosaur under the bed and crawl out dusty and uneaten, which is just as well, because...
Cherry

grimms30

Jaz catches Pizza Face a slap on the back of the head when he catches him and Tony smoking a roll-up at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Go up to Rab’s and...
Cherry

grimms31

‘Shouldn’t you be going up the road, about now?’ says Jaz, smiling into his pint. ‘To get ready for your big date.’ Rab’s bottom lips droops and he...
Cherry

grimms32

Charlie the barman hovers around the five-foot mark and looks like King Louie from Junglebook , a comic figure, who knows everybody that is anybody,...
Cherry

grimms33

Jaz is standing chittering at the bus stop outside Ramsay’s Fruit and Veg when a beige Morris Marina sweeps through the puddles, making an old guy...
Cherry

grimms34

Crossing Kilbowie Road Jaz negotiates the tooting horns of cars and buses with the absent-mindedness of a three-year-old toddler and seems startled...
Cherry

grimms35

Jaz panting and out of breath runs uphill, the dark street a whetstone underfoot, and the unexpected urgency of the chase sobers him. It makes him...
Cherry

grimms36

Angela nips across the landing and rattles the letterbox. Dermot answers, swinging the door wide in welcome. He’s wearing his old work coat and work...
Cherry

grimms37

With no telly to watch, Tony changes quickly into his jammies, and because of the cold dives under the covers of bed. He sleeps clutching his book of...
Cherry

grimms38

Tony doesn’t decide to go to school, that’s just where his feet take him. The class has already garbled morning prayer, sung the time table and moved...
Cherry

grimms39

Tony hunch-shouldered, tethers himself like a human-shaped balloon on the edge of familiar things, the chair his da usually sits in, watching the...
Cherry

grimms40

There is a vacancy in the way Tony looks out the car window at the sweep of tenement building they pass and a sense of unease that they are going in...
Cherry

grimms41

Tony remembers a parade of uniforms and much mumbling just outside of hearing. He forgets who has come or who had gone. Memories and dreams mixed up...
Cherry

Grimms43

On the second landing, Jaz can’t wait. He nips into the cludgie and pulls the door over, stands leaning, left hand splayed against peeling paint of...
Cherry

Grimms 44

Jaz sprawls on the couch, a Woodbine in his hand and has a few nips of whisky and sparks a can, leaving it at his feet. Angela, cross-legged in the...
Cherry

Grimms45

The smelly cupboard is the ideal place to hide the guns until Jaz can find somewhere better. He’s thinking ahead of ripping up floorboards and...
Cherry

Grimms46

Jaz quickly shakes off hangover the next morning with a quick blow job. He pulls his cock out of Karen’s mouth before he comes and his jizz squirts...
Cherry

Grimms47

Outside the snooker club, a black Hackney cab across the road lets somebody off. Jaz pulls his collar up against drizzling rain, decides since he’s...
Cherry

Grimms48

Rab cashes his Giro the next day and agrees to meet Jaz and the Tash back in the pub. Jaz sits waiting, nursing a warm pint, the Tash beside him...
Cherry
Pick of the Month

Grimms49

Tony shares a room at the top of the stairs with Bruno. ‘He’s a bed-wetter,’ whispers Julie. ‘We may get him up during the night to take him to the...
1 likes
Cherry

Grimms50

Tony places the fork carefully back down on the table, beside the butter dish. Clutching his eye, a colourful arabesque, milky with red veins, half-...
Cherry

Grimms51

Bruno is hanging about waiting for Tony when he comes out of the office. ‘An ambulance came and took Hunter away,’ he explains. ‘Hunter swears he’s...
Cherry

Grimms52

The cook looks up from a pile of dirty pots and dishes, rolls her eyes at Tony and comes walking towards him standing just inside the kitchen door...

Grimms54

The social-work meeting takes place after lunch. Tony lies on top of his bed, with belly ache, paging through a stained Readers Digest he’d found on...
Cherry

Grimms55

Pizza Face sits on the floor in the living room, his back against the wall, tilting his head, gnawing at his thumbnail until his cuticles redden and...
Cherry

Grimms56

Angela stands, waiting. Bob shouts again. ‘Jesus,’ he rants, when there’s no reply and no sign of footfall. ‘You better come in, then.’ She cranes...
Cherry

Grimms57

Pizza Face pulls his duffle coat hood down, to show he is serious, even though the rain is coming down horizontal. He does a feint and step-over, is...
Cherry

Grimms58

Bruno perches on the bed in the muggy heat of his room with his jacket zipped up, and the leather strap of his school bag over his shoulder, waiting...
Cherry

Grimms59

On the day of his dad’s funeral Tony gets himself ready early while the care staff busy themselves having a meeting to decide who is to accompany him...
Cherry

Grimms60

Karen answers the door tugging the belt of her flowery nightgown tighter, smiling, and giving a little wiggle as Dougie towers over her and ogles the...
Cherry

Grimms62

Jaz tries to erase the memory of the snivelling shadowy self he’d been earlier by tearing into the booze. But Del isn’t hanging about either. They...
Cherry

Grimms63

In the late bloom of spring, snow scars the Old Kilpatrick hills. Seagulls swoop above Angela’s head, screeching along the bins on Risk Street. A...
Cherry

Grimms64

Jaz is gagging for the first pint of the day, but is stuck in traffic, enclosed in a bubble of the front seat of a red Volkswagen. Del is driving...
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Cherry

Grimms65

Angela’s eyes are splintered with not sleeping, she lies scrunched like a question mark at the bottom of the bed, blankets tight around her shoulders...
Cherry

Grimms66

Del fits false number plates to the white Volvo, stolen to order for the job, in the early hours of the Friday morning, from Bearsden. Dougie lounges...
Cherry

Grimms67

Bob rolls up the sleeves of his frayed, green, checked shirt, and uses the side window of the dining room as a temporary seat. No wind, slow moving...
Cherry

grimms68

Angela stands sulking in the driveway, near the dining-room window, anorak brushing against the wall, out of sight of everyone, poking at something...
Cherry

Grimms69

Tony dashes up the stairs without meeting anybody, but Bruno, who has been searching for him, spots him from the lobby and clunks up the stairs after...
Cherry

Grimms 70

Jaz figures he’ll need to take driving lessons, not right away, but sometimes soon. He could buy one of those fancy Jaguar cars now. Pay cash. He’s...
Cherry

Grimms71

A couple of days pass, then a week, in which Jaz does little more than alternate between pubs and empty glasses follow him. Maggie Scott’s for...
Cherry

Grimms72

Jaz ganders out the kitchen window and sees Pizza Face playing outside, kicking a ball against the bins. ‘Hi,’ he calls through to Angela, but it’s...
Cherry

Grimms73

‘You don’t need to be daft and drown yerself. You can just drink the poison to kill yerself.’ Bruno is deft at sneaking up on people and has big lugs...
Cherry

Grimms 74

Jaz hears the loud screeching and the rising harangue which follows. It woke him up. It wakes the whole tenement block. The smell of cigarette smoke...
Cherry

Grimms75

With all the cash Jaz is carrying and the hurry-scurry Rab is surprised to be standing beside him at a bus stop waiting for a bus. Jaz has brought...
1 likes
Cherry

Grimms 76

Awash with pints and halfs and even mouth puckering gin, with a slice of lemon and whisky in the same glass. Cocktails of his own devising. His day...
Cherry

Grimms77

Junior hurries home. Tired and hungry, his hair sun-washed and lighter than his brothers’, he finds virtue in manual labour, skin lightly tanned and...
Cherry

Grimms 78

Fag smoke drifts above Pizza Face’s head. His is a frightened silence amid bickering conversation and accusations of neglect. The last of the sun...
Cherry

Grimms 79

Tony’s social worker, Marie, arrives on an official visit. She waits for him in the office. Dayshift-staff circle around, Julie flustered, leaves her...
Cherry

Grimms 80

‘What’s been the crack then?’ Del stands at the front door, a cigarette jammed between his lips. A clean white open-necked shirt sleeves contrast...
Cherry

Grimms81

Lizzie is as lovely as Jaz remembered her, perhaps more so, with her chiselled cheekbones and hair untamed as a burning bush. The room is stuffy and...
Cherry

Grimms82

Jaz sits in his usual table in the corner of Maggie Scott’s, with a view of the door, nursing a pint. He’s been reduced to mooching about in his Y-...
Cherry

Grimms83

‘I’m here to see Tony,’ says Angela. Bob stands elephantine in the doorway of the Home with his checked shirt buttoned up to his neck, glasses off-...
Cherry

Grimms 84

Five days after robbing the Securicor van Jaz pulls a mask over booze coloured ruddy red cheeks and face and, hungover, is back at work. Del and...
Cherry

Grimms 85

‘This big gigantic guy with an eye is trying to kill him,’ Bruno says, with exaggerated affect. ‘So he can eat them.’ His voice rises and he gets...
Cherry

Grimms 86

Jaz sits in a haze of cigarette smoke in his usual perch in Maggie Scott’s, back against the wall, watching the door. Rab stumbles in and weaves...
Cherry

Grimms87

Rab finishes his pint and follows Jaz out of the pub. He feels woozy, as if he could lie down for a lunch-time nap. A few minutes’ walk through...
Cherry

Grimms88

Jaz squats on his haunches at the door to the smelly cupboard in the lobby. Under the light of a thirty-watt bulb he inspects the Starr pistol in his...
Cherry

Grimms 90

A stilted walk to the car, flared denim flapping in the wind, guns pressed one-handed, hard, against their bodies, but concealed in their coats. Del...
Cherry

Grimms 91

Angela sits on the top steps on her landing, waiting. Tugs have been pulled and combed from her blonde hair and skin been scrubbed pink in the...
Cherry

Grimms 93

Jaz is a different man on the Larne Ferry, a man that now suddenly believes in the hereafter. The crew wear uniforms, blue shirts and grey trousers,...
Cherry

Grimms 94

Jaz tries to work his way out of the seat and buy a round, but a hand goes on his shoulder and Bri in a voice that merges pity with outrage shouts...
Cherry

Grimms 95

Karen isn’t sure how she feels. She looks over the rooftops hoar frost has picked clean of grime and burnished glistening white. Outside the kitchen...
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Cherry

Grimms 96

At the top of the Cressie Stairs, just before Angela crosses the road to go to school, she bends away, follows the black train of crows in the sky...
Cherry

Grimms 97

Jaz’s handler is waiting for him underneath the clock and the monument of remembrance. A gold-leaf list of the Clydebank dead from the First and...
Cherry

Grimms 99

‘Weet, weet,’ says an man at the bar, the cuffs of his gabardine coat falling down his thin wrist as he necks down the last of a Grouse whisky. ‘Aye...
Cherry

Grimms 100

Bedcovers deaden Tony’s hearing, seals him in the tomb of his dreams, but when he sticks his head out of his bed, he’s alive to the wind rattling...
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Grimms 101

‘How are we gonnae dae it?’ The idea feels jaggy, sticking in Bruno’s gullet. He shakes his head, wets his mouth with saliva and begins again. ‘I...
Cherry

WMD 2

‘You want me to add some vinegar to this water?’ I asked. ‘For old time’s sake.’ ‘Nah, just give it to me straight.’ He tried to raise His head, but...
Cherry

Grimms 102

From Dalmuir train station to Glasgow is a distance between not far and life changing, the the High Court an Intensive Care Unit of the Criminal...
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Grimms 103

Representing the Crown and prosecuting for the Fiscal Office, Queen’s Counsel Montrose appears born to the era of wigs and absentmindedly fingers the...
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Grimms 104

Detective Inspector Grier knows his place and sits smoking, which gives him something to do, in the soundproofed room away from the stage of the...
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Grimms 105

The forensic expert, Mr Cleary, wears a baggy brown cardigan with bulky pockets he jams his fists into. He shadows the Macer, but is smaller, hitting...
Cherry

Pretending to be me.

You worked in that video store beside the Cressie Stairs. A grey shop, a belly-flop of unordered Betamax tapes and dust that made me sneeze. Bless...
Cherry

The Rock

The bell rang for the end of recreation and tally count of heads throughout Barlinnie. Prisoners milked it, flinging down the last domino in disgust...

the gothic line

He offered drunken prayers for the dead Wanted to call his pals on the blower Those who knew How artillery weighs the soul Keeps you in touch with...
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Cherry

Sammad

One of his shoes was missing, his cheek face down in wet, overgrown, weeds. A man in his early twenties, wearing an oversized leather jacket, his...
1 likes
Cherry

two-faced

I pushed my glasses high to rest on my forehead and stared across the road. I saw her outside the paper shop on Dunbarton Road, recognised her by her...
Cherry

twelve-noon-two

Two things pissed Marie off, getting phone calls in the middle of the night and life in general. What made it worse was she’d been in a deep sleep,...
1 likes
Gold cherry

twelve-noon-three

‘You mind if I smoke?’ Paddy rested his back against the headboard. He’d woken early, hadn’t really slept, had thought of sneaking away, but then...
Cherry

twelve-noon-four

Paddy came spruced up and fully dressed, out of the shower, and dropped the wet towel on the bed. He adjusted his tie and polished his shoes by...
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twelve-noon-six

Paddy stood outside the church, he’d found it almost impossible to get a parking space and had circled for fifteen minutes before parking on a corner...
Cherry

twelve-noon-seven

After Sarah used the toilet and flushed, she put the toilet seat down, and washed her hands and doused her face in cold water. No soap. No towel. She...
1 likes
Cherry

twelve-noon-eight

In the early hours, a ghostly presence in a billowing black dress with sleeves gathered at the cuff, Sarah pushed heavy furniture aside and hoovered...
1 likes
Cherry

panjandrums

I’d wrapped up for a winter walk with woolly hat and gloves even though it was just the beginning of May. Clydebank meteorological charts being...
Cherry

Pandora's Box

I lost my wallet somewhere between buying a black pudding supper at the chippie, a seagull swooping down on my head at the shortcut to Dickens Avenue...

samsara

A man of unsolid muscle stands You could call fat But nobody would tell him that He gies me the eye Yatters on his epiphany about scum The cosmic...
Cherry

Angel

‘I’ll get us some coke,’ shouted Kimmie above the disco beat. ‘Nah, I’m alright, I’ve got a can there.’ Angel dinked the red tin on the table with...
Cherry

Angel 2 (home)

Angela crouched and pulled her chair closer to the electric fire. It had four bars, twin sets in curved reflectors, but only the top bar worked. The...
Cherry

Angel 3 (disco)

Kimmie hooked up with the ginger-haired boy. The blast of Temptation - Higher and Higher- Temptation blasted from the speakers. On the dance floor...
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Angel 4 (at the dump)

Wind whipped rain into Angel’s forehead and high cheek bones and made her look like a sixteen-year-old waif. More like herself than the make-up she’d...
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Angel 5 (houseparty)

The guy with the moustache searched through his coat pockets, pulling out his fags and the bit of hash and then his hands diving into the side and...
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Angel 6 (rape)

Kimmie groaned and threshed like a fish on the line as they bundled together. Angel didn’t know where to look. She concentrated on holding the glass...
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Angel 7 (after the music stops)

Kimmie’s hand on her friend’s shoulder grounded Angel, brought her back to herself, but she moaned loudly, dry retching. Her muscles rippled along...
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Angel 8 (work)

Angel struggled out of her bedclothes, she’d fallen asleep exhausted with her clothes on, expecting the knock on the door at any minute. The radio-...
Cherry

Angel 9 (and Pizza Face)

Angel stayed in all week and also the following week, barely venturing from her room, other than to go to work. Kimmie had chapped the door a few...
Cherry

Angel 10 (bromance)

Angel lit another cigarette, more for something to do, and she rolled down the window. ‘Sorry,’ she blew out the smoke sideways, fanning it with her...
Cherry

Angel 11 (Edinburgh)

Pizza Face parked in his usual spot and smiled as Angel rushed out of her house, crossed the road and rushed to meet him. Sunday, her day off, and...
Cherry

Angel 12 (the tramp)

‘You hungry?’ he asked. ‘We could go for something to eat along there.’ He waved his hand in the direction of the traffic behind them. ‘Not really,...
Cherry

Angel 13 (mum and Mattie)

The living room door was open. ‘Can I have a word, m’lady?’ Karen leaned sideways in her armchair, almost knocking over an overflowing glass ashtray...
Cherry

Angel 14 (getting to first base)

‘Sorry, I was delayed,’ said Angel as she stepped into the car and pulled her seatbelt on. She sniffed and turned her head away, looking back at the...
Cherry

Angel 15 (return of Kimmie)

Kimmie’s cat’s-eyes makeup was smudged. She hopped and skipped in front of Angel in a pale blue, zip-up hooded top and gripped the top of her denims...
Cherry

Angel 16 (second base)

Pizza Face waited religiously for Angel parked in his Jaguar every night and weekends before work. The main roads and backroads they’d travelled like...
Cherry

Angel 17 (Wotsits)

‘Where you going?’ Angel asked when Pizza Face started the car the following night. ‘Going?’ he took his foot off the clutch. ‘I never really thought...
Cherry

Angel 18 (portrait)

Pizza Face parked the car in a layby off the street, and at the end of the building. He clutched Angels hand and frog-marched her down the hill and...
Cherry

Angel 19 (bad dreams)

‘Jesus, that’s minging.’ Angel sat up in bed, her face had been pressed against the wall. Disoriented, not sure where she was, until she felt Pizza...
Cherry

Angel 20 (fizzing)

‘Did you hear Diana Dors died?’ Kimmie tried to make conversation. She was sitting on the couch in their flat in Partick, had a mug of tea in her...
Cherry

Angel 21 (making a hash of it)

The tall cop kept a hold of Angel’s arm. Clean shaven with a bony boyish face it was difficult to tell what age he was, but with a dimple on his chin...
Cherry

Angel 22 (time)

‘We can dae this the hard way, or we can dae this the easy way,’ said the stout officer doing the fingerprinting and he rifted. His breath smelled of...
Cherry

Angel (change and charges)

Angel’s time had been taken up with crying and trying not to, when she had riches bestowed on her, a puff of a smoke—she had to bang on the door for...
Cherry

Angel 24 (Corton Vale)

‘How’ve you been?’ Karen stumbled and pressed her face against Angel’s neck and a male prison guard patrolling the passageways around the tables and...
Cherry

Angel 25 (prison time and design)

A wee boy held his brother’s hand. With intense concentration he guided a blue Dinky car up and down the curves of the chair and table as his family...
Cherry

Angel 26 (church and children)

Most of the prison jobs were taken, but Angel hoped to get something soon. She got free- association a few hours a day and out for meals, sitting at...
Cherry

Angel 27 (tony and bruno)

Everything about prison quickly became routine and depressing. Visitors and visiting- time, bucked that trend and gave Angel a share of the communal...
Cherry

Angel 28 (proposal)

Angel glanced around at the clock. There wasn’t a lot of time left. She took a deep breath and just came out with it. ‘I don’t know if you heard, but...
Cherry

Angel 29 (amnesty)

Angel smiled when she saw Tony waiting for her in the visiting room. She wanted to hug him, but sat across from him grinning. ‘You came.’ ‘Aye,’ he...
Cherry

Angel 30 (hard to say no)

Angel looked over and Tony followed her gaze. A kerfuffle in the corner of the room, close to where some kids were playing with a plastic Thomas the...
Cherry

Angel 31 (hard knocks)

Angel was shaking all over when she got back to the cell. She could feel her heart beating, her bones knocking together. Lisa had some crap on the...
Cherry

Angel 32 (causality)

Carol Anne’s hand reached into her jacket pocket for her tobacco tin. Her fumbling fingers had a hard time forcing the lid and anger flickered across...
Cherry

Angel 33 (on report)

Angel didn’t see what happened to Carol Anne. Before he dashed away to use the phone Peter had taken her by the arm into one of the workrooms and...
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Cherry

Angel 34 (Jonah)

Val made a point of meeting Angel outside her cell door after her meeting with the governor. ‘Some of the girls have been talking. C’mon back to mine...
Cherry

Angel 35 (scan)

Angel had hoped her mum might have been at the baby scan. She’d written and told her and then she’d phoned to remind her. But Karen hadn’t turned up...
Cherry

Angel 36 (every picture)

Angel didn’t need a black cab to take her back to Corton Vale. Flying, she clutched the black-and-white, print-out of the twins, and studied it again...
Cherry

Angel 37 (rift)

The screws weren’t in a good mood. Angel wasn’t sure what happened but the girls had kicked off because visiting time had been delayed and the time...
Cherry

Angel 39 (returns)

‘You’ve another visitor’s request.’ Church stood in the door of the cell, with a slip of paper in her hand. ‘That’s great.’ Angel made her wait...
Cherry

Angel 40 (earrings)

Her shoulders dipped and she sighed, staring down at the table. ‘I’ve got to listen to most of the girls in here talking non-stop about what they’re...
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Cherry

Angel 41 (Lisa's)

During visiting hours, when Angel was downstairs, staff had taken Lisa away. Her cellmate seemed so happy when they had burgers and chips for lunch,...
Cherry

Angel 42 (return ticket)

While Mickey was out, scratching around looking for a bit of dope and visiting one of the other prisoners in their cell, Angel tried writing a letter...
Cherry

Angel 43 (midwife)

Carla had been chatting, fag in her hand, the debris of breakfast on the table. Angel mentioned that she was to see the midwife that day. ‘Fuck sake...
Cherry

Angel 44 (birth)

The midwife made sporadic visits over the weeks and months and she’d told Angel there was nothing to worry about, which was worrying itself. Angel...
Cherry

Angel 45 (mercy)

Sunlight filtered through the vertical blinds, the room bright and airy, Angel yawned. The night-shift guard, who introduced herself as Sarah, was...
Cherry

Angel 46 (new ward)

Angel was moved by the nurses to a four-bed ward that smelled vaguely of disinfectant, pee and talcum powder. Her bed faced the double doors. She...
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Cherry

Angel 47 (scrap)

Angel could see from her mum’s face that Karen was in huff when she spotted Pizza Face. Karen made a point of cuddling Lisa and kissing her wee face...
Cherry

Angel 49 (getting acquainted)

Angel heard the click of a switch from the room next to her and the bump and sound of a hoover. The twins didn’t notice, but it buoyed Angel, the...
Cherry

Angel 50 (dinner and dates)

After Angel fed the twins her nipples were chaffed, but she wanted to make sure they had settled. To distract herself, she picked up the remote and...
Cherry

Angel 51 (good cop, bad cop)

Angel quickly established a routine with Lisa and Adam. They quickly established their own counter-routine which included staying up all night and...
Cherry

Angel 52 (compromise)

‘There’s nothing as cruel as folk,’ muttered Angel, kissing the tops of the twin’s heads and hugging them tight to her breasts. They didn’t let up...
Cherry

Angel 53 (baby-shaped hole)

When Angel woke it was still dark outside and, for a moment, she thought Jaz was coming to get her and she wondered where she was. It was the sounds...
Cherry

Angel 54 (new deal)

Angel heard the shuffle of feet coming up the stairs. She could still taste fried food in the air and the dank smell of unwashed kiddie clothing...
Gold cherry

Angel 55 (advocate)

Angel’s mum had come to visit, but it hadn’t ended well. Stacey asked her to leave because Karen was blitzed and shouting abuse at anybody that came...
Cherry

Angel 56 (old wounds)

Angel had kept in touch with Bruno by phoning him. They skittered around where Tony was like two drunks trying to find loose change to pay for a...
Cherry

Angel 57 (Pizza Face and Tony)

Angel was late getting the twins dressed when Stacey came to tell her there was somebody on the phone. Adam clenched his fists like a boxer who was...
Cherry

Angel 58 (cruel symmetry)

‘Coming,’ rasped Angel. Stacey hovered at the top of the stairs, but Angel heard her clumping away to her room when she answered. Outside a dog...
Cherry

Angel 59 (QC)

‘I’m not too worried,’ Angel, a slight edge in her voice, caught Stacey hurrying out of the kitchen with a folder in her hand. ‘But Lisa is beginning...
Cherry

Angel 60 (Bruno's confession)

The following weeks were the longest Angel could remember. The twins were fractious with the sudden heatwave and didn’t sleep very well. One night...
Cherry

Nanny Anna 2

Nanny Anna rifled through the cupboards for biscuits. She tended to stuff them into the back of the cupboard after she’d opened them and forgot about...
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Cherry

the butterfly bush

‘Explain to me how you came to drown?’ His dark eyes twinkled as he peered at her over round glasses that sat squinty on his broad face and a bush of...
Cherry

Drop Off

The phone goes and I answer it, ‘Come and get me. Come and get me, Coach,’ he says. Befuddled with sleep. Think it’s the work and I’ve slept in –...
Cherry

Spaghettio

‘What’s this?’ Molly asked. Before Spaghettio had time to answer the phone rung, which was unusual, but not unknown as they were ‘courting’ as Molly’...
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Cherry

good tears and bad.

I used to have the run of the house, said Nanny Anna. When I was wee I was always with my mammie’s mammie and she kept me right. I always got my own...
Cherry

Visiting Time

The torso of the hanged man hovered about his bunk, a dark cloth hood over his head, his lower limbs appearing and disappearing into a grey misty...
Cherry

Lockclown

During lockclown, other people get bored. He never gets bored. It gives him more time to talk about his favourite subject— You know the type, we...
Cherry

Tour de Falkirk

Bod, my wee brother, was still in lockdown mode, hoarding Digestive biscuits and t-bags, but he lived in Grangemouth and they’re used to that kind of...
Gold cherry

Ramadan

I’m trying to find a piece of paper with the dates of Ramadan on it. The Muslim religious festival. For those of you that know me, you’d be right on...
1 likes

creative writing for losers

Our creative writing class was full of the usual kind of beatific-faced losers. Most of them elderly. There was one girl with brown hair and bad skin...
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Cherry

Cloudy at the bar.

I was stuck on my usual perch, the high-stool in the Club Bar with my back to the Gent’s. Got for free the usual waft of warm humanity as the toilet...
Cherry

Cloudy still at the bar.

I grabbed my glass and guided them to a table on the main drag. Santa’s little helper and Santa, Lisa and Jane, should have been sitting with the...
Cherry

Cloudy going home

Lisa gave me her perfumed hanky to stem the bleeding. But I clutched at my hand when we came out of the door of the pub. The girls had no coats. They...
Cherry

Cloudy goes to the Boulie.

Spending loose change was the easy part. Chips and suppers, a bitter pickle. A bottle of ginger-beer, which reminded me how young they were. Standing...
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Cherry

Cloudy gets on like a house on fire.

Cloudy kept an eye on the driver. He moved Jane’s hand away from his cock and placed it on the side of his thigh. Her tongue was down his throat and...
Cherry

Cloudy and good night

Ken sounded chirpy, ‘Alright?’ He motioned with his head at the blackened door. ‘Let’s get some timber from my hut. And we’ll board that up.’ ‘No,...
Cherry

How Harper Lee helped me to gain admission to Harvard's Creative Writing MFA

‘The only time I ever came close to Jesus was the calm after her orgasm.’ This was the first line in my portfolio of stories. During lockdown, I...
Cherry
Story of the week

A Pile Up of Boys

The secretaries behind the sliding-glass panels of their office space watched us with sidelong glances as they went about their business. I guessed...
1 likes
Cherry

Dade Simpson

David (Dade) Simpson had been one of my best mates at school. But he hadn’t started that way. He’d challenged me to fight on our first days at the...
Cherry

george devine

George Devine died before lockdown. He wouldn’t have known what it meant, or recognised it as a historical event of before and—I hadn’t seen him in...
Cherry

June Collins

Tam Collin’s mum’s funeral was during lockdown. Tam was around the same age as me, so I guess that put her in her eighties. I knew Tam’s son too, Tam...
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Cherry

Dav Prentice.

I shouldn’t have laughed when I heard Dav Prentice was dead. We were talking about football in the Horse and Barge, but then Brendan took off on a...
Cherry

Stevie Tait

Morrisey sang The Last of the Famous International Playboys on the radio and I quickly turned it off. Some windows were blacked out with yellowing...
Cherry

Tam McSwiggan

Tam McSwiggan 1961-2001 R.I.P. When Tam was born Rangers’s supporters in the enclosure rioted and tore down the green, red, and white flag at Ibrox...
Cherry

Jim Welsh (Largactil) 13/3/1964—6/10/2012.

I didn’t go to Jim Welsh’s funeral. I didn’t hear about it until later, and I think it was Sharpie that told me. I wasn’t upset, just sad about the...
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Cherry

Benny Hagen

Press reports are structured like a triangle, the weight of information balanced on the first line. Nobody much called Benny Hagen, Bernard, until he...
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Gold cherry

Davie McCallum 1971-

When Davie McCallum, aged 31, went missing on 28 th March 2003 his son David (junior) was aged five and about to start school. Now he’ll be twenty-...
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Cherry

Hamish Murdoch 1964-2007

‘Hi-yah Hamish,’ the kids at the back lane used to shout at me as I wandered down off the canal path to buy a paper from the shop on Dumbarton Road...
Cherry

Stevie Mitchell 1966-2009

The talk was Stevie Mitchell found a body down the canal when he was running, underneath the Erskine Bridge. Not all jumpers make the water. I know...
Cherry

John Mitchell 1965—21st September 2020. RIP.

I live in Dalmuir, but my brother who lives in Falkirk phoned me to tell me that John Mitchell was dead. Then the house phone went and my partner’s...
Cherry

Watsons and McNeil, drowning 25th August 1972.

The boys that drowned in the nolly, Dalmuir canal, on 25 th August 1972, were much the same age as me. Children of the Cuban Missle Crisis. We went...
Cherry

Phyllis McFadden 1931-1986

I was twenty-three when my Auntie Phyllis died. She was fifty-five. I’m older now than she was when she died. Back then, in 1986, I thought anyone...
Cherry

Pat Powell 1936—2014

Pat Powell 1936—2014 My da was over ten years older than Old Pat, but I asked my da if he knew him, and he gave a shake of his head and glowered. He...
Cherry

SEV 2

My brother watched me playing for the Boy’s Guild on St Stephen’s gravel park. He stood under a tree with his mate Billy Quinn, both of them wearing...
Cherry

SEV 3

I was sixteen when I stole my brother, SEV’s, identity. I’d nipped into the lounge of the Glen Lusset and ordered a pint of lager. I was tall enough...
Cherry

John Ferguson 1/12/1929—11/1/2020

John Ferguson slipped me twenty-quid and I went to the Oasis, loosely termed a nightclub, with the cash. He was about five-foot-five tall, and he...
Cherry

SEV 4

I was still at school and watching Space 1999 on the telly, when SEV wafted into the living room stinking of booze and fag smoke. He slapped the back...
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Cherry

Ernie Platt 1940—2015

Ernie Platt 1940—2015 Ernie was born in 1940. No football, no rugby, no golf, and the Scottish Grand National won by ‘no race run’, but at least...
Cherry

Damian, Damien and demons.

Mum was aged thirty when she had me. She’d already lost her first-born son, which sounds like a form of carelessness, as if she’d put him in a reed...
Cherry

The Omen

Mum and Da weren’t to know that Damien would become synonymous with the devil. David Seltzer the screenwriter for supernatural horror The Omen ,...
Cherry

Uncle John and Jimmy.

Da didn’t believe in noise. He’d be sitting at the grill with the wireless on the window making toast and listening to Radio Athlone. Even from the...
Cherry

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...
Cherry

Sooz

It all started as a bit of a joke. Eddie was toying with his cheesecake and having a smoke. His ginger hair had begun to retreat from his forehead...
Cherry

Sooz 3

Fatty Patty got quite a reputation on the rig, and Eddie got the nickname Fast Eddie because he had to play detective. Track her down, pronto. Hose...
Cherry

Sooz 6

On a three hour train journey, with drink involved and money on the table, fights broke out with the frequency of barroom brawls in The High...
Cherry

Sooz 7

Breaking into at trot at Partick Cross, a rumble of thunder and squall of rain followed Badger and Eddie as they crossed Dumbarton Road and pushed...
Cherry

Chris Alexander 1958-2009 RIP.

Gordy reminded me of the time Chris Alexander got lifted. He’d been coming back from the Boilermakers on Dumbarton Road, Chris was always a smart...
Cherry

Sooz 9

The best place for a walk in Clydebank was down by the Clydeside. Eddie could get out from under his wife’s feet and take a dander down to Cable...
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Cherry

Archie McDougall 5/7/1958-12/5/2021. RIP.

My brother, Bod, phoned to tell me Archie was dead. It was quick. I rolled out the platitudes. He was his pal, much more than mine. Archie only came...
Cherry

JOHN MCLACHLAN (Kojak) 1962-2011

Tony Quinn opened the living-room window and shouted me into Kojak’s house on Lilac Avenue. It had one of those boxy silver wheelchair ramps taking...
Cherry

Penthouse

‘Awright lads,’ Cooper’s da was bald with a booming voice. He shouted a derisory greeting as we dodged furniture in the living room. He’d the comfy...
Cherry

You and Me—forever—Anne.

You and Me—forever—Anne. Anne kept her eyes shut and waited for her number to be called. A whiff of cigarettes made her grimace, even though it was a...
Cherry

You and Me--forever--Donnie

Donnie stretched himself out on the marital bed he’d once shared with Ann and stared at the ceiling. Waited for the pills to kick in. Smirnoff choked...
Cherry
Story of the week

Sooz 11

Eddie headed down to the Clydeside. A blue plastic bag cutting into his hand, clanging against his leg as he walked into the rain. Fatty Patty wedged...
1 likes
Cherry

What did Jesus do?

Ian came in from the gym earlier than usual. ‘Guess what I saw or heard? Jesus has landed.’ I was sitting in my comfy chair reading The Snow Leopard...
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Cherry

What did Jesus do? 2

‘Jeez, wae the electricity, all the stuff in the freezer will go aff.’ Ian ran his fingers through his hair. And he pouted. His beard was patchy,...
Cherry

What did Jesus do? 3

My dad used to tell everybody how smart I was. He used to show me off, tell me to memorise things like long poems that rhymed. (And that was no crime...
Cherry

What did Jesus do? 4

Peter the Apostle brought a more to life than life attitude and his faith was like flying fish. He couldn’t sit on his arse for a minute. We lit a...
Cherry

Depression

I am what I am not That’s what I’ve been taught The timekeeper in my head keeps each tick of the day He feeds me guilt pain on not going away, again...
Cherry
Story of the week

Vermin

The gaunt old man in the pinstripe suit hovers over the microphone and starts speaking in a strange accent before they are ready. ‘It’s a ridiculous...
3 likes
Cherry

Glasgow's Necropolis

I didn’t sleep that night. My wife clung to me in our bed and whispered to me not to go. She was pregnant. Her belly pushing against me, her smooth...
1 likes
Cherry

The Rules of Leviticus.

We had an extended breakfast. His eyes crinkled with laughter watching me make a pig of myself and eating for two. My eyes jerked open, when Etian...
1 likes
Cherry

Cancer ward

‘I’ll be back for lunch,’ I sat on the side of his bed and squeezed his hand—‘someone’s got to make sure you eat something.’ The two policemen...
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Cherry

You are not your illness.

The girls left a heady brew of perfume behind. I poured Etian some water and he was well enough to sit up in bed and sip it. He began coughing and...
1 likes
Cherry
Story of the week

Tuesday Club

The Tuesday Club wasn’t what it looked like, older men in short and sannies panting and out of breath after playing three-a-side fitba on the wooden...
Gold cherry

Sometimes forever

I wore a beanie beneath another two-tone wool hat. The colour of my hair was a snapshot of fashionable black and white. The Weird Fish logo and the...
1 likes

Tuesday Afternoon.

Swat away the murky day Clasped hands upwards to pious heaven Exchange it for sniggering and hee-hawing Sharp hinterlands and hard-ons Feet that can...
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Cherry

the eleven-minute bore.

My jacket was in the bar. She’d little more than a blouse, with a red bra playing peek-a-boo. The wind cut through thin clothing and buffeted our...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly

Agnes said, ‘Did you see The Clydebank Post ?’ ‘Nah, why would I?’ I shook my head. Sitting on the stairs, pulling on my work boots. A snarled lace,...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 2

I waited until we were stranded between traffic lights on Great Western Road before I spoke. People thought Ugly Puggly was being ignorant, because...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 3

‘I’ll need to nip hame to get my Keycard,’ I told Ugly Puggly. He stared out of the window and said nothing. Drifting snow camouflaging the kerb...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 4

Ugly Puggly closed his eyes, but I wasn’t sure he was asleep. We bounced along thin cobbled lanes, his thigh rubbing against the young lad's. He’d...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 6

I fell asleep in the chair. The telly was on mute and a finger of whisky left in the bottle of Glayva. I’d slobbered down the middle of my dark...
4 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 7

Dave said with the kind of accent that rubbed your nose in wealth, ‘Makes you think.’ I hadn’t noticed that before. I didn’t care what he did with...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 8

I took Agnes a sausage-roll for lunch. Seventy pence from Villa Bakery. You couldn’t beat that. She’d rolled out of her bed, and she wasn’t looking...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 9

I wandered through to the kitchen. While the kettle was boiling, I picked out a mug from the debris in the sink. Tap water was boiling hot. I ducked...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 10

I used to go to my local, three or four times a week. I caught the odd cry of ‘Hi, Jim,’ but that was from old timers like Jock. He didn’t wait for a...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 11

The shopkeeper said he was very sorry to hear about Agnes. ‘Cheers,’ I could never mind his name. I’d called him Raj, when I was drunk and he smiled...
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 12

Ugly Puggly was a surprisingly good cook. By that I meant he could do more that toast and beans. He baked his own bread and could even do vegetarian...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 13

I was in the depot and it was near knocking-off time. So I was trying to look busy by opening and shutting the back of the van doors, and skulking...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 14

Ugly Puggly’s room was messy and and stunk of urine and weak bleach. Clothes were piled on an unmade bed. A half-eaten bread roll in the bin. He...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 15

I couldn’t get the electricity to work. I tried everything but paying for it. Flinging my arm around Dave’s shoulder in a rough clutch, he turned his...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 17

We balanced plates of linguine dappled with parmesan on our laps in the living room. Ugly Puggly sat in his armchair across from us and sipped green...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 18

Ugly Puggly was doing something with broad beans and peas, boiling them to death. ‘Whit have you got in the oven?’ I smacked my lips together, after...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 19

The newsagent asked how my wife was doing, which put me on a downer. I guessed I was being racist, thinking Asian folk shouldn’t be trained to read...
4 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 20

Ugly Puggly’s garden may have been a death trap with all that broken glass running down the slope, and the turning frame of a windmill, but the...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 21

Ugly Puggly was slicing his way through roof tiles with a long knife, with a sickle hook halfway down the blade. ‘Hi, watch whit yer daeing,’ Grey-...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 23

Molly made macaroni and cheese, with a side dish of oven chips for dinner. I stared out the window. She sat snug at the table and played Candy Crush...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 24

‘Whit’s this?’ I sniffed the plate Ugly Puggly put down on the table. Screwing up my eyes, I shook my head and prodded it with my fork. ‘It looks...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 25

I came into the kitchen, yawning. ‘Whit’s that yer daeing?’ Ugly Puggly was up before me. His body slumped sideways, his eyes asked as he glanced up...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 29

Ugly Puggly stared into space. Dave stroking the back of his neck, brought him out of his reverie. ‘I need the money,’ he said, ‘to place a bet.’ ‘...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 31

Jeff put the suitcase he was holding on the table. He edged forward and tapped at Harry’s leg with the toe of his shoe. ‘Fuck sake,’ he said, ‘he’ll...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 32

Ugly Puggly got four mismatched mugs out of the cupboard, and stepped over Harry’s body. ‘Whit kind of tea you wantin, Camomile or Green?’ ‘I just...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 33

‘Won’t the body start to stink?’ I clutched at my freshly made cup of Tetley’s. Ugly Puggly took his time answering. He was making porridge for...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 34

I met one of my out-of-work colleagues, Bob, in the lane. I’d stripped down to my T-shirt and felt the sun burn the top of my head and back of my...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 35

Ugly Puggly's skin was gritty with dirt. He was making fancy chips and grilling pieces of duck on the bone. He’d their vegetable relation, chickpeas...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 36

Fat chance,’ I said. ‘Whit dae yeh hinks worse, a fat poof or a fat murderer?’ Ugly Puggly answered for Dave. ‘Look, I know yer gettin nervous. And a...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 37

I went home for a few days. Not home, home, just to see Molly, my wife, or ex-wife, but it was really to get away from them. Dave wasn’t sure if...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 38

When I did the weekly shop, now Ugly Puggly wasn’t cooking, I brought back lots of booze to compensate. The local shops knew to expect me at any time...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 39

I’d one of those terrible dreams, where I dreamt I couldn’t sleep and left the car engine running. Drifting over to the window with a quilt dragging...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 40

I’d a fry-up for breakfast with all the works: mushroom, tomatoes and two potato scones. It was enough to sober me up. Not that I’d been drinking...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 41

I filled a mug with tap water. Drank it. Rinsed the mug and wandered through to the living room with Dave at my back. I took the seat near the window...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 42

‘I’m gonnae nip oot to get a carry-oot,’ I said. ‘You want anythin?’ ‘Nah,’ Dave screwed up his face. ‘We need tae get this done.’ Ugly Puggly rubbed...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 43

‘The last time I was up here, it was my aunt’s funeral—and it always freezin’. I hadn’t brought a jacket and tried to rub some warmth into my arms. ‘...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 44

‘Och, alright,’ Ugly Puggly said. ‘The locks werenae up tae much. Just as you’d expect. They looked solid, but they’re chocolate. You could open up...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 45

I checked the bedroom for booze, I might have missed, before going into the toilet. My face in the mottled mirror above the sink wasn’t pretty. ‘Who...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 46

A slight tingling was in the tips of my fingers, pins and needles in my left hand. I didn’t want it to turn into an irregular party and me doing the...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 47

Things were going better than I hoped. I’d gone to the shop and got a Daily Record and rolls. The shopkeeper was waiting for me, edging forward to...
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 48

I went outside to have a gander at where we’d buried the body. The grass around the decking was overlong, more like weeds. A chestnut tree on the...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 49

Cold outside with a hint of rain. Smirry. Our conversations usually involved the weather, even though most folk now worked inside. Dave was at my...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 50

I heard the playboy’s phone ringing. I was tempted to answer before the answering machine kicked in. Put on one of those female robot voices (perhaps...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 51

I felt on the other side of chaos. It was in my head and bones. And I couldn’t catch a breath. Tears gather at the back of my eyes. I heard myself...
2 likes
Gold cherry
Story of the week

Ugly Puggly 52.

It was the wee small hours when Ugly Puggly got home. I was sprawled on the couch, having fallen asleep. Sober enough to know I was drunk. I pulled...
3 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 53

Ugly Puggly’s jaw stuck out, and he ground his teeth. A sputtering noise came from the back of his throat. ‘Would yous two stop fuckin about? I’m no...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 54

I dreamt about my mum. Usually, she was giving me something, but it was her I wanted and not the gift. I clung to her legs. My bladder got me up. I...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 55

I’d an appointment with the doctor. I know you’re not supposed to have preferences, because mine would be for Dr Finlay. Someone that made up a fire...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 56

I went semi-regularly to AA meetings. There were all over the town and cities. In church halls and social clubs. There was even one in the backroom...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 57

I came in the front door after work, the living room was empty, the kitchen was empty. A pleasant woody aroma wafted in from outside. Dave came in...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 58

Our fellowship gave me a medal for being sober for a month. It was a wee plastic disc. I kept it in my side-pocket beside the van keys. I rubbed it...
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 59

Seagulls squawked and fought aerial duels with each other outside before it got too dark to pick up a bin snack. I was getting ready to go out to a...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 61

‘We’ve always got a choice,’ said Ugly Puggly. ‘That’s the kinda shite you always read in those self-hate books dressed in pretty words. That’s like...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 62

My phone rang. Dave seemed almost as surprised as me. He thought my phone so ancient naval flags would operate it. I took my Noika into the lobby to...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 63

‘It’s the police,’ Ugly Puggly whispered and giggled. We were soon rolling about the floor laughing as if we were hiding from the Provy cheque man...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 64

We walked over to Molly’s. It had been warm that day and I wanted to stretch my legs. Ugly Puggly gave us a couple of slices of blue-moulded bread to...
1 likes
Cherry
Pick of the Month

Ugly Puggly 65

I’d been sleeping in the Bongo. It was a better home than some of the guys I drunk with during the day had down by the canal. We were off grid, near...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 66

I stumbled past ranks of wilting bracken and tepid water turning green with algae. Tenement buildings in straight lines and a clutter of housing...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 67

Molly had a hand draped over my shoulder as we sat in the back of the Bongo. Her musty perfume stirred me up. She dressed like we were going for a...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 68

We drove back along the way we came. The nearest petrol station was just off Crow Road. The engine chugged and wheezed before it cut out. I flicked...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 69

I drove home. Molly, in the passenger seat beside me, rocked backwards and forwards clutching her stomach and urging me to hurry. But the traffic...
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Cherry

Ugly Puggly 71

Rain bounced off pavements and roads, but it had mostly stopped when I caught up with Ugly Puggly. I didn’t have a jacket on and was drookit and...
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 72

Ugly Puggly’s house was familiar and unfamiliar as an aged aunt. We crept up four stairs near the door, looking and listening like kids learning the...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 74

We did a lot of crying in the kitchen, in the living room and even in the bedroom. Dave got my bedroom. And Molly let me sleep beside her and cuddled...
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 75

Some dirty bastard had been sick in the close, on the first steps to the half-landing. It stuck to the wall and the pitted surface of the stair. A...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 76

Molly made toast, but she’d only brown bread which was like cheating at breakfast, and eating low-calorie cardboard because it was good for you...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 77

When they left for Drymen, I went to the shop and bought a bottle of Vladistock. I cracked it open on the main road and took a quick slug. It burned...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 78

Ugly Puggly told me a drunk was like a Russian novelist. Always close to tears. I rambled on. ‘I don’t believe in God or that kinda stuff,’ I told...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 79

I used my good (non-wanking hand) to angle the telly. But I wasn’t sure how it worked. Whatever channel I flicked it onto seemed to drone extended...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 81

Wee Jim came up to the hospital to visit me. I’d have ducked him. But I’d haemorrhoids. My ducking days were over. I’d enough grief to deal with and...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 82

Because it was late when I got home, I thought I’d fall asleep right away. But Molly wouldn’t let me sleep beside her. She put me in the room next...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 83

I holed up in Ugly Puggly’s house with a litre of vodka and some cans. The electricity was still gubbed. Rain washed up against the windows like a...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 84.

My throat was sore from breathing and I made whistling noises in the back of my throat as I trudged along towards Dalmuir West. I stopped for a...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 85

I was gagging for the meeting to be over even before it had begun so I could collect the cash. In my head, I slipped in and out with nobody noticing...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 87

‘Whit happened tae the camper van?’ I ran my hand across the bodywork and locked doors and looked in the windows. ‘I washed it,’ Dave said. ‘I got...
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 88

I’d put on an old pair of my pyjamas. But I had to cinch them tighter at the waist when I went to bed. Cotton and thin stripes reminded me of the way...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 89

Wee Jim turned up earlier than I liked. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was always early. Molly made him a cup of tea while I got ready. I...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 90

Molly didn’t get up and say she was an alcoholic. She seemed content just to blend in and listen. She was no longer an AA virgin. I remembered the...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 91

I slept for a few hours, haunted by the ghost of Bradley Walsh, or I might just have left the telly on. But I gave up and got up about six. Molly was...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 92

It wasn’t often I was glad to get out and go to an AA meeting—it didn’t matter where it was, I’d have went—but I was glad to get out the house. I...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 94

A crunching sound, metal on metal. My foot almost to the floor on the brake, motoring down Mountblow Hill. At the end of the fence where the...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 95

‘I’ll hink about it,’ I tried palming him off with an excuse, but he wasn’t for letting me off so easily. ‘What’s there to think about?’ he asked. ‘...
2 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 96

There was a glow from the kitchen. Molly had left the lights on. She was sitting with her back to me at the table playing Candy Crush. I wondered if...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 97

‘How’d it go?’ wee Jim sprung up from his seat. He didn’t wait for an answer. He was already racing towards the door and out into the carpark as if...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 98

‘You look nice,’ Dave told Molly. He wanted to take us out to dinner, but I’d said it was stupid and we could just eat in. I found myself glancing at...
1 likes
Cherry

Ugly Puggly 99

Molly said if a job is worth doing it’s worth doing right, or something along those lines. It suited us both. She hadn’t trusted me to pack the...
2 likes
Cherry

flowers you made

I buried those knickers knuckle deep in the earth to cover the shame of my soul. Some things are bigger than how you remember them. Evictions used to...
Cherry

Ye Olde Christmas Story

I never knew what to get Jesus for His birthday. He was good at batting away stupid questions like that. He’d been on a bit of a downer. I didn’t...
2 likes

Old Prejudice.

I tripped over Old Prejudice when I came over the bridge at the canal. ‘Whit yeh daeing there?’ I cried. ‘Yeh gie me a fright.’ He looked up at me. ‘...
Cherry

British Bulldog.

My eyes closed on the train journey home. I’d jumped out of my seat, pulling my rucksack from the rack above my head and made a run for it as the...
2 likes
Cherry

Grace

I held out a fish supper, warm in my hand, still in its wrapper. ‘Here, yeh want this?’ Local Joe was standing in George Square, emptying a black bag...
2 likes
Cherry

Maddy.

She could have laughed—her daughter, a mother. Madeline had been a fat baby. A happy baby with a heart like a sounding harp. She missed combing her...
3 likes
Cherry

Goatie 2

I ponder my sleep-walking predicament. Apparently, I’m superhuman able to drink a glass of water without waking. I remember a case in which a man had...
2 likes
Cherry

Goatie 3

I slept tranquilly. It gets to the stage where you become acclimatised to anything. Even prisoners at Auschwitz slept soundly. I’m in pretend mode...
2 likes
Cherry

Goatie 5

All of a sudden your life is not what it was. Your brain does its best to catch up. I don’t know what’s happening. I feel like greeting, or giving...
3 likes
Cherry

Goatie 7

The Securicor Guard is mid-thirties, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and Roman nose. ‘They were going to ship you to Peterhead, but it’s too much hassle...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 8

The prison governor came to see me in my cell. Late forties, bags under his eyes, dressed in a grey suit. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing, or...
1 likes
Cherry

Big People, Small Island, Small Boats.

Malky phoned me to come and have a pint. I was surprised he was still alive. He was a wee guy with the fuzz of a ginger beard. He dressed funny, even...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 10

I was in bunk, rattling with not sleeping. Footsteps on the landing. I waited for them to pass. Jangling keys. Under observation. If it wasn’t the...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 11

Acne face as he swung the torch around poked it in my face for the umpteenth time. He pried open my eyes. Wouldn’t let me sleep. Even Goatie was...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 12

The governor was smoking when I was pushed into his office. He didn’t try and hide it, like he did with civilians. He might have tried to blow smoke...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 14

Sometimes you’re aware of an absence when you come round. Sometimes, but less often, a presence. He wasn’t much to look at. Shaved cue-ball head...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 16

Boner reminded me, Vic was a great believer in you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy. It could even happen to a friend, or someone not coming up...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 17

Graham Greene,’ she said. ‘He’s one of you, too.’ ‘I thought yeh said, yeh didnae know if I hud epilepsy,’ I replied. ‘Noo, yer piling famous guys on...
Cherry

Goatie 18

Pushing the panic button, meant code blue. Never my favourite colour. Prison guards alerted all over the prison. Tumbling into the medic’s room as if...
Cherry

Goatie 19

Reverend Souttar had the soft shuffle of a sleepwalker. Code Blue had come and gone. Droopy Eyes took his arm and helped him sit down on the edge of...
Cherry

Goatie 20

‘What’s the matter with you?’ she said when she came back. ‘You look a bit jumpy?’ ‘Nae wonder, that was fucking weird.’ I was lying in bed, with the...
Cherry

Goatie 21

I didn’t know what to think when Droopy Eyes left. I was stuck with Marie Osmond’s classics. I’d the Medic’s room to myself for whole weekend...
Cherry

Goatie 22

Droopy Eyes came back to work in a good mood. It was half-five before she got back to me in the medic room. And she’d soon be knocking off for...
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Cherry

Goatie 23

Being in prison was like dossing under a motorway bridge. Constant noise and always something going on. Shaking you up. Droopy Eyes talking about...
Cherry

Goatie 24

‘Yeh hink dogs can by psychic?’ Archie pondered. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or me. I was going to keep silent, but muttered, ‘Dunno...
2 likes
Cherry

Goatie 26

The screech of the prison panic alarm had me going. The sound of running feet. Hardened souls flexed their muscles. I hid under the sheets until they...
Cherry

Goatie 27

Cramp below my right knee, shuttled my torso along the soaking mattress. I twisted and turned and cursed to fuck and back. A memory bobbed to the...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 28

I woke up choking with terror, and felt like a good drink, or even a bad drink like Eldorado, the way a gourmet chef dreams of the perfect meal. Even...
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Cherry

Goatie 29

‘Are you alright?’ she asked. My head felt fuzzy. I tried to laugh it off. ‘I don’t suppose yeh can get wee apocalypses in the same way you get a wee...
Cherry

Goatie 30

Leslie groaned, her face was flushed. ‘Are you quite alright?’ she asked, looking over my shoulder. I could no longer see the shapeshifter, only her...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 31

I’m that age. Got confused. Get easily lost. But it seemed the screw was leading me away from the medical block. I’d grown used to and familiar with...
Cherry

Goatie 32

I tried to save Jordan. Went through the motions of trying to block and unlock death. Pulled the wire of out his mouth and got a jolt that shook me,...
Cherry

Goatie 33

I was getting good at getting beaten up. I curled into a ball on the bed and let them hit me. Bounced about and squealed. That way you didn’t get hit...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 34

I was the only prisoner to get out of the van when we reached the Police Station at Clydebank. A car blocked the entrance so the van couldn’t reverse...
2 likes
Cherry

Goatie 35

Another cop appeared juggling two steaming mugs of tea. He wore a short-sleeved shirt taut over a thick red neck and round ball face. He plonked a...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 36

Being tired, didn’t mean I’d sleep. I was always anxious about it, which didn’t help. I’d heard all the usual stuff about being too tired to sleep...
1 likes
Cherry

Goatie 37

‘Tainted Love,’ I belted it out and gave it a kind of twist at the end for extra kudos that Mark Almond in his pomp couldn’t have managed. It helped...
Cherry

Love story

My wee girlfriend had no neck, no shoulders, no breasts and untamed gorgon hair. Ali wasn’t really my girlfriend but lived beside me. She flicked her...
Cherry

Love Story 3

The furrows on my da’s forehead stood like stepping stones to his thoughts. The measured way he lowered the back paged of the Daily Record’s sports...
Cherry

Love Story 4.

I tearfully confided in Colin in a side room in the church, where we stacked extra chairs we never used. But God willing, might someday. I didn’t...
Cherry

Love Story 5

Her underactive imagination had me thinking for both of us. How we should behave since we kinda agreed not to get formally engaged until I could...
1 likes
Cherry

Love Story 6

I vowed to God I’d work hard and turn myself around and no longer look at the stuck-together catalogue pages even if they were just sitting there...
1 likes
Cherry

Love Story 7

‘I’m not going to school,’ I said. ‘How no?’ she asked. ‘Cause,’ my voice cracked and went up a notch. ‘I’m no well.’ Her arm shot out and a cupped...
1 likes
Cherry

Love Story 9

Jealousy was an accidental sin. Like stabbing your mum in the eye with a fork, while explaining something which you’d forgotten to mention, but she...
1 likes
Cherry

Love Story 10

Mum floated about smoking between the kitchen and living room. Da ruffled the sports’ pages of the Daily Record to show he was reading and didn’t...
2 likes
Cherry

Love Story 11

‘She would notice,’ I bit down on my bottom lip to show that was our conversation over. Ali recovered quicker than a whiplash victim cashing a cheque...
2 likes
Cherry

Love Story 13

Da came through for his dinner. He glanced at us talking and laughing, grunted something, as he drowned the fish in salt and vinegar. Picked up his...
1 likes
Cherry

Love Story 14

Mum made us both a pot of tea and put out a plate of Digestive. We sat at the table, knee to knee. She had her fags. I’d my biscuits to dunk in my...
2 likes
Cherry

Love Story 15

Ali came to my room after dinner. It was too cold to do anything. So we rolled about my bed, cuddling and kissing. She moaned a few times. Flashed...
Cherry

Love Story 17

‘Ali come back,’ I hissed. Too late as her big feet connected with metallic bucket making it ring out. She peered back at me and put a hand over her...
Cherry

Love Story 18

I zigzagged down the hill towards the phone box. It always smelled of pish as if somebody had used it a toilet, which they had from the damp stains...
1 likes
Cherry

Love Story 19

I piled my shirt and trousers on the chair beside the window and crept shivering into bed with my socks on. Tossed and turned. Yawned, throwing my...
1 likes
Cherry

Love Story 20

I wore my smartest clothes and shined my shoes before we set off to the Police Station at Hall Street. Nobody else hurrying along the canal in the...
1 likes
Cherry

Love Story 21

Da groaned and leaned on me as he lowered himself to the floor and shut his eyes. ‘Don’t die, Da,’ I wailed as he sucked in each breath in and blew...
1 likes
Cherry

Love Story 23

It rained every day and everything closed in before the funeral. Mum had time for a fag before we got into the chauffeured car. The cortege set off,...
1 likes
Cherry

Love Story 24

I’d kissed Ali’s cheek when we left the church. Felt the novelty and glad feeling of having done the right thing. Even though Mum didn’t say so, I...
2 likes
Cherry

Hellish Heaven

The Receptionist answered on the third of fourth ring, giving out the same information in a robotic monotone. There were no doctor’s appointments...
2 likes
Cherry

Hellish Heaven 2

The examination couch had greenish paper towels covering it. I was scared more than humiliated. Cool and sticky. My presence on the couch soon to be...
1 likes
Cherry

EAT YEH

Chained outside McGinlay’s coal yard—a dog called EAT YEH, the size of a small bison. Howling, choking and mad eyed to get at you. EAT YEH had a...
2 likes
Cherry

Sweaty

Sweaty was jumpy. He reached for a wrench. Rubbed grit from the window and squinted his one good eye to look through plastic into the yard. Neither...
1 likes
Gold cherry
Story of the week
Pick of the Month

Uncle John's Popemobile.

Black specks were moving on the stacked plates of uneaten leftovers and the casual smears of a man that had tried to tidy up. Casualties lay on the...
2 likes
Gold cherry
Poem of the week

Tilly cut loose from the day

Tilly cut loose from the day Brightness like a red balloon Utterances dumbstruck with gravity Details don’t matter Holding onto her giggling A...
3 likes
Cherry

Missed You.

My junkie girlfriend sold her body to feed her habit. ‘I’m no doing any harm,’ she said. ‘I sold myself tae you. Look how that fucking worked oot?’ I...
Cherry

Windfall.

We had a great interest in ghosts, prompted by a fear of being called a shitebag for turning down a dare when we were younger. In a less than spooky...