Short Prose
By Caldwell
Mini tales
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- 1140 reads
Barcelona - a moment
Old witch of the barrio.
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- 5 comments
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- 2586 reads
Understanding doesn't come with age
The cashier, 'Debbie' her name-badge read, waited. Sitting in the trolley my patient little boy, waited too. I fumbled with my purse dropping my change on the counter.
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- 1022 reads
TSSB 1979 - Competition Entry
What is that in the blue and yellow cape?
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- 5 comments
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- 2569 reads
Monday morning's inner voice
You sit there, slumped in your chair, eyes glazed as you stare at the mountain of tasks before you. From above, I watch you, observing the weight you...
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- 5 comments
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- 1314 reads
Plenty
Well, there you have it. Standing at East Croydon with my shopping, train that should whisk me to Redhill in all of seventeen minutes. Seventeen! But...
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- 6 comments
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- 1315 reads
The Calculator (IP)
The tram was packed, as always, a shifting mass of humanity wedged together on their way to somewhere else. A family sat near the front, the parents...
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- 9 comments
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- 2097 reads
Pipe dreams
At 7:00 a.m., my alarm erupted with its usual enthusiasm, which was met by a groan from the other side of the bed. "I slept so badly," my beloved...
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- 4 comments
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- 1101 reads
My Grandma, Mai Mai Gee (IP)
When I arrived in Myanmar, the familiarity was immediate and overwhelming. I saw my grandmother in the old women who passed me by, their longyis,...
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- 410 reads
In Suspension
This week I gradually came to understand that I had become unwell. It's odd because it has coincided with the weather: the meteorological kind and...
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- 4 comments
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- 1147 reads
Off the rails (IP)

I did not come to Dr. Jennings of my own volition. It was my wife’s idea, and she insisted upon it with such an air of resolve that I had no choice...
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- 6 comments
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- 1390 reads
People say I'm a dreamer
You meet Walter Mitty at a nondescript café on a drizzly Tuesday afternoon. He’s wearing a beige cardigan, slightly wrinkled, and looks like the kind...
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- 215 reads
I lit a thin green candle
I remember when my half-sister came to stay, seven years older than me and full of energy, like a whirlwind dropping into the quiet rhythm of our...
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- 3 comments
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- 1493 reads
Out of the cold
Amsterdam's wind, slicing through November, carried a chill that clung to every exposed surface. The city’s canals and cobblestones seemed complicit...
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- 6 comments
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- 421 reads
A toast to all the shamans!
Our visit to the Saatchi Gallery had been unexpectedly emotional. An exhibition themed around flowers—automatically romantic, explosive with colour...
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- 4 comments
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- 168 reads
Labyrinthine Apparition
I find myself in a building that resists definition—part university, part manor house, a place with too many corridors and too much history. The air...
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- 2 comments
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- 140 reads
Harrow left behind
The bell above the door chimed with a sound so soft it seemed embarrassed to be heard. Ian stepped into the antiquarian bookshop like a man slipping...
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- 2 comments
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- 100 reads
Collateral
Detective Leon Mercier had been deep undercover for almost a decade. So deep that sometimes he forgot who he was supposed to be. He lived a life...
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- 2 comments
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- 86 reads
The Shellsuit

All my adult life, I’ve carried a complicated relationship with my father. At first, I thought the solution was distance—emotional, then physical. I...
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- 2 comments
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- 89 reads
Burma under occupation
In April 1942, my uncle Eddie was seven years old. His father, my grandfather Archibald, was the superintendent of stores with the Burma Oil Company...
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- 5 comments
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- 136 reads
Ken Market
Kensington Market used to sit at 49–53 Kensington High Street, a three-storey indoor maze of stalls and dreams. Between the ages of 16 and 18—1988 to...
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- 6 comments
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- 172 reads