Short Prose

Mini tales

Cherry

Barcelona - a moment

Old witch of the barrio.
Cherry

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.
Cherry

TSSB 1979 - Competition Entry

What is that in the blue and yellow cape?
Cherry

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...
2 likes
Cherry

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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Cherry

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...
Cherry

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...
Cherry

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,...

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...
1 likes
Gold cherry

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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Cherry

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...
Cherry

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...
Cherry

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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Cherry

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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Cherry

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...
Cherry

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...
Cherry

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...

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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Cherry

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...
Cherry

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...