Caldwell
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The lyre of Orpheus
There was a summer, not long after Breathless came out, when I listened to it on repeat. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds — a song unlike most of theirs,...
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- 98 reads
Hear the children cryin'
Some mornings I wake from dreams that don’t announce themselves as dreams. They slip into the day like breath into fog. One in particular lingered...
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- 115 reads
Lausanne Epilogue
Some mornings I wake before the alarm. The dog lifts her head, watches me for a second, then exhales and settles back into herself. I sit there in...
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- 255 reads
Rue (following on from Funeral Games)
Now that the central figures were gone, the anger hollowed into silence. The performance had ended. No one was left to fight but ghosts. I found...
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- 129 reads
Funeral Games
The worst part about my father’s death wasn’t the death. It was the circus that formed around it — a slow-moving horror of corridors, signatures,...
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- 92 reads
Appreciated
Posted on Thu, 28 Nov 2024
Thank you, feels strange to be bearing all and not hiding behind ideas and jokes and I appreciate this is not a therapy forum, but there's still some worth I think in remembering someone publicly, even if those you're sharing with had no idea of...
Read full commentPosted in Adam Hopkins September 1939 - November 2024
It was such an easy read.
Posted on Mon, 18 Nov 2024
It was such an easy read. From the first sentence, I was in your world and got quite upset with the forgiving nature of your narrator and her terrible but probably all-too-common situation. I have always been freaked out by Punch and Judy, never...
Read full commentPosted in Cricks Crocodile
This is great. It's something
Posted on Wed, 16 Jul 2025
This is great. It's something I've been wrestling with for over three years now. My therapist might think I had written it were they to read it, but then that's the beauty of something that speaks a universal truth in fresh and clever ways. Thank...
Read full commentPosted in The Obituary Reader
Honoured. Seems I score
Posted on Mon, 20 Jan 2025
Honoured. Seems I score better with comedy, which has always been the case, though I strive to be a serious intellectual. The other night, I had a dream that I was trying very hard to impress someone - could have been an attractive woman or...
Read full commentPosted in Jacques and Basil
absolutely
Posted on Tue, 07 Jan 2025
We have all done things that we shouldn't have, and if you disagree with that then you probably haven't got much of a conscience. I am bothered by the possibility that writing stuff like this comes across as too 'preachy' though. A little pious....
Read full commentPosted in Hard Pressed
The commercialisation of
Posted on Tue, 10 Dec 2024
The commercialisation of religious holidays often feels out of step with their origins. The Magi, brought gifts that symbolised more than material wealth: gold for kingship, frankincense for divinity, and myrrh for mortality. The gold might have...
Read full commentPosted in CHRISTmas is Cancelled. Part Four.
Being out in the woods has
Posted on Fri, 16 Feb 2024
Being out in the woods has saved me numerous times. I love the woods. Especially the mossy, brackeny, hilly kind with large rhododendrons and wise old trees. Doesn't matter the weather or time of day, it is always inspiring, reviving and calming...
Read full commentPosted in Two kinds of crying : 15th February 2024
Good collection of anatomic
Posted on Tue, 12 Nov 2024
Good collection of anatomic maladies. I'd quite like to see an anatomical model with all of those clearly demarcated. Perhaps including the vented spleen and weaver's bottom, blacksmith's lung and of course, one wouldn't want to miss out writer's...
Read full commentPosted in The Tale of the Housemaid’s Knee
The media thrives on hate. I
Posted on Sun, 03 Nov 2024
The media thrives on hate. I see more and more people switching off the news, not owning a TV, not buying papers. I got very depressed last year, mostly to do with all the terrors in the Middle East but not limited to just that. I had a friend...
Read full commentPosted in I HATE YOU!
I'm sure if there is a God She or He will understand.
Posted on Sun, 03 Nov 2024
Surely this God would practise what they preach and offer compassion, and love and turn the other cheek regardless of whatever sins may have been committed. Surely that's the point. No one is born evil and we are all a result of our environment....
Read full commentPosted in I HATE YOU!
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