Clifford Thurlow

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I have 12 stories published in one collection on the site.
My stories have been read 18436 times and 7 of my stories have been cherry picked.

Clifford Thurlow's picture
Clifford Thurlow

My collections

My stories

Calling Poppy

We get one life, one chance. To go wrong and not change course can truly be described as going wrong. It would be madness. 'Forgive us Lord, for we know not what to do.'
Cherry

The Glass Labyrinth

He took a deep breath. The air tasted untamed and ancient, seafood baked in garlic, oven warm bread, bitter lemons. As the goats moved into the distance the sound of their bells grew sad and mournful, a death knell for some part of himself, an ideal, perhaps. He'd never killed anything bigger than an insect before. The cloying heat of the afternoon had waned to congenial warmth. Mosquitoes were waking famished from their slumber and hummed about his ears. He reached a junction where he was unable to read the signpost, but the turn promised a destination in two kilometres.
Cherry

Holes

Do you know how long it takes to dig a six foot hole? All day. And it wasn't even six foot by the time I'd done. Five, more like. It had already got dark so I took the bike and picked up a Chinese, a treat to end a hard day. Not like yesterday. Yesterday there was Carly. I had her before I got up and had her again before I went out. Sweet Little Sixteen. 38-24-34. I cut her out and stuck her in pride of place, right next to the bed.
Cherry

North of Nowhere

My inlaws are waiting for us beneath the Gothic porch with mouths unfurling pennants of vapour. Dennis, ex-Squadron Leader, wears a grandiose moustache, tweeds, the pipe he carries a constant reminder of campaign rooms filled with pin-laden maps and old shag, the Battle of Britain, his finest hour. Diana, in plaid skirt and cashmere, kisses me on both cheeks, the consequence of a year at finishing school in Switzerland. Diana is the daughter of a Scottish baronet; Dennis is proud of his wife's pedigree, her imported ways. That good blood had pushed her up an inch more than Miriam could manage, sharpened her hipbones, deepened the blue in her eyes. I have often imagined seducing Diana, a key part of the fantasy being that she is a willing participant. I could bugger Dennis, kill my progeny, turn the humdrum into Oedipal drama.

Family Planning

We would all like to go back and change the errors of the past but the prospect of actually doing so only occurred to me when I reached the cave and gazed once more into its murky depths. I hadn't been conscious that each step had been taking me towards the headland although, subliminally perhaps, that's what we spend our entire lives doing, searching for a way back. The mouth of the cave was overhung with coarse grass and shrouded in shadow, something momentarily glimpsed like love, or good fortune. I went down on my knees and, once my eyes adjusted to the gloom, what I could see was a crypt of rough stones meshed in dead things and dust, a barrow of clues and antecedents.

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