Out in the rhododendron, an old wind lies coiled lengthways along thick roots. The acidic slopes they twist through drop steeply towards the curve of the fjord. Sounds of the Atlantic and its dwellers drift up on younger, more eager airs. This tired wind has lost most of its voice, taken to a bed of…
Category: Short Story
Short Story (after Rumi): The Dragon Charmer
( — after hearing the Rumi story from Matin B. on the London Underground — ) A poor snake charmer, feeling that he was passing his prime, went to the mountain to pray for a better life. “God, I have served you well,” he prayed. “I have paid my dues and expected little in return.…
Short Story: Constables Three
Thump thump thump of stiff hull on salty mound. Gannet gull tern rising and falling in and out of sight. View pulled apart to its original full width, in the broad hiss and hum of ocean passage. Three constables crouch in the lee of the short concrete wall at the stubby pier, their leaking boat…
Short Story: Birds of a Feather
Joe waited until he was home alone before opening the bag. He dropped it on the kitchen table over a touristy place mat and scattering of unopened envelopes. His sweaty fingers gripped the zipper and the canvas spilled apart into a loose yawn. Neatly wrapped bundles of cash clumped in a corner. Joe had never…
To Hanbury Gardens We Will Go
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, And pretty maids all in a row. The car pulled up outside the entrance and three siblings stepped out into the hot sunshine. Sharp light glared off the glass door and bleached white the surrounding wall. There was a woman…
Short Story: Follow Me
Suddenly Sam found himself sitting at the next table to Sam. To be more clear, Sam McKenna suddenly realised that he was sitting at a table next to a table where Sam McKenna sat. To be clearer still, here we had Sam McKenna, one of Mallow & Hanly’s least known accounts technicians, picking a seat…
Short Story: Swim Swim
701-9 Test 3028. 2017-12-15. 16:22. Click. swing. Light up. Foodbody? Grabbody. Grabbody smell. Grab grab. Grab grab go. Up up. Smell loud. Body loud. Away away. Over. Grab grab. Down. Ear loud. Down. Splash splash. Grab go. Grabbody smell. Swim swim. Swim swim. Light loud. Sound sound. Swim swim. Whir. No panic no panic. Swim…
Short story: Crow Riders
Gusto was only back for the weekend. I met him on Friday afternoon and again in a pub on Saturday. It was December and there was a cold snap, with snow on the hills and scattered along the edges of roads. People marvelled about how one field was pure white and the next one wasn’t.…
Short Story: The Promotion
The Promotion Interview room 341 is very small and dark, like a segment cut from a corridor. Harry notices the odd ratio of wall to door to window as he automatically moves towards the one empty chair. An inspector sits opposite behind a small desk, staring down at a screen. He’s thin, suited, with short…
Short Story: A Day in the Failures of John R. Clancy
A Day in the Failures of John R. Clancy LISTEN: John Rufus Clancy tried to become so still that he could feel time pass, but he failed. He could see the clock counting up, but he couldn’t feel its passing. There: that transition between 14:59:59 and 15:00:00, that transition from not late, to late. Where…
Short Story: A Fairy Gust
A gust of wind blows suddenly down a remote valley. What mischief might it bring?
Short Story: The Suitcase
Three siblings meet in the kitchen of a rural farmhouse after their uncle’s funeral. But what secrets do they need to dig up?
Short Story: NO TRESPASSING
When I lived out in the village near the mountains I would go hiking by the swift river, over the soft bogs, and up the rocky slopes, weather and work permitting. I got to know the most popular routes and the ways onto and off them, and some of these ways on and off crossed…
Very Short Story: The Mistake
The Mistake (a very short story) Wasn’t like the daydreams at all. They chased me up Taylor’s street and left down St. Kilda’s Avenue and over the grassy wall into Finny Park where the trees were just beginning to leaf and for a change nobody was walking a dog. I had my heavy work shoes…
Very Short Story: Abiogenesis
Dr Malthus and Dr Richards were very excited about something. They leaned over each other to get a better look at the microscope. The film crew, squashed along the other side of the capsule, paid them no attention. They had already broken through several ceilings of boredom. At first, the jerking motion of the T79ix2…
Short Story: Mrs Deacy and The Flood
“It’s the wrath of God!” cackled wiry old Mrs Deacy with a smack of her stiff walking stick on the linoleum. “Settle down please, Mrs Deacy,” said Frank McDonagh. “It’s the same spring tide as every year, just coincident with a severe low pressure weather system.” Mrs Deacy persisted. “It’s the Good Lord’s way of…
Story: Mitchell and the long way round
My hands shook. I couldn’t stop them. The magazine slipped from my fingers. I squatted and searched for it in the mud. Rain pinged off my helmet. Sporadic volleys of gunfire zinged through the greasy drops. We were supposed to be winging it through the bullets to take back the hill. It wasn’t going well.…
Short Story: Patients
After washing my hands with warm water I squirt disinfectant gel on them from the plastic dispenser that hangs on the wall, and stand looking in the mirror while I rub them dry. Looking older? Surely, but it’s so hard to notice, day by day changes, cell by dying cell. Show me a photograph of…
Short Story: Dossers
When the branch of the beech tree broke Morris fell down in a heap next to the trunk. He lay there and stared at the sky. “Stupid branch!” he cursed upwards. The tree was unmoved, its leaves shivering in the early autumn afternoon. Morris struck its mottled trunk with a lunging kick. The rugged bark…
Short Story: Signing On
Burgundy. Cabernet Sauvignon. Merlot. White, red, rosa, bubbly. Brian bought 500 grams of dry fusilli pasta in Dunness Stores before going to the Dole Office to sign on. He should have gone earlier; it was overflowing when he got to the doors. Now he was back outside looking at a display of wines through a…