King Horace Goodman thought he was going to die.
Bound in his own chariot with an enemy pointing a rifle at him – was this how it was going to end?
The book he had snuck with him dug into his tailbone, making him yelp. He shuffled in his hard seat. Continue reading “The King’s Curse”
“Your nails are probably too long anyway,” Neave says, taking the creased Rizla from me and reclining back, her hair spreading into a halo on the pillow. Two neat folds form on her forehead as she rolls. I tell her that it looks like she has an equals sign above her eyebrows. She tells me I’m a c**t. Continue reading “Miss Perfect”
“R-r-r-r-ight,” the sweaty lady imitates a budget 80s quizmaster, deliberately or otherwise, “that’s time, on to your next table!” With a ring of her bell, an array of women rise and tiptoe around the circle. Continue reading “A Single woman, looking for”
A mosaic made up of shards of sunlight lay on the beaten track created by the last rays that glinted through the canopy above. They seemed to make a pattern on the forest floor, stretching across the clearing, as if trying to linger there as long as possible. Nothing disturbed it, not until footsteps could be heard, pounding the hard ground as if attempting to cause their own earthquake. Continue reading “Interruption”
The doors ease open as he tries to calm his nerves. His mind is churning with thoughts of backing out, of going home and forgetting all about this ridiculous plan. It would be so easy, no one would ever need to know.
One foot after another, it’s almost midnight, dark, he’s the only one standing beneath the harsh glare of the halogen streetlamp, the only passenger waiting by the curb for the last bus. Continue reading “Breathe”
‘Well bud, will we do it?’
Donnie’s proposal left me fumbling for words. A glistening insistence dwelled in his pupils, enough to confirm that this was no joke.
‘I dunno man. Seems kinda pointless.’ By pointless I meant dread-inspiring.
‘Pointless? So getting the adrenaline rush of your life is pointless?’ Continue reading “Encroaching Light”
He’s back again. The scrawny one whose hands shake when he speaks, even when he tries to hold them tight in those white-knuckled fists of trepidation. He starts up the steps towards me, reaching out with one hand as he says,
“Father,” but he’s come at the wrong time today. Continue reading “Confession”
She rose from a pillow that smelt like last night, of cold smoke and rain on tarmac. The mirror was cracked but her teeth weren’t, so it was all good. A good morning.
Somebody knocked on the door just as she put on her rough jeans. The blue cotton slid over brown thighs, enclosed a waist that had changed size many times. Right now it was slim and bony, one could count the ribs if one wanted to. But there was nobody around to care, so it was all good.
Dale comes swinging in through the double doors in a cloud of smoke and I tell you, I’ve had long-burnt chips in the oven that’ve smelled better than that. So I ask him,
“Dale, how’d it go in there?” and he says,
“Oh dandy, Chris, just fine. Like a furnace in there as always, but just fine.”
I can see his goggles have gone and he’s covered in soot, but his hood’s still on and he’s all suited up, so it must have been an okay run. I stick the air conditioning on: high.
Ozymandias gets slung out of a nightclub. He’s in the gutter swilling teeth, jaw shattered against the kerb.
Babylon was his once; he was ‘the man’, the ‘king of kings’: money, Maserati and gold tooth gleaming.
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