Having swallowed a bellyful of commuters, the steel serpent sighed to a halt somewhere in the depths of its underground domain as if it simply couldn’t summon the strength to carry on. The lights flickered out and for a moment the carriage was consumed by the darkness and silence of the tunnel. Th
Read MoreI walk about the platform, the early morning beginning to warm around me. The barriers come down but I can’t see the train coming. Tiffany takes my hand. ‘It’ll be alright,’ she says, ‘You wait and see.’ ‘Ever notice how long it takes the train to get here, after the barriers co
Read MoreI had hoped – selfishly I’ll admit – that after her death, he would be able to forget her. This, however, was not the case. I sit beside him now, a stone’s throw away from Land’s End, on a makeshift wooden bench. Soft and brown, the bark having peeled off long ago; leaving behind a smoo
Read MoreThe rich always die last, the old man croaked. His voice whipped away, swept across the white scoured snow-surface of the plain. Friend leaned forward trying to catch the tail end of his words. The man’s eyes were black, yellowing skin around them, red patches on his cheeks. Piss-holes in th
Read MoreThree men asked me to marry them. I said yes to them all. Vernon March whisked me to the altar in the month which matched his name. His courtship had soothed me like a breeze, flattered me into a flutter. I wore a green gown with a wreath of violets and primroses. They wilted nearly as fast as th
Read MoreI’ve never understood the allure of New Year’s Eve. I mean, what makes that one night so much more special than the other 364 nights of the year? And am I really supposed to believe that the mere act of counting down to midnight is enough to negate all the injustices and humiliations of the prev
Read MoreI don’t even remember what the fight was about, but what stayed with me was her scratching my arm and screaming that I was a jerk. Succumbing to an immature fit of pique, I broke her vintage Neil Young LP by snapping the vinyl into two jagged pieces. I watched Cheryl rush out of the apartment.
Read MoreIn the days before Christmas the weather turned very cold and people said it would surely snow. Demand for coal, turf and blocks placed considerable pressure on my uncle’s yard. He ran the undertaking on the labour of his three sons, all big strong young fellows who were learning the rudiments of
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