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Friends of the Heroes memories, instalment two: FotH Forever!
I had felt very 'girl-reporter' coming home from the gig and sitting down to write some notes, then sitting down a few days later to write my article.
Alf, on a bleak December day
Dave perceives it as a bleak December day. Really, it is just a December day. Although, if we’re honest, what is December but a human construct for compartmentalizing existence? Not that Dave cares about that right now.
By Ashling Lynch Alf, on a bleak December day
Dave perceives it as a bleak December day. Really, it is just a December day. Although, if we’re honest, what is December but a human construct for compartmentalizing existence? Not that Dave cares about that right now.
By Ashling Lynch Some days pass quickly
I sit around a fire on a tarp, a wool blanket over my legs. James squishes me. Martin feeds me marshmallows. Eleven of us in a car on winding streets and I see a ring around the moon.
By Andrea Wong Summer In A Small Town
When in July Summer’s scorchèd breath sighs And college students have said their good-byes, Locals of culturally unaware towns Don short-sleeved attire and work on their frowns.
By Andrea Wong The boy as tall as a tree and the journey to the land in the middle of the sea.
I decided to have a look out of the window to see what was going on and I couldn't believe my eyes! The room that we were sat in was in the middle of the sea!
By Belle The boy as tall as a tree and the journey to the land in the middle of the sea.
I was glad we had the boy as tall as a tree with us because he said: "it's ok Belle I'll save you". All the girl said was "Belle don't be daft it its just a plastic bag".
By Belle Questions?
I bet you smile like that at everyone. I bet my absence from your life doesn't trouble you one little bit. Do you enjoy my attention or does it bug you? Do you laugh at me when I leave the room?
By Barbara Heron Turning Over a New Leaf
I'm always 'turning over new leaves' and thinking about what I learned from something and how it affected me. I think we grow a little everyday; I've always wanted to keep a routine notebook and force myself to write something I learned from that day ever
By Brittany The Pat on the Shallow Back
A cat screamed. I hoped for my little one. Knowing that he, my friend, Andy Williams and that last book I read didn't have a chance in hell of winning.
By Bob Young THE LAST NIGHT BEFORE WE FLEW TOGHETHER
I turned off the TV. The radio was better. Nights like these needed the radio. I dressed for bed, another drink and fag.
By Bob Young Strawberry Fields
He was tiny; I towered over him. I would have fancied him to be an elderly leprechaun except that when he spoke to me, he had a thick German accent. He walked up to me and said, in a very courtly manner, "Excuse me, young lady, but would you mind taking a
By Cerridwen The kitchen rug that never had a thought of flying
He talks of leaves falling from trees and lanterns hanging in front of windows
By Dimitra Daisy What days are for
The postcard is one of a painting of the sky. The poem says that days are to be happy in. It is nice - it is strong and catchy. (Now that you are gone, I can say a poem is catchy without your condescending looks or your charmed smiles.) It is written in y
By Dimitra Daisy Guess How Much I Love You
She smiled when she opened the door for him, while singing along to records, while staring out of the window, and he had just discovered he could smile down at books.
By Dimitra Daisy Guess How Much I Love You (part two)
- But you have nowhere to go anyway! You're on holiday, who cares if you get there later!!
By Dimitra Daisy The Sweetness Lies Within
And I wouldn't know anyway, as we only ever talked about records. I don't say that. We're the sort of boys that talk about things through talking about records, and he was pretty great at it.
By Dimitra Daisy Writing of you
...a southern town that summer hadn't left yet, her room, her yellow curtains, her blue sheets, falling asleep next to her with a record playing, the way she looked at the coffee maker while waiting for coffee to be ready...
By Dimitra Daisy Friends of the Heroes memories, instalment one: I get so sentimental
The simple beauty of turning a text document into a webpage. Discovering we have still have new ideas after all this time. The sheer fact that we've kept going for two years, despite everything. Despite ourselves.
By Dimitra Daisy Junk Food
The remains of a large doner with chilli sauce lies disembowelled in the market place where as a child I fell on the cobbled stones fracturing my knee and hobbling me for life.
By D J Cargill Cafe
Population eighteen hundred and forty one. A town so small it still uses angle parking with plenty of available spaces. And to my shocking disbelief, there wasn't a parking meter anywhere. How could any city, town or village survive without miserly scr
By Daniel Reid Hudson
>My friend came back and as he put two bottles of domestic beer on the table, they landed with a splash. I reminded him that I only drank Bordeaux, but he told me to shut up and drink the beer. This was no place for wine, unless it was out of a box or in
By Daniel Reid Mr. Baldwin
The mother finally makes it clear she needs someone to call her a cab. "Does anyone know the number?" floats around the line up like a plastic bag in a windstorm.
By Daniel Reid The Bird, The Bee and the Face
I have offered the bird no food nor has it ever entered the room to acquire any. In fact, it has never entered the room at all; even in the hellish weather which often follows it's sweet, ethereal song.
By Daniel Rudd
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Even though when I was a youngster I watched a lot of kids cartoons and things, all saying that Santa was great and the nice guy we all know and love, for some reason I did not buy it. And every year, even though I knew I would receive gifts, I used to th
By David Strange
Cantaloupe and Granola Day
Gram and Grandad both wear plaid polyester pants. I have never understood it. Are they more comfortable that way? Does it match their white shoes better? Does it help them play golf better?
By Emily Ann Potter
The Dreadlock Substitute
Somehow, as I have discovered, among the cosmic, extraterrestrial forces of our planet a substitute teacher with dreads is automatically "cool".
By Emily Ann Potter
I am not the moons only lover
I was delighted. I knew the wind could sing. I knew that the trees could hold an amazing harmony. But never had I known that my precious moon had such a voice.
By Emily Ann Potter
Black Beret
He reeked of familiar spices and body odor. I could not get close enough. We were both there to hear the live music. I was there to support my roommate, a singer in local coffee shops. Mr. Beret is one of her groupies.
By Emily Ann Potter Virginia's Magic Therapy Potion
Such a soul as drowned as mine in the god-kissed and the mused, draped in dreams of gemmed divine, now awakened, wet and bruised.
By Emily Ann Potter Hallelujah for You
When mortals began to exist, angels felt sorry for our indifference and graced us by allowing hallelujahs to fall to earth like a meteor shower. We curiously picked up the little bits.
Emily Ann Potter Melt Me
Someday you'll go on vacation. Someday you'll get married. You can throw all your somedays out in the street to get hit by that someday car. In such a perfect sunset, they are useless. You need a chair instead.
By Emily Ann Potter Naked Living
Listening to the river, all of a sudden clothes are nothing but a rash. All of a sudden I have more in common with the wind than with any boyfriend.
By Emily Ann Potter The Funeral
"Other boyfriends would ask me what they could do for me, and I would always say, 'Roses! I want to be surrounded by beautiful red roses!' But they wouldn't listen. They would give me a book.
By Emily Ann Potter Truth Shopping
The sun shone through the trees on the sacred area where we danced. We were a dazzling sight. A man danced with a tambourine to keep the rhythm, but we seemed to be making our own music with our blend of lights and colors.
By Emily Ann Potter A Childhood
'Then Vicky came round the corner and banged into me' We always took turns to blame each other. Now there's team work if I've ever seen it.
By Four Minute Myle Ward 5
That night I remember. I remember the sweets he kept in the cupboard behind his chair. I remember helping him plant seeds in the greenhouse. When they grow up they will go into the garden, he has the most beautiful garden. I remember everything.
By Gayle E. Anderson Excerpt from a teenage opera
That's it - if I could take all the balloons from the street balloon-sellers and set them free above the heads of the startled passers-by, I would do it with great pleasure.
By George B. Be Your Own Boss
When I get paid for a job that I've worked on from start to finish, that money feels like it's worth more than money I've earned from temping jobs where I've felt bored and utterly replaceable.
By Grainne Lynch The Light Bulb
It started as a pub conversation about boring things and what we can endure - and it became a bet - or at least a point to prove.
By Gordon McIntyre Good Housekeeping
"Dear Emily, we need you to help the people of the world come together and...yadda yadda blah blah blah..". She'd scrubbed Ronan pretty hard, but he still had the word "come" on his upper torso, and she didn't like the unpleasant connotations.
By Ian Anscombe
Visitors
Most people find it easier not to see the whole picture. The events that were transpiring below were meant to change all that. They did not, of course, but nobody knew that yet.
By Ian Anscombe
O for Orange, P for Pink
Either of these could be true. Nobody knows where they go after dark. That is their secret, and it would not do to follow them.
By Ian Anscombe Jacobs Ladder
Some, less kind, commentators say that Jacob never existed, and the whole thing was a metaphor. A way of spreading knowledge about the little white flowers, and telling a pretty story into the bargain.
By Ian Anscombe Blind Man's Bluff
It wasn't the most suitable job, for a blind man
There were so many things he could have done.... he was clever, resourceful, cute -
By Ian Anscombe The Best Looking Boys Are Taken
Such dreams. She often thought it was those that marked her out - a Strange One, the mothers said. What the kids said was less kind, but she was learning not to expect kindness from people. Or, not from these people anyway. Perhaps someone, somewhere, far
By Ian Anscombe Her web diary
But then I don't talk like I write, I write to say all those things I cannot say in real life. And maybe you do that too, maybe you are just like me.
By Ian Cowen Stay, Hit, Split
I've decided to wait three more hands and then head outside, not only to flee the casino, but also to flee Harold and Al, both of whom, riding their respective waves of probability, are heading toward a painful crash, most likely into each other.
By James Benetiz
Realisation of what was wrong - chapter 1
He took out one of his keys and into the trains plastic window he carved "Saver Returns are less than useful, they only save you £2 and you have to go back home on a set date".
By James Danson-Hatcher
The Journeyman
He shuddered involuntarily, not for the first time that afternoon, as he felt, more than saw, the great airy chasm with the sharp, jagged rocks far below.
By Jack De Vries The Quest
Anna sat at the table a latte with cinnamon syrup, pulling out the list of books she hoped to find in this town. This was research. This is what she was good at now, having answered the call by esteemed scholars.
By Matti Far From Me
it was peaceful there too, in its depths, away from the day-trippers, and it had an almost tangible air of loneliness, which suited his mood to the ground.
By Matilda Mother Love And War
"Don’t do it..." Annie touched the back of Terry’s arm. "For me, please, leave it." She could tell without looking that he wore a fierce expression, eyes trained like a hawk on the crowd at the bar. Just one word and she feared that she would
By Matti Archiving the History of Loneliness
We would feed the ducks and geese. And I would find tiny treasures buried under the sand. A toy car. A feather. A pretty leaf. A shiny stone. I would always ask questions.
By Joseph Archiving the history of the loneliness - Part 2: the Diner Monologues
Perhaps it was all the coffee and cigarettes that made me stay there in that booth until 7.30 in the morning. But I know it wasn't. It was her eyes.
By Joseph The System of Failures
Locks on your door to that bed where you carve those words into the wall. To keep you from going insane. Strangely, you find the greatest comfort in them. The soft lines glowing white in the few scattered rays of sun that somehow found their way in.
By Joseph Swansong for Mon
Across the borderlands at night they came, exhausted to the soul and dragging trails of blood behind them. The omens had not been good and the people, blank-eyed or weeping, expected bad news.
By Matilda Mother Phoenix
We sat in the park, watching the hills burn above the town, the red glow swallowing the sunset. It found a faint and disconcerting echo in the blanket spread below us on the dry and dying grass.
By Johan Hugo 100 things I'd like to tell her (if we ever meet)
5. The largest known prime number is more than 7.8 million digits long. The
By Johan Hugo Taking my breath away
You Really Saved Me There (my habit of always mentally capitalising each word you say as if it was an orcale started there. I still do it now).
By Johan Hugo Sometimes
Still we didn’t really talk – the silence was too perfect, filled as it was with the gurgling of the water and the somehow muted twittering of the birds. Sharp sounds, and fragile, so that we didn’t want to interfere at all.
By Johan Hugo Daddy buy me a pony
The clouds didn't hesitate for a second, and clubbed together behind old man sun's weary back as he hobbled off far away. Till tomorrow then? The girl was always thinking about things that way.
By JohaN Hugo Meandering
A glimpse of elegance - a character - caught for a helpless moment from a floating car, on a rainy autumn Saturday in Stellenbosch - and clutched at for the lifetime that I sense drifting away from me, today.
By Johan Hugo My Shadow
It's always like this I see her, in a crowded place, running, but no-one ever talks about it. No, it goes further, they don't admit it happens.
By Johan Hugo Blue Beret
If I could meet just one girl who wore a blue beret, somehow it would all turn out okay.
By JohaN Hugo Birds
There's a pigeon on my windowsill this morning. Dash it, the noise it makes! Early on, with the break of day, it hatched from my dreams, shattering them into brittle baby-blue spotted fragments, and free it flew.
By JohaN Hugo Impressions of Matthew (part 2)
Matthew stood there, not retreating, and - as I remember - smiling, though that might be a trick of memory. He knew what was coming though. It is the single clearest guiding image I have of what it means to be a man.
By JohaN Hugo The tale of the hero's friend
Did you ever hear the story about John and Paul just before the Beatles imploded? On late night in the studio, with the tension crushing all creative collaboration, John Lennon suddenly took off his glasses and said, "Paul, it's only me, it's only John."
Jo Harrigton The lover of cats
Cats, to me, are like closed books in a foreign language in a library far away to a blind man. It is exactly that bad. Except that they aren't far away and I'm not blind.
By JohaN Hugo Be a Hero- wear a hat
the use of a hat is both the recognition and the interpretation of one's relation to those around you - and as such requires a constant weighing-up of what goes on around you and constant attention to those around you: the hat as instrument of ethics!
ByJoHan Hugo A dying horse
No-one moves, no-one is brave - or foolish - enough to venture onto the field and try to lead the horse away, into shelter where he would be safe, where he could be treated, cared for and saved. The horse must die - we don’t want it, but it is inevitable.
By JohaN Hugo In so many words
No, of course, one night is just enough, really, for this town. In fact, most of our customers stay for one night only, did you know that? Learn something new everyday, doesn’t one though?
By JohaN Hugo Under the Mistletoe
Christmas is a complete waste of time, if you ask me (but then, I'm only 14 aren't I, so do you think anyone ever asks me anything ever? Hah, think again!).
By JohaN Hugo The shopping-mall Santa
Think - again - but what else could it have come to? Know for certain you aren’t up to this; know just as surely that it will not be so bad. Know that this too shall pass.
By JohaN Hugo The way (first) dates never go
"Personally I blame the Mexicans and their damned cacti. You must have seen him knock back the tequila?"
By Johan Hugo Noonday
The town is drowsy, asleep, the only movement the interminable flying of the birds, the straining of the trees away from the stoveplate clay towards a hotter sky, and the trembling of buildings down the silver streets and up the hill. Cicada's whine out a
By Johan Hugo Strawberry Field... Forever?
Finally the lawn was completely taken over by strawberries. No-one really knows where they had come from, but come spring - there they were!
By Johan Hugo There is no why
Sleep lifted suddenly. I think it must have been around 4 o'clock. I'm not sure.
By Johan Hugo The Mystery of Love:Sherlock Holmes and Valentine's day (Part 2)
"Love? I quite fail to see how this parcel could be related to that mystery, and even should the connection be proved upon me, wherein the mystery could reside, and even then, how it is to be solved!"
By Hugo Johan The Mystery of Love: Sherlock Holmes and Valentine's day (Part 3)
the author is probably not one to concern himself with trifles. He tends to rush over small details out of a concern for the larger picture.
By JohaN Hugo A Walk in the woods
Mostly it’s a pretty day, there’s a scintillating autumn chill in the sky that’s turning palest baby-blue and we don’t fancy being in town. So, tea in flasks, flasks in bags, bags in car and on out to the hills.
By JohaN Hugo The Federal Food Reserve
So I said, sure, I'd take it, even though at that stage I couldn't hardly boil an egg. I mean, you take a guy a like me, and if he's willing to put his mind to it, I bet he could do just 'bout anything.
By JohaN Hugo The Federal Food Reserve (part two)
By now you probably think you got me all figured out: you've listened to all these handy jobs I been doing in society and everything, and you probably think I'm more of a practical-minded man and probably not much of the thinking type, but if that's so, t
By JohaN Hugo The Wake
She is sorting through her drawers, remembering the way she had been. She strokes tenderly over soft lace and silky smooth secret things that have not felt any other fingers for too many years now.
By Johan Hugo The child is the father of the man
By the age of two, chances are you'd already taken your first steps, said your first words, perhaps even made your first friend. You'd made lots of people smile.
By Johan Hugo Red flowers
I'm not a pervert, or a stalker, like that. In fact, I hardly look at it at all. Just twice a day, briefly - when I leave in the mornings, and when I come back in the afternoon. Sometimes late at night too, if I can't sleep or I'm feeling down.
By Johan Hugo Cocoons and Caterpillars
If you were like me, then you had them too, shoe-boxes and mulberry-leaves and beetroot-leaves and little cardboard cut-outs. If your school was like mine, then everyone else had them too, once.
By Johan Hugo One step at a time
You place a music-box upon her dresser, and fringe her mirror with glittery pink stars, cover the bed in soft-toys and top it off with the hugest, softest pillow.
By Johan Hugo Best of Friends: Jack and Sarah
And no, they didn't fall in love now either, nor did they finally realize that they had been in love all along and bitterly curse the waste years. They just liked walking with wach other once again.
By Johan Hugo With fingers crossed (for F.B.)
But at the same time I know that I'll stick it out this time, as I watch my clumsy fingers flicker on the useless hand resting on the table, trembling. Somehow I will be okay after this.
By Johan Hugo The psychosis of other people
Sometimes I worry about psychosis or the onset of schizophrenia. I heard somewhere that in many cases it only appears in the late '20's, in which I still have a while to fidget nervously about it.
By Johan Hugo Fingertalk
"But something did make him stop and turn – perhaps his senses
By Johan Hugo Here I Am
At first I said I didn’t cry – that I sometimes wanted to, but couldn’t, couldn’t remember how. This wasn't quite true, but it was something more important – plausible, and you believed it.
By Johan Hugo Jesus and a Shotgun
I wake up sweating, shaking, needing dope to keep my heart from beating itself to death.
By Jonathan Sanders Sap Runs In My Veins
I never knew to be sad of the rain because that’s all there really was for me to play in, and so rain was just another playmate for me to chase through the yard, or help me build forts in the sandbox.
By James Wright The man without a face
I cry on my disfigured face/ Just as the rain drops on an ugly old place/ Only, the people living in there are not so ugly/ They are kind, loving and have faith.
By Janan Zaitoun Statistic
When my 25 year-old cousin had died in his sleep three days before my wedding, I asked my dad for an explanation I knew he didn't have. All he said was that Cherokee tears run deep.
By Kena Sosa Wishing you well
I found it this morning - a small angular thing, cool and hard, polished but not wholly smooth. It was fractured, unraveling the buttery early morning light into splintered strands of glassy rainbow as I held it between my forefinger and thumb.
By Karlien Van Der Schyff
Me And My Pillow
By 24 I had become bored of living the multi-pillow lifestyle, and I decided to settle down with just one.
By Mark Casarotto Before the Fall
I reckon he'll call me 'baby' till the day he dies, and I'm fine with that, especially when he gives me his irreverent smile and asks me if I traded my husband in for a newer model.
By Melissa S. Hill It is not good to travel alone
The central processing unit. Center of the universe. Memory flourishes and chokes here. Reality is skewn and discovered here. The mind is a holy place.
Matt Groesbeck The Voice from the Past and the White City
I am motivated by inertia. It is always easier to keep going when you have the momentum and, of course, the gasoline.
By Matt Groesburg The Great Lake Powell Escape
I didn't really have a reason to go except to momentarily break away from my own life. I had just gotten out of a relationship a few weeks before. True, I was running away from something, but I didn't know what.
By Matt Groesburg A Man In A Suit
The bus was struggling with the lascivious weight of summer sunned bodies, lackadaisical and sun bleached, sitting slumped against windows and boxed friendly by partners' shoulders, and I thought about the man in the suit.
By Mary Lou Anderson The bus smells of pee
...and as my right eye left him I saw a girl who made me laugh although I only smiled outside and did a bit of a guffaw inside and she had an orange bag, like from a shop, it was the first thing I noticed because she was swinging it so fast.
By Marylou Bus number 2
She's put on her stereo too but her left hands clutching her phone like girls do with their bags on a night out and they're pissed and...
By Marylou Bus Number 3
To be honest, I can't look at him anymore. He's not noticed though and it's been four months.
By Marylou Cayenne Pepper
It is truly nice when there is good stuff to look forward to, like the appearance of your arriving shadow against a bright and alarming background. You told me, firstly, that Iwould never believe you, but that you had honestly misplaced your home.
By Mandee Wright Juxtaposition
He knew I was scared, scared of being hooked again or losing others so he put a yellow Band-Aid over it. We had the same thing in mind.
By Mandee Wright Blue hat for a blue day
I must be the unluckiest kid in the world. I only wanted to make Helen laugh so I gave her that small piece of paper where I had written "look at her stupid hat". But Mrs. Green saw it and now I'm here sitting at my desk trying to write that stupid senten
By Nick Paschalis Athens2004 (or, jump to a different tune)
Then I saw a nice English girl wearing an English flag as a skirt. It would have made a perfect photo. I got the mobile phone out of my pocket and took a picture of her secretly. I wished I had asked her "hey can I take a picture of you?".
By Nick P Not a rose for Emily
Finally the bell rang. John was the first to get out of the
By Nick P From Athens with love
My first impression of Athens was that of a seaside town, blown out of proportions; or maybe some gardener had been taking good care of it and that's why it grew so, so much that you see it everywhere around you...
By Ola Szkudlapska Sound Turnaround
It spurred the talk of the town, and was the uber-cool topic at diner tables of sociologists and psychologists throughout India. It was an event blessed during that years lighting celebrations.
By Partha Pratim Majumder DJF
You wouldn't believe what's happened to me! The way my life has gone.
By Paul Williamson Idle thoughts on a Shiftless Saturday
I have given up trying to find my 'niche' in life. I have much in common with one person. I have a lot in common with 2 people. I have a few things in common with a few people. I have one thing in common with (according to agencies that record the intrica
By Paul Williamson The Night shift
I knew something wasn't quite right when I heard Carl in the classroom adjacent to mine arguing with his students about the present continuous
By Paul Williamson On Home
Sometimes, if I catch the sun at the right time, I see me staring back at me from the porch and remember the days when this had no porch.
By Paul Williamson Working at it
Some things just aren't supposed to work. Like Cornelius. Maybe it was the name, but fate had it that he, like things, just wasn't supposed to work. "I'm not supposed to work" he said to his mum over toasted panini with sundried tomatoes and a skinny, de
By Paul Williamson Home
Is this what happens? In this life, where what you strived for all of your life becomes a dot on the dot of a dot on the dot of a dot on a big, fat, unscrupulous, unknowing, unloving dot. Christine closed her eyes, but only for a minute. Life was a lie.
By Paul Williamson The End Game
What was it all for? Why, why, why? Where did it go? It looked to me as if it joined up with his neck-hair. They were the biggest sideburns I had ever seen. I sat transfixed. For the first time in my life, I had an overwhelming urge to undo another mans s
By Paul Williamson On Age
It occurs to me that I’m old. Older. No. Old, old, old. I don’t mind as much. In fact I don’t mind at all, were it not for the three stray white hairs protruding from the side of my left temple that, to all intents and purposes, look like they belong on a
By Paul Williamson Absolutes are deceptive
A turtle, Velka Odmonorov thought, or a terrapin. Or a frog. He looks like a frog, with those eyes and those rubbery lips. A frog in a badly fitted yet expensive suit. Probably worth a fortune. Head of some multi-national or other. Yes. Definitely. One da
By Paul Williamson What The Pillar Of Salt Held Up
I'm told by my mother (who's a kind of nurse) that she was told by people in white coats (who are kind of doctors) that if the clot had moved or built up anymore then I would have been dead.
By Paul Williamson Winning Battles, Losing Wars
He got up, walked over to the window, and saw the moon sink low, sillouhetting the battlefield and the wars between the sexes.
By Paul Williamson Chance
Then something within himself changed. He didn't find God or anything remotely close to that, but he did find a way of living through the hell he felt day in, day out.
By Paul Williamson Calluna Vulgaris
You would make sure she didn't see you, winking at Niall as you crept up behind her and grabbed her around her waist, flinging her up in the air, her excitable shrill echoing through the drowsy amber sky.
By Paul Williamson The Years
But we can't stay kids forever. One by one begins the exodus from the home; some, fuelled by love, to make homes of their own; others, fuelled by inherent possibilities of prose, of sound and vision, to view the whole world as their home and to duly wande
By Paul Williamson The Years (part two)
You can only do so much for people. It doesn't matter who they are. If they can't help themselves, if they don't want to help themselves, then you may as well watch the sun come up and let them figure it out for themselves
By Paul Williamson Shaking Hands
"Let me take that for you, love" he'd said. "But you don't know where I'm going" she'd replied with that glimmer of a smile, a chance, that these days crushed him. "Ah, we'll find it" he'd grinned.
By Paul Williamson Home is Where the Heart is
... they can take all that because tonight he is falling through your window on a nondescript February evening in a nondescript nothern town and he is telling you that he loves you.
By Paul Williamson Lessons In Love
I should have known. I should have known after she signed off the first e-mail she ever sent me with the words ALL MY LOVE ALWAYS (yes, the capitals were her emphasis, not mine.
By Paul Williamson And for my next trick
Money didn't bore her but what you could buy with money invariably did. In the end anyway. Boredom. That's what it was.
By Paul Williamson Notes From a Man on the Production Line
That's it! I've quit the job! The ecstasy of my burden being removed. The weight off my shoulders is almost physical. I'm drained of it all. Now, to know that one can concentrate his life on doing what he wants to do is the most fortunate and precious fee
By Paul Williamson The Sea
...sometimes I would turn to her and make to speak but she would be sleeping and there was nothing nearer to heaven than the sight of her sleeping, so I would smile and leave her to it.
By Paul Williamson 'Momento Mori'
There is always a way of undoing all of the calamity in the same way that the fool has undone all of the good in life, all of the life, all of his life. It's just a question of the revealing, and if this tale ends abruptly then what then what then what?
By Paul Williamson Tales from the Front Line - Part 4
The second half became a dizzy salvo of ‘whiskey nowt in it’ as Bob and I hurtled into the past-caring stage of inebriation. There’s a point between, let’s say, your third and your sixth drink, when the sober realms of logic and common sense remain like t
By Paul Williamson 'The Honourable Profession'
Professional football was deformed at birth. The game was never honourable, never decent, never rational or just.
By Paul Williamson Doused
He felt an inward surge of conceit, pride at still being able to fit into said blazer (vanity ought not to be the preserve of the young, he thought) after, what, thirty-three years?
By Paul Williamson Thank You, Baby
Gary and Carmichael surveyed the wreckage of last night. A leather boot still wedged itself amidst the shattered glass of the coffee table. nother leather boot sat at an angle on top of the television, with a bouquet of carnations hanging out of the top o
By Paul williamson Walking
The end of the day was best. Buoyed by life and our ascent into the hills, we'd collapse into each other on the sofa, slurp on ice cold beers and laugh at Fools and Horses re-runs. Life made sense then.
By Paul Williamson Gravity
Alas, Kieran is Kieran, and they didn't quite see the funny side when he stood on their toes, breathed meths in their face, and whispered "Tai-chi make you feel no pain, bitch-boy."
By Paul Williamson Revolving doors
On Thursday she told me that my brother was pregnant and that my cousin, who actually is pregnant, was six MONTHS overdue. She then accused another cousin who, having contrived to marry a solicitor and, as such, wasn't short of a few bob, of stealing off
By Paul Williamson Time on our Hands
There's plenty more fish in the sea, Mike. Dozens of beautiful women that do not desire to be covered in urine.
By Paul Williamson For Someone That Knows It
Once, we had high hopes- Once, we had such very high hopes.
By Paul Williamson The mechanism of the push bike
I don't know how many times I crashed my bike but, at a push, I'd say seven or eight. I maimed startled pedestrians, fell headlong into piles of bin bags, head first into steel bins, smelt the abyss and just kept on pedalling, scraping the sides of parked
By Paul Williamson The Not-Knowing
Whatever the reason, one thing seems clear to me; so-called 'ordinary' members of Japanese society would rather the problem didn't exist, and their way of dealing with it is to pretend that the problem doesn't exist.
By Paul Williamson Ancient Rituals and Belly Flops: Welcome to the World Of Sport
British wrestlers - with a few exceptions - lacked the flair and athletic energy of their American counterparts. However, they created a pantomime-style world filled with bizarre characters who captivated the grandmothers who traditionally sat in the aud
By Paul Williamson Waiting
God may well be waiting for you in the next life, son, but here on this earth, the daily process of living is something you have to come to terms with yourself. Somehow.
By Paul Williamson Inebriation
Everything is perfect, here, in our bubble, our own wayward path to
By Paul Williamson Equations
You had spent the day doing what? Watching time pass you by, first in dribs and drabs and then, the drink setting like the setting sun, time became the enemy, the tsunami.
By Paul Williamson Mystic Dick The Barmy Salami
He was always cast as a sheep in the Christmas nativity play and always messed up his lines by grunting instead of the making the customary bleating noise (sometimes you can't help going back to your roots)
By Ricky MacFarlane Mystic Dick The Barmy Salami : We Found...
The sun is heading straight for Uranus and man is it going to hurt. My advise to you is to stay in and prepare get a big bag of ice and one of them rubber ring's to sit on and don't be surprised if you walk funny for a few days afterwards... try to look o
By Ricky MacFarlane White Trash Christmas
He told me to go and wake up Ma, Pappy, Jolene, Zeke, the twins, uncle Jeff and little Joey and bring them all into the main room. When we was all there he announced that he had a great night's hunting and we was going to have a humdinger of a shin dig.
By Ricky Macfarlane The End
Hmm ok. Well in that case are you sure Felicity just went straight home?
By Rachel Queen The Climb
Emily Harris was not the kind of girl who complained, she was not even the kind of girl who normally got angry about things, but today she was fuming.
By Rachel Queen Awkward customers
Ten days later and the complaint from MR X came into head office. "Why the hell did a journey from Birmingham to Southend which should take me just over 3 hours take me 8? And why was I sent via Manchester?"
By Rachel Queen Life Is Always
I try to imagine all the people the stars can see at that very moment, and I start to think about all the other worlds that they may be visible from. And I start wonder about life. I start to wonder about my life.
By Rachel Queen Niggles
It is one of those argumentative days today. One of those heavy, humid grey days. The kind of day which turns your shoulders to lead and the whole world niggles at each other.
By Rachel Queen Tiny Airborne Enemies
I awoke 20 minutes before my alarm clock was due to go off with a sneeze, and instantly wished that I hadn't; woken up, that is. The sneeze was a sort of ok as sneezes go.
By Rachel Queen This Place Is Famous
I looked out of the window at the shabby grey street and wondered whether film stars really came here. I didn't think I would if I was a film star.
By Rachel Queen Preston Station
And I found myself awash with tiredness swimming through a sea of angry, crazy cold, unhappy people. My teeth were chattering my hands were blue and air was coming out of my face in soft smoky clouds.
By Rachel Queen And through the darkness I thought of you
It was too dark to call you. To call anybody so I lay in bed thinking and listening. Listening to the hollow empty darkness, restless and alone. I lay within a cocoon. I thought of you.
By Rachel Queen Everyone has a secret
Valerie leaned forward and tapped Martin on the shoulder. "Excuse me gentlemen, you may not have noticed but there are children present on this bus. You may like to watch your language." The bus fell silent. People leaned forward in their seats.
By Rachel Queen There are worse things than being alone
"There are worse things than being alone" I thought as a ran through the cold dark street dodging the drunk the drugged and the dangerous.
By Rachel Queen Crosswords
He could still remember the day that their first computer had arrived in the office. It was 1989 and for a magical 10 minutes he had truly believed that his life was about to get easier.
By Rachel Queen Fading away
And from the day before, and the day before... She felt like a bad photocopy of herself from two years ago - crackled and blurred around the edges.
By Rachel Queen Elsa
As she slept she dreamt and as she dreamt she remembered. She remembered the elusive dream that had broken her heart.
By Rachel Queen Still searching
I thought about everything that you had said to me. I thought about how I'd watched you when you weren't looking and I thought about your smile and your laugh. And my throat tightened and my stomach turned over and I didn't know whether to be happy becaus
By Rachel Queen The Start of the Year
You'll forgive our surprise. Darren wears jeans to christenings, seems to believe that football shirts convey a sense of style and has been wearing the same shapeless faded grey jacket over the top of everything he has worn for the last decade. Century. M
By Rachel Queen Squashed Sandwichs & Warm Beer
So, I'm sitting on a train packed full of people "rallying round". Snow sits on the ground and the train being the sensitive type is feeling unwell and does not wish to move just now.
By Rachel Queen The White Car
The car was parked directly opposite ours. It didn't seem like an accident anymore. We walked all around looking for clues, but there were none so we decided to sit and wait until the owners returned.
By Rachel Queen The Giants
Tom felt like a giant. Yesterday he had learnt how to tie his own shoes, and today he had stopped a whole row of cars with a touch of a button. The green man shone brightly and he strode slowly across the road, swinging his school bag to and fro.
By Rachel Queen One star, one girl, one night
Chances are that if you have ever stood under an umbrella of stars breathing in clean dark night you will have glanced upon Talitha for a moment or maybe two, but I doubt you even gave it a second thought.
By Rachel Queen Where am I?
I don't understand. I don't understand all the wars, the killings, all the cruelty or the pain and suffering. I don't understand how I could read about things that I didn't even know about, or invent places that don't even exist.
By Rachel Queen A hole in the heart
"How is my life better knowing that he existed in this world and now he is gone forever?" She would ask herself, all the while, looking and hoping, and preying that she maybe it had hadn't really happened and maybe she would bump into him again someday.
By Rachel Queen Secrets
The hardest thing of all is not being able to tell you. That is the hardest thing of all. Well that and the pain and the regret and the endless sleepless nights.
By Rachel Queen Third Time Lucky
"I think I had a dream about you the other night. We were walking through a wood by a stream. Barely even looking at each other. You were telling me about an idea you had for a song about a guy who falls in love with twins..."
By Rachel Queen A soggy, muddy, spaghetti adventure
As we headed to the familiar stream near our house we pretended that we were trekking into the wilds of a tropical rainforest. Lost in our fantasy, and undeterred my the fact we could see the white lion pub if we turned to the right
By Rachel Queen Why are love stories only about falling in love?
I said to her 'ahhh come on! Ok you want mystery! but you can’t spend you life with reactionary bastards! When some when opens their heart to you that's a great thing you know?'
By Rachel Queen A Real Diamond...
Picture this: an isolated road in the middle of the Yorkshire countryside, a seagull circling the dark purple sky, glowing with life in an almost deserted part of the country. I say almost because stood by the side if the road are three hitchhikers.
By Rachel Queen The case of the missing smile
The girl had studied this couple on more than one occasion. She had spotted them last week in the local supermarket buying a loaf of bread, some rich tea biscuits and 3 bananas.
By Rachel Queen Walking In The Silence
That is beside the point. I am telling you about falling in love. I fell in love with a tall man with dark green eyes which smiled when he talked. His nose was very straight. (You notice these things when you fall in love.)
By Rachel Queen The Stolen Day
Or maybe they weren't quite turning yellow yet. Maybe we just imagined it because autumn was your favourite time of year and you had told me you wanted to share it with me.
By Rachel Queen And the cars drove too fast...
Things did not happen like this on the 4th of November 2004. Instead at the very moment that Mrs Gibson passed Mr Richardson, and Stephanie stood waiting to cross the road, and Simon remerged from the newsagents, things changed with a bang.
By Rachel The Plan
You were going to do the talking, because I can't talk without stuttering when I'm nervous, and because you are such a charmer. I was going to do…well I was going to do the rest.
By Rachel Queen Never Judge a Book By Its Cover
Edward works at a small firm of accountants in the City. Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm he sits bolt upright at his desk which is bare of clutter and focuses his eyes on his work. He rarely listens to the office gossip let alone shares any.
By Rachel Queen The day the lights changed
"If I had the choice between never seeing you again, or marrying you, I'd marry you in an instant."
By Rachel Queen A long cup of coffee
I looked at him hoping he would help me out but he remained silent. We brought our coffee into the living room where sunlight streamed through the window making the room look tidier than normal somehow and sat down.
By Rachel Queen Seven Minutes from
Her eyes burnt into the back of his neck with an exhilarating intensity. The blast of air as he opened the door struck him right between the eyes. He blinked turned left and started to walk.
By Rachel Queen Disco at The Asylum
Eric the charge-nurse came up to us. Dark-haired and tatooed with short-sleeved white tunic. Ex-Navy. “Hello, boys and girls…” he drawled in pure Alex Harvey Glaswegian.
By Simon James Summer Nights in April and Queen Jane
There’s war on the radio and, no, it’s spring, and now I remember reading about tulips and flu and Iraq-was it on the same page? or the same newspaper, perhaps.
By Sonia Luthold The adventures of wak, as told by Robert the Useless
"It is good that you have a job" said wak. "Because you will need a job if you are going to buy food for me".
By Sonia Luthold The adventures of Wak, part two: Wak On Rain
<<that is why it rains>>, said wak. <<you must think about all the things you have lost. without that, they would never become a part of you. >>
Sonia Luthold It hurts, it hurts, it hurts
...having nothing much to do, explore the ceiling. It doesn’t really matter where you are or where you’ll be. It doesn’t. And the half tone of grey or white of the ceiling you will be looking at tomorrow, for there will be spiders on the corner.
By Stefano Santabarbara Sleeping Alone
The first day, the first night, was easy. You were still locked in me, and we held the world at bay, all bouncing bombs and baritones and did you see me dance with my shirt off and holler into the setting sun and recall the days we crafted turning sewage
By Tom Bickell One in Two
You crawl into your sainted pit on a fragile Friday, pumelled into a three quarter submission, and all you can think about is the one in two and the Simpsons on TV and the stuffed crust homebaked pizza that is four and a half years old.
By Tom Bickell Aftermath
He doesn't need to say a thing and neither do you. Sometimes silence is the right thing to say and he always seems to say it at the right time.
By Tom Bickell Something Close To It
You smile at the memories, the good ones, caught in the light like the room that day, close your eyes, close your eyes, let them ooze into you, like bike rides to beaches and nights under canvas, daft on cheap vodka and no one can touch you, just you and
Tom Bickell The Boat
By the river you could see a model sailing boat, motionless. Who did it belong to? You? It didn’t look like it belonged to anybody. Maybe all parks and rivers had these boats for children to play with.
By Tom Bickell The Birthday
Where did all the time go? Buried again, this time under layers and layers of Christmas cake and birthday cards, Sundays and holidays, the days inbetween filled with turning sheets of metal into bicycle frames.
By Tom Bickell Swimming
I meandered my way along the deserted road, watching streetlights flicker off and on, off and on, from clear to amber to clear again, unsure, indecisive, not yet sure if the new day had begun.
By Tom Bickell War is over
You can feel him tight in the sheets beside you, 4am, Christmas morning, and you bolt-upright, wide-awake as you always are on this one day out of three hundred and sixty five.
By Tom Bickel Shelters
But isn't this what you always wanted? No ties, the total freedom, the liberty and autonomy to do as you please?
By Tom Bickell The See Word
You first caught my eye when you refused to move for the bullies. You stood on the corner, fists clenched through fear or exhilaration, and, when they asked you to get out of their way, you looked them square in the eye, and simply said "no."
By Tom Bickell Potential
I am twenty-eight years old and nothing much has changed since the doctor hacked at the umbilical cord and told me, "here, here is your world."
By Tom Bickell Telephones
I tried to call you but I didn't. I trawled along stairways, walkways, and the like, daft on rye whiskey and falling into everything...
By Tom Bickell Chasers
You can turn around, put your shoes back on, open the door with the same stealth that you showed when you first entered, crawl back down the stairs, and pretend none of this happened.
By Tom Bickell The eyes
...and so I say to her "why do you like me?" and she says "you have soul and living life", and I think I get what she means, and I think back to Clapham and Golders Green and no one there ever told me I have soul and living life.
By Tom Bickell Boxes
We had twenty-four boxes in all. One for each year of our lives. One day I joked to you that I wanted to collect one hundred boxes. I wasn't joking.
By Tom Bickell Turning corners
Petra comes over and asks me if I'm ok, that I have been staring at the river a lot tonight, and I tell her I'm fine, just fascinated by reflections, by its colours and by its tones.
By Tom Bickel How To Fight Loneliness
The sun twists and pulls and makes shadows on the pavement. Dew sticks to the grass, hinting at purity, a purity long gone from this bitter soul
By Tom Bickell Captains Orders
I cannot move. Every time I begin to manoeuvre my limbs, there comes this insufferable pain in my stomach; like a million and one of the Kings devoted footmen have twisted burning bayonets into the pit of my stomach.
By Tom Bickell Dreaming
"He told me I was the best thing for you. It meant the world to me."
By Tom Bickell First Blood
She's a good person, a good woman, and she can do much better than me and what I am, for I am nothing and she says I'm no nothing I'm beautiful and funny and kind and I say you don't even know me...
By Tom Bickell Mother of three
"...You move people with your words, you write through your heart." It all made me think. Wouldn’t it be great to earn a living being able to do what you love to do!
By Tanya Tidmore
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