Author: admin

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Appreciation

Slowly but surely the train lurches to a halt. Hugo finishes his pastry. There are sounds of shouting outside and he wipes some of the condensation from the window with his thick glove. He can just make out vague, directionless flashes of light in the dark, against the banks of snow.

He looks across at the girl, and sees her eyes. Her pupils are huge. Her brow is wrinkled and shiny. She holds his eye contact so tightly that he cannot, for a moment or two, let go.

There are voices coming along the corridor, indistinct initially and growing in volume as they proceed towards them. For a second or two, Hugo cannot forgo a look as they approach and yet when he looks back, she is still looking right at him.

Imperceptibly, he nods. No-one else in the compartment notices, for it was such a small nod. Yet the girl sees it and just as subtly returns the tiny movement back to him. Continue reading →

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Eliza and James

It had started in the boardroom and spread to the shopfloor.

Safe in her sanctuary, Eliza wound the strand of hair wound her finger once again. And looked up.

“You promised that wouldn’t happen again.”

“I didn’t know the others were feeling like that.” James replied, taking a seat.

“Don’t even think of sitting down. You have things to sort out.”

He shot out of his seat. Continue reading →

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Cherry Lips

The vacant dance floor is echoing to the music. I’m watching carefully, but there’s no sign of her. Steady on, there’s plenty of time.

I have a clear and casual view to the doors, without looking desperate. Cool is the place to be, for us all.

My nose wrinkles at the heavy, sweet smell of the floor wax and the reflections of the disco lights show that someone has been busy during the afternoon.

I sip my coke more often than I need to. I’m tempted to bravely suck the lemon as I would at home, but perhaps not, I decide. I see another small group of excited faces laughing as they come in.

Still no sign of her.

“Should be some talent in tonight, you reckon?” Billy says to me, interrupting my thoughts. “Some little crackers.”

“Yea. Sure. Of course,” I’m irritated at his trivia, for I’m on a right old mission. Tonight’s the night for Gemma.

“…Calling out around the world
Are you ready for a brand new beat…” Continue reading →

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August

August brought the rain, unexpectedly after the searing heat of July. A heat that was as exhausting for its intensity as it was for its consistency.

The locals had something else to bitch about now. Far from the cooling relief, they complained about it raining ‘again’, fickle as they always were.

As she walked home, Simone had more to think about than the ups and downs of the weather, for August brought her crisis fully into focus. This was the month she’d had ringed in her calendar all year.

The month when it would finally come to an end. Continue reading →

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57 Years Ago…

“How are you feeling now?” she said, as she sat on the bed beside him, soothing his head with a cool flannel.

“Not very well, Mummy.” He shifted around, uncomfortable in his sweaty pyjamas.

“What can I get you for your dinner?” she knew she had to get some food inside him. ‘Feed a cold, starve a fever.’ She remembered what her mother had told her.

“I don’t want anything. I’m NOT hungry.” Was ALL he said.

“You’ll have to have something. Build you up.” she got up and straightened her pinafore.

“That soup.” He shouted after her, as she disappeared into the kitchen.

He would eat something, for the first time in days. So she allowed herself a smile as she reached for the tin from the cupboard.

She knew that he would eat this, his favourite. The chip pan was already bubbling away and they would be ready soon.

“Would you like a few chips in it as well?” She didn’t wait for his affirmation, for she knew he would. She smiled again. Continue reading →

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The Drowning

He was white as he lay there. As white as he had ever been in his life, which was now as ebbed away as a life could be.

The small crowd that had formed was starting to drift away. Nothing more to be seen here.

For nothing was going to happen now, as the paramedics began to wrap up their gear and load the body onto the collapsible gurney one of them had fetched from the ambulance. Continue reading →

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Singing the Breeze

The song came clearly on the breeze. That soft breeze you get in the tropics that brushes away the heat and humidity just enough.

You can hear it now, pitifully meandering up and down the scale as though it’s lost something and struggles to find it.

And you are taken away, to another time, in another place, where you heard it before. You were much younger then and you knew then, you would come to this.

A lonely beach, across the seas, so in the love that the song describes. Undulating and intense. Lost, yet found.

And you cry again.

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Story a Day Thirty One – Emily

Slowly, the earth moved and as it did, Emily flinched slightly. It was only the slightest of movements, but a twitch of her eyebrow and the tiniest of tremblings at one side of the mouth was visible.

She had been waiting for that movement for several hours already, yet even when it came, and despite her having tensed most of the movable parts of her body for much of that time, she still could not help be a little surprised.

Even though it was closer now, she resisted the temptation to run, despite her fear of what might happen. Her tender age and all that she had been through in her moderately short life, had prepared her for this. Continue reading →

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Story a Day Thirty – Arthur Stephenson

The Finnair flight was a little late as it went into final approach. As was their almost unique style for an airline, one of the crew switched off the inflight entertainment to the camera in the nose.

Whilst the medium haul from Helsinki had made up some time for their late departure (“Due to the late arrival of the inbound aircraft” – the oft-heard excuse for final flights at the end of the day in almost any airport around the world), they were still landing into the setting sun. Continue reading →