Breaking the Seal
As Provost, I found myself in that agreeable position rare of antiquarian scholars in that my summer was unplanned. I (in those days of my earthbound hubris, a Prospero of the sciences man can measure) decided on the Purbecks, perhaps playing the links of Swyre Head. Rambles along the Suffolk beaches had lately bored me and I longed for the …
Beachcomber
Old Tom, hunched over in a seafront shelter of baby blue wood and stippled white concrete, stared over the salty flats. An ancient beachcomber, familiar, picks over the graph of flotsam hurled onto the dirty sand by a long-forgotten storm. In his solitude, Tom wonders; if I disappeared, would anyone miss me? A seagull offers a squeeee of mourning by …
Dead on Seven
Dead on seven o’clock, the curtains to the theatre rise. The orchestra’s bows await their cue in pregnant stillness. Marek Parell awaits his own, fixed under a simple spotlight. He’s not moved an inch, yet already grateful applause rolls over the footlights like loving surf. His first solo performance, and all he can think about is her: the smell of …
The Release of Wonderful Things
Yes, I remember Luxor… Not the Luxor of limestone cliffs baked almost to glass, where summer nights are filled with the occasional crack! as heat escapes from stones into darkness; nor dry river-bottom throats leading to tombs of the cursed; not the Luxor where the restless, linen-wrapped hollow their mouths, sighing in their eternal sleep, and turn over for another …
Return of the Women
Olenus waited as patient as time. Up and down the November beach was barren save for the stacks of mossy rocks. They weren’t much in the way of company – not even he could offer that, either – so he waited for the return of the women with those men already here, in sentinel silence. Would she ever return? Had …
Suffer the Children
Pigger pulled on his clothes like a zombie. These days he didn’t care what he wore; not since Ne—, not since the accident. That day, he’d walked through the chill five o’clock darkness to the abyssal yawn of Ollerenshaw’s No.8 as Chalky wittered on about Beeching’s Axe. Pigger didn’t care; he was more occupied trying to locate that wet rumble …
Embrace the liminal…
Welcome, sleeping wanderer, to the peculiar seasons of the liminal spaces. Here you’ll find the things that fall between the cracks; too small to see, too indefinite to measure. The stories you’ll find here may be your final gleaming, my thoughts written from dark daydreaming, whether they be random musings or flash fiction I’ve put together over the years.You’ll find …
Blog
On the Absence of Usual Stimuli What an incredible time to be a writer. Since lockdown began I’ve seen three close friends’ output ramp up massively.I don’t think that’s because of the increase in spare time we’re now allegedly enjoying – I know I’m working more (for less!) as we/the institutions I work with struggle to evolve to online delivery; …
About
My first published work is the story ‘Jumbled-up Jack’ in The Haunting of Lake Manor Hotel (Woodbridge Press, 2016) anthology (See Cemetery Dance review here). Since then I’ve had several flash fiction pieces published by Haringey Unchained, some of which are included here. My first long-form, Victorian horror novel The Pegge and the Pendrel is finished and looking for a …