Margaret Dawson had sold linens at Macy’s for fifteen years, hating every day of it, every customer she served, and every other sales clerk, when she met her husband, Donald, a kind-hearted Manhattan policeman who patrolled West Harlem.
Marriage did not change her discontent and the birth of a premature and severely disabled baby named Bertie brought her to a simmering rage.
Matty wasn’t a very good friend. We’d sit up late and watch these old movies in black and white and sometimes all-new colour and even though I sat right in front of him, he’d throw popcorn and pillows at my head and the feathers would fly everywhere. My mother couldn’t deal with the mess and I always took the blame for him.
I’ve been in the park, lunchtime I went to sit in the sunshine. It was nice. I was on my own as usual and today I just had an apple. It was small, red on one side, green on the other and there was a small bruise near the bottom. I hadn’t brought sandwiches today. Partly because I was late up and didn’t have much time but mostly because I only had chicken roll in the fridge.
The gulls cry. The waves and the winds of mid-July rinse the sand as I lie on the beach stretching my fingers, reaching and touching white foam. It recoils just as my fingertips graze it. Back into the ocean. The gulls cry and the lighthouse flashes, calling home. The sky is empty yet filled with everything. The salt and the sand polish stones as smooth as my memory of the touch of her cheeks.
Inspector Steven Young looked around the incident room. The pictures of eleven male children stared back at him. He felt so much remorse. He blamed himself for ten of their deaths. If only he had caught him after the first.
Continue reading “Reasons Don’t Matter By Hugh Cron – Adult Content”
”You see this meadow, boy? It was a swamp before we moved here. One of the conditions for buying the mansion and the adjoining land was that I paid to have it fixed and also the beach. You enjoy the beach, right boy? The restoration of the pier as well. How do the villagers repay us? They let their dogs shit on the meadow. They shit on the meadow, boy. They want me to pick it up… Look out the window! There’s Andersson with his ugly daughter.” Erik stopped and rolled down the car window. “HEY! Andersson! Pick up after your shitty daughter’s shitty dog! Or I will empty my septic tank all over your ugly house. I’d do you that favour. The shit glaze would probably raise the property value.”
Continue reading “The Village by Tobias Haglund – Adult content”
When she left home Briony hadn’t meant to leave so – well, quite so permanently. She went to the shop to buy a cabbage. A medium sized drumhead was what she had in mind, although in fairness there was an option for cauliflower. Dinner was beef, already in the cooker, rich and redolent, herby and delicious. Beef, Beef in beer for Dick and to go with it mashed potatoes and cabbage. His favourite.
Continue reading “Just Going for a Cabbage by Diane M Dickson”
“Of course you can talk to him, off you go.”
“Thanks daddy!”
I watch as Daniel sprints away. Head down. Arms pumping. Balance ready to fail him at any given moment. Adrenaline fires my heart as he skids on a pine cone at pitch-forward-and-split-head distance from the wooden bench. I breathe again as he thrusts his hands forward and climbs laughing onto the seat and gives the old man a hug who, in return, as usual, pats my son’s head and continues to stare at the trees lining the park.
“I got a book from the library today it’s about a dog and Charlie wanted it but I got it first and gave it to my teacher and…”
Life: what is it all about?
I’d left for the party minimally drunk and maximally desolate. Eva and I had argued earlier. “Laurie,” she’d said truculently, “why don’t you want to go? Who stays in on New Year’s Eve? Jenny and Pete are our oldest friends. But maybe you have your own reasons?”
-Go on! A minute of rest is a minute lost in the Garden of Eden. Legs, listen to me. You will stop cramping and raise my body of burden another step. One more. That’s it.
I know. The air is drier, lesser than I thought. I have not given you sufficient energy to climb another cliff. If I could I would have banished my thought process and saved you some energy. It has done me no good, only fueled me with doubts. I remember praising the hour when the sun set. ‘To be rid of the burning sun,’ I said, ‘is all I can ask for.’ The heat cost us my water and I was already conserving my supplies.
Continue reading “The Valley of the Shadow of Death by Tobias Haglund”
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