“Get your head down and try and sleep.”
“Have you ever murdered anyone?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll not be able to appreciate how difficult it is to ‘Get your head down’.
He left the room and shut the door nodding as he walked along the corridor.
“Fair point!”
The rapids collided with rocks in the water and the moss was warm. The logs formed a nest in the river and a piece of bark rushed by. From the treetops the sharp vision of the falcon saw the ant which carried a pine needle, the inside of a falling cone and the white paws of a wood mouse. Three moments later the falcon sailed home with the prey, in the evening sun.
“Now that I’ve got you here, would you…” A stick crunched under my feet. “Would you mind giving me an answer?”
I was fifteen, it was April and the summer had started early. My mother gave me ten pounds to run to the parade of shops at the bottom of the Oldpark Road to buy two steaks and some mince to fry into burgers for the dog’s dinner. Dragging myself away from the television I threw on my trainers, laced up, pocketed the banknote and walked down to the bottom of The Bone. I passed many people, they all knew me. I said hello to them all before suddenly someone was calling my name from outside the Suicide Inn.
Continue reading “The Greatest Cock that Ever Lived by David Louden”
I had an artist friend, described creativity as a need to get back to the point of origin; tie up loose ends. He lived with a woman hooked on heroin. She despised me without knowing who I was, described me as the type of man she detested. In slack moments she’d smile.
“I see you now. You can’t hide.”
I would like to get a few things off my chest. I have been asked so many times why I do this. Most of the twats have some knowledge and will always use the healing argument. Well, I am about to explain. No-one else, only me. If you want to know about anyone else, ask them. I would say that your training days have put you close but not quite right. I hurt myself to experience controlled pain. Have you ever hit a wall after you have stubbed your toe? It is something like that. I can’t suffer the pain that is in my head but I can handle the cuts and blood from my arm. Maybe you are right, it does give me release from the problem for a few minutes or hours depending on how ragged the cut is. But please don’t insult me by saying if I watch the wound heal, I am envisaging myself healing, that is a pile of crap. My pain doesn’t go! So no amount of crusty scabs are going to make me feel any better.
Continue reading “Suicide – My Note, My Plan by Hugh Cron Adult Content”
Midas Brown stands at the door of his shack and spits into the rain. When the storm broke an hour ago removing the oppressive heat of the day Midas was a happy man. Now, on reflection, as he scratches his sunken belly and listens to the water drumming against the iron overhang, he would gladly take the early evening sauna over this big shitty noise.
He digs around the cracked remains of a lateral incisor, works a sliver of tobacco loose and spits again. He knows the storm outside will pass soon enough.
He is less sure about the storm within.
They were running everywhere, the children. There was this confident little girl running around, Judith, the one who’s name we wish we’d have thought of before Jennifer was born. She ran around within that, wearing this little pink polka dot dress. It was the kind of thing that if Patricia were here she’d talk about how she wishes she’d have been able to give it to Jennifer for Christmas and talk about how it would have suited ‘ours more’. Patricia wasn’t here today, she couldn’t be. The agency was taking off and at least one of us had to be there to man the phones and those phones had been ringing lately. It was finally working. That dream we’d had was getting there and was breaking the wall that had stopped it for the last five years. But she’d have been jealous of that kid of all things.
Monday – Shopping.
Tom knew Steve and Carol well. They were residents where he worked. They both relied on certain chemicals to function. In fact they relied on any chemicals to function. They were rattling big time. He gave them a nod as he headed into the pound shop. They called him back. There was no way that he was going to give them any money. They surprised him by not chancing it. They shot the breeze for a few minutes and then asked what Tom was buying. He told them he was looking for note-pads. Carol whispered in his ear that if he wanted, they would lift them and only charge him half-price.
Continue reading “Seven Days … A Bag Week by Hugh Cron – Adult Content”
Sylvie looked down at the dishes. In the slightly greasy water her fingers disappeared under the foam. The light sparkled and popped as tiny globes exploded and infinitesimal rainbows vanished in the blink of an eye.
She had always loved bubbles, the luxurious bath type ones that wrapped you in a quilt of scented foam. The ones children, and sometimes Sylvie herself, made blowing through a plastic ring, and the sort that floated out of wonderful bubble machines. Of all the things she wished she had, and there were many, a bubble machine came pretty high on the list.
There’s a temperature – not too warm, not too cold, just right – where I am caught for hours. Thousands of tiny water drops form like islands in an ocean upon the inner wall of the shower stall. Streams run down, connecting the islands and growing bigger to eventually drop to the puddle at my feet. As the water hits my forehead, eyelids and cheeks a comfort settles, knowing no matter how long I stand here, the water won’t stop. Sooner or later all of the thousand islands will be connected and new ones will form. The streams reaching my feet will not stop streaming and the flow will keep wrinkling my hands. I lean left and the shower hits my shoulder creating a waterfall.
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