It was the moment of pure silence before we would set the forest on its ear with the roar of our chain saws. The deep woods that morning glistened with long tracts of snowy and scary silence, now and then broken by the creaking of a frozen limb swearing it would fall to earth. At best that fall would be a minor distortion, a minor distraction. Yet again, that creak sounded like a baby in the night, or a wailing or a keening, or, at an odder moment, like a voice given to what has no voice. At attention we stood, my friend Eddie LeBlanc and I, some twenty yards apart, some huge oaks apart, their ugly and monstrous arms clawing at early daylight.
Continue reading “It’s All in the Maul by Tom Sheehan”Tag: free reading
Literally Reruns – What Would Breslin Have Thought by Adam Kluger
Leila was seen on the battlements at midnight. We tried to tempt her down for food but no – Instead she handed over this piece by a quirky and interesting author who turns out fascinating little slice of life stories. This is what she said:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – What Would Breslin Have Thought by Adam Kluger”Week 306 – Heed The Guidelines, Tarzan And June And I Nearly Forgot About Tin Machine!

And now we are at Week 306.
Before we start I need to tell you that we’re still being inundated by those who insist on telling us that they are one of those ‘ThemTheys’ or ‘TheysThem’ and we are sick of it. I really could go off on a rant but let’s just say that the voice of reason, Diane, censored me and stopped me calling those who insist on telling us that they are a ThemTheys or ‘TheysThem’ a name that is associated with rhyming slang and an actor who did a coffee advert.
Continue reading “Week 306 – Heed The Guidelines, Tarzan And June And I Nearly Forgot About Tin Machine!”Last Word by Nathan S Jones
The last words she ever said.
I just wanted to know what they were. Call it a compulsion, a thought that nagged at me like a hot plate of my wife’s lasagna when I’d spent the day not eating.
My aunt had passed away. She was the last remnant of my father’s side of the family. My dad died of cancer at the age of 47 when I was eleven. My aunt had just died at the age of 86 (my dad would have been 85), and I really wanted to know the last thing she said.
Jack’s Back by David Thomas Peacock
I’d just walked into the office and hadn’t had time to set my coffee down when Vicki stuck her head in and said, “HR wants you to call them, it’s about Jack.”
“Is he here?” I replied.
“In his cubicle, talking to Eileen.”
Continue reading “Jack’s Back by David Thomas Peacock”Stupid Decisions by Wayne Yetman
“You sure make stupid decisions.” she said.
Taylor blinked, maybe even winced a little, but otherwise showed little sign that he had heard her, let alone taken her seriously. It wasn’t that he was deaf or so lacking in ego that he could withstand the insult. No, he was simply too busy to bother, too desperate to rescue himself (and her) from the results of this latest stupid decision, all too aware that far too many stupid decisions had been made and the chickens, as they say, were really and truly coming home to roost.
Continue reading “Stupid Decisions by Wayne Yetman”This Winter by Louie Richmond
Tuesday morning and I’m driving. It’s cold outside and the windscreen is cloudy. I can see only through the little circle I have made by wiping my gloved hand against the glass. The circle keeps closing up, the world keeps getting smaller. There is nobody on the streets and the sky is low, the only motion outside the steaming shapes of stranger’s cars, indistinct forms defined against the grey by their movement.
Continue reading “This Winter by Louie Richmond”Not Criminally Responsible by Harrison Kim
You move into the world, a mind arrival, after a disturbing darkness. First you perceive outside the body visual… another odd spot on the ceiling. Peer at the shape, like an inner organ. Not the spot itself, though it has a strange form, but what hides behind it, from the writing in your dream. In this dream, you came walking through a heavy mist. You perceived yourself moving in a swirling, grey white wash of cloud come to earth. Then you entered the corporeal, inside a body walking from a car towards the front of a gated institution. You understood that you possessed the persona of a staff member, approaching daily work at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital….the hospital for the criminally insane. You walked in this persona, up a road which bridges over a dike built to repel high water, a barrier that separates the hospital from the surrounding farmland. You observed the man-made berm with the oak tree at its summit. You stepped by the sixteen-foot-high fence and the wall cameras. You pulled out an electronic fob and opened the blue iron gate, and entered the inner grounds. The pastel buildings lay about at diamond-shaped angles, over a small rise you perceived the Central Hall. You looked past the staff person’s early morning bleariness and found your own motivation for walking in his shoes: the need to know the truth about yourself. You possessed the staff’s body and followed his path, and his path led to the office of Poplar Central Ward.
Continue reading “Not Criminally Responsible by Harrison Kim”Literally Reruns – Cheating the Jail Out of Time by James Hanna
We tried to encourage Leila out of the dungeons for a while over the festive season but no, she was determined to carry on rootling around. She did present us with this piece by our old friend James. This is what she said:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Cheating the Jail Out of Time by James Hanna”Week 305 – No Idea, No Coal And No Difference.
Saturday 2nd January 2021
Here we are at Week 305.
Before I start you will see the date at the top of this page – That’s for me. I’m working from the 1st – Don’t know about the second, have been on the next four from when I’m writing this, which gives me two days off in between.
Continue reading “Week 305 – No Idea, No Coal And No Difference.”