“You’re looking for some answers. I can understand that. I can relate. Isn’t that what the hippies used to say?”
Joe’s gaze remained flat. He waited for the man to continue.
“Don’t say much do you? I’m guessing you’re all out of empathy as well as words right now but if not, I won’t keep you. Good luck in finding a tree left to hug.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell us why it started.” Continue reading “Kill Switch by Nik Eveleigh”
She knew that when it came time to count the money she’d be found out. The afternoon had wound on interminably and the first crime had been followed by the next and the next and the next. Now she was so heavily committed to the misdeed that there was no way out.
Of course, as with so many of these things, it wasn’t her fault. If you really thought about it the one to blame, the one who should be standing here now on the brink of disaster, his stomach churning and heart flip-flopping was Mr Stevens. Her old boss, Stinky Stevens, he of the underarm white stains and the halitosis from hell. If he hadn’t been such a stupid, incompetent business man then his little caravan re-fitting business wouldn’t have folded. If the firm hadn’t folded then she, Lorraine, would still have a job as book-keeper, a proper job with a wage, a coffee mug and a finishing time.
It’s Sunday afternoon. There’s lots of time before the game. My husband gets up and turns off the TV. ‘Let’s go for a ride.’
‘Yeah! It’s stuffy in here. Take me to the ocean, honey. Let’s catch some breezes.’ I will take a drive to the ocean any day to get out of our dreary rental. Its gray color, both inside and outside, makes it cheerless to say the least.
I was still sweating the beer out and already paying for the pains of the night before. Ten men together. Add beer. Square the testosterone levels and what you’re left with is three broken ribs, no medical insurance and an urgent care facility that looked as though its better days had not been seen by anyone still top-side of God’s green one.
“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!”
It was a typical Friday night at the Planet Bar. Money rubbed shoulders with money. Ladies preened and giggled over the top of cucumber daiquiris and rosewater mojitos all the while seeking out new targets, fresh wallets. The men played their part. Laughed a little too loud when needed. Stepped out for smokes. Drank their Johnnie Walker Blues. Ordered more with practiced flickers of fingers. In the midst of this maelstrom of entitlement and low grade sexual minestrone one man patrols his bar, an oasis of calm in an otherwise…
“Miss Auder.”
“Your honour?”
“Could you please remind your witness he is in a courtroom, not in his study writing a failed novel.” Continue reading “A Few Dead Men by Nik Eveleigh”
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.”
May this year was freezing. No snow just cold nights. Raw days. I went to the allotments every morning to check on the hens. Feed them. I don’t go any more. They’re all dead. A virus Harry sez.
When I used to walk down to the allotment along the narrow paths The Gardeners keep free of weeds the frost made that sound under my feet only walking on frost makes. Crunchy-crackly Jen calls it, like she would know.
“Pines everywhere. And we have been driving in this stinking Volvo for three hours without a break.”
“A much needed coffee break, indeed!”
Joe tapped the car window a few times. A clear blue lake could be spotted behind the pines, but Joe turned his head and just missed it. He turned on the radio.
“Listen. What the hell is he talking about? Is he talking Elvish?”
“No I don’t think it is Elvis, it sounds Swedish to me.”
Ulriksberg 4 km.
“Drive towards Owhlricksburgh. It must be Norway.”
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