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So I’m yankin’ this thing out the drainpipe, getting’ blood up me cuffs, while those little twats are creasin’ up in the car park. They’ve proper mashed it up, n’all: it’s comin’ out in handfuls; I can feel its guts through me rubber gloves.
Continue reading “Jesu-Vape by Robin Dennis”
“Put ’em on t’ side,” Grandad croaked. He must have heard the kitchen door click open and shut.
He’d sent me to Mrs Byrne’s on the corner of Wightman Street for twenty Senior Service. “You can earn yer tea,” he said. “But mind I want change.” He gave me two half crowns. “Should be a bob.” He jabbed the stem of his briar at my face. “Think on.”
Continue reading “Sixty a Day Man by Andy Larter”
Ahead, Big Coppitt Key flared suddenly behind the rowing fisherman who had rescued him, like carnivals appear around far corners, though sounds not audible. Randy had no idea how he had gotten out here on the Gulf, afloat in a dory. He’d only guess. His head hurt. His ass hurt. His gut hurt. Blisters rode his lips. His tongue was swollen. He felt lumps under his beard.
Continue reading “Smoker’s Holiday by Tom Sheehan”
I had a theory that if I collected enough cigarette boxes and scrutinised the warning pictures – the obscene, grotesque illustrations of the sick and the dying – I would become so repulsed I could finally conquer my addiction. Of course, I knew I would smoke the very cigarettes I had gathered in order to quit. The cure, like chemotherapy fighting a tumour, would be as devastating as the illness. However, I had tried to give up so many times before this felt like my only solution.
Continue reading “The Last Cigarette by Tim Frank”
“’Don’t move’? ‘Stay put’? Best mark thy lollipop-hole, Mouthy Munchkin, lest I break a ruby slipper off in your—”
Last Words, Wicked Witch of the East (Harriet Shelby’s Epitaph)
Continue reading “The Crossed Star of Bethlehem by Irene Allison”
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