Category Archives: Published Work

When the path ahead is too steep, step slowly, eyes down. Thus we climb to the cliff-top, my gaze fixed on the flexing white slabs of his calves, using his bulky frame for shelter –  wondering whether he took his … Continue reading →

The things you see from the top of a bus… the inevitable single shoe on a bus-shelter roof. Someone naked in an uncurtained bedroom at midday – a nightworker? Or an illicit daytime assignation…? The man urinating behind a tree … Continue reading →

I’d said I probably wouldn’t make it.  He’d said he’d take that chance. So there he is, shaking out his raincoat, searching for me, taking that chance. And here am I, on the mezzanine, behind a potted palm, not making … Continue reading →

A woman turns to God, they say, when she’s too old for the devil. My sister was the exception to the rule, rushing headlong into the church’s arms as a teenager, like a rat from a sack. The entire congregation … Continue reading →

It was a tedious, exhausting journey. No point in asking if we were nearly there yet; we were always nearly there, just as we were always nearly rich, nearly united, nearly content.  But soon we were slithering joyfully down the … Continue reading →

“It just isn’t working.” “I know.” His dirt-ingrained fingers rake through his grizzled grey hair. “The fertiliser’s feckin’ useless these days, so the crops can’t thrive… and while they’re sanitising insecticides to the point where they no longer work, pests … Continue reading →

If he saw me at all, it was only through an up-turned wine- glass. In truth, I was just a listening head.  And even then, his eyes would drift, scanning for a wider audience.  He probably told himself my silence … Continue reading →

Morticia sighed as she detached the vampiric kitten from her neck and floated across the shop to remonstrate with the ectoplasm in the corner. “Put those books back where you found them” she said, slapping the part that most closely … Continue reading →