Barefoot, I clambered onto the countertop, shimmied toward the door, leapt through onto the carpet, which I presumed the shards had not reached, and fetched young Henry from the airing cupboard. “Henry,” I said, “I’ve got a treat for you!”. Henry stared blankly, stunned still by excitement, I imagine, as he tends to be when tantalised with the prospect of a delicious mess. I guided him toward the centre of the kitchen, and watched him slurp up the goodies, leaving but a sticky Ribena memory on the tiles.
Sunday, 3 April 2016
Wednesday, 30 March 2016
Haiku
Despite yourself, you look me up. After all, it’s been a while. You look to see if I’ve written about you. At the least, an echo in words, a vague reflection in those stories spun. Or maybe you’ve been in half of them all along, one way or another. Maybe the odd sentence, or a haiku, you think. You wonder if it’s good for you. I don’t mind if you don’t.
Sometimes I wonder
if you still read my stories
and whether you should.
Wednesday, 10 February 2016
Telephone
What if I were a telephone? Would you hold me close to your face, pressed against your ear, and speak quietly? Would you say things like “Kung po king prawn and egg fried rice please”, or “39 Princes Street to Queen’s Gardens”, or “I’d like to update my policy details”? Or would you say “I’ll be 10 minutes late”, or “See you next week!”. Maybe you’d just say “Hey. It’s me”. That’s all I would need, if I were a telephone.
The Cold, Dry Paint
A writer starts a story backward. She begins, or ends, with the first word, which is of course the last word. The word is “paint”. She permits herself a terminal full stop. “paint.”
She puts in a next word. Or a previous word. Not sure. “dry”.
A comma. It’s unclear where she’s heading with this one, or where she would have been coming from.
“cold”
“the”
Sunday, 7 February 2016
A Voyage
You, delivered by boat, to now, slept below deck, forgetting you were above the sea, held high above the ocean bed by entwined, long, wet arms, passing your tin can among themselves and forwards. You climb up above, dizzy, you look through your telescope, to behind, far away, it looks small, and perfect from here, you forget why you left, why you set off, or whether you even did at all. You peer overboard at the cold blanket below, glance upward at the canopy of cloud above and catch a survivor from the sun. You ponder how many sunsets and sunrises and islands and attolls you missed during your hours or weeks or months asleep in your cabin. You take the wheel, ready to search for land.
Monday, 1 February 2016
Wet Land
The sea is really just land covered in water. Space filled with very-wet instead of mostly-dry. Try telling that to the sea, though. The sea wouldn’t hear any of it. It would just say “No no, I’m the sea. Majestic, blue and deep”. I wonder what would happen if you took all the water from the sea and put it in a big bag, and locked it in the fridge for a while. Its naked bed would shiver for a while. I’d hope that it might see the land around itself and realise it was part of the same stuff.
Monday, 18 January 2016
House of Bricks
“A house does not cease to be a house through knowledge of its bricks. To decompose an idea, or an observation, and explain it in terms of smaller cogs turning together does not nullify the existence of the whole. One could say that nothing really matters, we are all just atoms, that love doesn’t exist, or that our thoughts and dreams are just patterns of neural fireworks, our behaviours just stable equilibria of evolution. But that would be saying the sea is not the sea, because it is made of water.” — K. Elamo
Friday, 15 January 2016
Tetris
It is cold. There is no more yogurt. There are no more batteries. It’s light outside but getting dark. I want to play Tetris, but I shouldn’t. There are old leaves in the bathtub, brown and earthy. It smells like lemons, because of all the lemon chiffon. Lemon chiffon is not adequate sustenance. The left lens on my glasses is broken. I smash it out all the way with a hammer, so that I can at least see something, but still everything is half blurry and slightly wobbly. A plane roars in the distance overhead. I cough. I glance outside. There is a tree that looks like a bear. But it isn’t a bear.
Thursday, 14 January 2016
Forgotten Stories
A few years ago, I was waiting to see a film in the picture house, when I got talking to an older woman, who was sitting at the same table where I was drinking my tea and reading my book. She told me a story from her life, and I remember it being wonderful, cinematic.
When the time came, I duly exchanged her company for the screen. The film displaced the story she told. As soon as the credits rolled and I thought back to her, I couldnt remember a single once or when. Just an impression on the sand.
Wednesday, 13 January 2016
The Girl with the Dirty Face
“You’ve got something on your face.”
“What do I have on my face?”
“Here— can I get it for you?” He raises his finger to his tongue, licks it, and sends it straight to her right cheek.
“Woooah there, what ya doing?!” she exclaims, perceptibly repulsed.
“I’m going to clean your face!” he replies, a little surprised.
“With your spit? Your going to clean my face with your spit? All you’re gonna do there is make my face spitty. Spitty and dirty. No thanks.”
“What if you lick your finger and I guide your finger with my hand?” he rebuts.
“Still, it would be spitty. I’d rather be dirty than spitty. Even me-spitty. Dirty is a statement. It can be elegant. Spitty is cheap. Always cheap.”
He decides her face is better off dirty.