A bad taste Laughter, catching-up chatter, night cold leaks in as the door opens, other diners sit, study menus. One is a woman with her back to me, I’d recognise that nape anywhere. I wouldn’t say I hated her exactly, but she makes me prickly with the sense that she’ll go home to laugh at […]
Comfort break – 100 words
Comfort break Toilets are ONLY for the use of customers it says over there on the wall between the hand-knitted stag’s head and the Tuesday pub quiz notice. Outside heather and pine and the long, long road make a mood board of purple skies and moisture. There’s a hunched cottage and light glinting from railtracks […]
Infernal equinox – 100 words
Infernal equinox If your life had an equinox, what would you do? One foot in youth, the other in age, celebrate a mid-point, a half-life triumph or dread the downhill tumble to the grave? Does the equator of existence mean an end to learning, the start of teaching? Do you say ‘I’m half way through, […]
Lucky – 100 words
Lucky On Mother’s Day with the flowers, chocolates, breakfast in bed (or gin, manly hugs, and lunchtime pancakes this year), it’s easy to sugar coat the celebration. ‘Love you mummy,’ tiny wishes and the sharp, sharp pangs for the lost mums, the never-to-be children. Motherhood is hard and messy, and we know all about the […]
Cheers – 100 words
Cheers Warming glow spills across damp pavement, burps of laugher escape into the night. It’s warm in there and everyone belongs. I have belonged in several: The one by the sea, where the dog knew the way Those where every night brought possibility – endless evenings, life-changing encounters The tropical bar teetering above a lagoon […]