Administration It’s not the numbers that chill – they’re too big to make sense. Nor the screamed imaginings when you stand in these places, skin prickling. Not the pitifully twisted spectacles, nor shoes’ polished leather worn soft over bunions. Not dead smile denture mountain. Not returning birds’ lament for the lost. They aren’t the worst. […]
Harbingers – 100 words
Harbingers Every year they come: tender white heads peeping from green swaddling. Vulnerable necks. They tell us it’s true: months of winter waiting is worth it. Buds and blossom and bloody dandelions will follow, with blooming certainty. We’ve made it through the darkest. Head cocked in the dawn – listening to creatures waking, rustling and […]
Haggis – 100 words
Haggis Take entrails of a sheep, add spice and stuff them into the animal’s dead stomach. Boil for hours. Stab it open with a knife taken from a live man’s sock. It’s a special occasion. The improbably delicacy will be lubricated by whisky and poetry and friendship at thousands of tables in dozens of countries […]
Experiential learning – 100 words
Experiential learning I wash the clothes and fold them, neat dried. A deep inhale of breeze perfume or artificial flowers – mothers’ meditation. I will no longer pick socks and pants and shirts and pyjamas and jeans and towels off the floor. Especially towels. This you know. Bring them – it’s not far, a moment’s […]
A kitchen conversation – 100 words
A kitchen conversation What do I fancy? Cheese on toast that meltingly enveloping comfort. Ice cream bracingly headachy cold turning to creamy sweet. Bacon strong saltiness and fearless consumption of fat. Toast and jam crunchy, sticky, childish comfort especially dripping butter and cut into triangles. Biscuits oh, the siren call of the Hobnob illicit, delicious […]