In Search Of Answers
I used to think of myself as an answer to the problems of the people that came to me, but I was wrong. They were answers that walked through my door to clue me in on things I was puzzled about. I…
Category: Prose
Scrapbook
He took no pictures. He collected other people’s pictures. He told a story with the fragmentary narrative of a magpie consciousness. Distributed network profundity. Turn on the hose and leave the hose. It is in a glass room with a child in…
Suicide Note
It had a certain taste, blood sprung forth at its touch like zest from a lemon under a blade. Red mist. Someone had wanted to call it Vampire Music, but that was crass, and too blatant for the tastes of those who…
Reedbed
Footprints on water-laden earth. He sees a duck. He’s dreaming. Test subject in a Read-bed. R.E.M ember, burning brightly amidst the water plants. Duckweed. Algae. There are minnows swimming. Stickleback floating. Trout washes of colour under the mirror surface. Sometimes the edges…
Edgeselfedge
Out on the edge of something that only really has a notional edge – a fuzzy signal where matter becomes a theory about physics; becomes a physical phenomenon to be experienced; an undelineated territory. Sometimes the geography of a place maps the…
The Weight Of The Thing
Sometimes the weight of the thing that you want to communicate makes it really hard to find the words, or even the energy to put it into words. It’s a struggle you have to win as a writer though, because there is…
The Sky Isn’t Working
The sky isn’t working, and it hasn’t been for a while now. Mum remembers when it used to be better – when we didn’t have to run inside and shelter in the Lead Room. She says it ended when they dropped a…
Promises
The horse died suddenly. It had not looked good and they all knew they weren’t going to get any meat out of it. They were crossing the desert that had been Alabama before the airburst seared the land, and this was just…
TV IV POV
TV channel collapse. The whitenoise babies are crying in the bowling alley gutters, while the drug-blanked kids suck down Hot Cats drenched in mustard. Outside the sentient sky-whale blimps are locking their signals onto journalists so that they can kill undercover reporters.…
No Fixed Pattern
He smiled. What was so fascinating about serial killers? Had it shifted through the years, or was it still the sensationalism? Was it still the lust for an insight into the mind of Saucy Jack? Was it the baser instinct they often…