By: Patrick It had been another long week, another week when Jon had spent his time dealing with the suffering and grief of his traumatised clients with a professionalism that was beginning to trouble him. Something had come between him and them of late – a barrier that allowed their stories, entreaties and breakdowns…
Author: ShiverWriggle
Working Life #1
By: Patrick She was beginning to bore me by this point and I was concerned that it was becoming obvious, perhaps in the involuntary saccades my eyes tend to make during uncomfortable social situations. I could feel myself staring at her with an unnatural intensity, a rather unsuccessful ploy to aid in the feigning…
Welcome to the Jungle
By: Patrick Stepping off the bus, I felt that old, constricting dread surge through my system. London has had this effect on me for as long as I can remember. It’s as if the limitless dreams and possibilities that this great city evokes in so many flood my system and overwhelm me, mutating into…
Navigator of the land
By: Amy Fearn Following you to the ends of the earth across mountains and fields; softly as you go. Stay the night in the forgotten forests and cook breakfast on the shore. Teaching the trades entwined from this beautiful land and telling tales of which remain in your heart. Following in the footsteps of…
An extract from the diary of my late Aunt Gertrude
By: Finlay Today has been one of those days when one is so happy, one feels one’s heart could explode. I left the cottage early, soon after sun rise, and walked along the river heading upstream. Winter’s snow still cloaked the tops of the hills, alpine white in the sunlight. In the valley all…
A Prospect
By: Double G It was a moment of fulfilment. He was now on the hill pulling himself up but his alternating view of the earth below and, with a head jerk up, the spectacle straight in front and beyond, did not work against each other anymore. Both were the same, the senses were undivided. This is my world now,…
Glass, Mirror, Wine.
By: Alex The girl had been reading Gaiman. She closed the book and reached for the wine. A funny thing about women, and to a lesser extent men, is the way the wine they choose is often misrepresented as a metaphor for their personality. This is of course wrong; and the girl was no…
Tortoises and Hares
By: Patrick According to Walter Benjamin, in 1839 it was considered elegant to take a tortoise out walking. Such was the pace of life that society’s flâneurs and idlers chose to lead. Looking at the endless array of advertisements on the London Underground for cognitive enhancers to ward off idleness and promote a more…
Extract from ‘Blood, Sweat, Tears and Other Fluids’
By: Wishdokter I know that at my age, one year from forty, I ought not to think about sex as much as I do. Men of a certain age, fathers and uncles, are perceived less as sexual beings. I am not quite sure if it is my perception of our sexualised society, which is…
Harvest Moon
By: Finlay This tale is a retelling of an untitled poem from Heinrich Heine’s Buch der Lieder (1827), also set to music by Franz Schubert as Der Doppelgänger. Harvest Moon (Part I of III) The hour is somewhat after 3 o’clock. Tonight I could not sleep. As usual at this season my mind is filled with that disagreeable mix of wanderlust and…