Category: Stories

Black and white: A Christmas Story

“Sorry, Old Girl” said the Major, as his wife glared at him over the top of her reading glasses. It’s true though, he thought to himself. The seasonal covering of snow made them easier to spot, they stood out like sore thumbs. She was glad when it thawed but there was more on the way. The Major always loved snow on Christmas Day. On his short walk to the doctor’s surgery he had spotted three of them. They are taking over, can’t move a bloody inch without falling over one. Send them all back home where they belong. Can’t be doing with this he thought; they’ll be breeding like rabbits and taking over the country.

Continue reading “Black and white: A Christmas Story”

Nov Short Story – the Mystery of the Unknown Soldier

If he could tell that the young girl with the fat baby in the blue snowsuit wasn’t interested, it didn’t matter. Not that day, not any day really.

Bert was an effusive sort of chap; never used three words where thirty would do. And they all came rushing out which tended to exhaust his listeners to the point where they would look at their watches and remember a pie overcooking in the oven or an appointment at the dentist.

Tracy was taking her children to her mums on the other side of town so she could go to a sunbed appointment and have a bit of peace. She deserved it, she thought – and so did her mum, knowing how hard life was as a single mum, especially since her Tracy was only 17. Continue reading “Nov Short Story – the Mystery of the Unknown Soldier”

The Hit Man (things are seldom what they seem)

Robert Hampton, a rather charmless man, of average height, medium build and with an instantly forgettable face, had carved himself a pleasant, if rather shallow niche in the village of Coltsfoot. He was beginning to feel quite safe in his rural idyll, although it would never do to become too complacent. He enjoyed the comfort of his Victorian cottage with the mundane name of ‘Meadow View’, but he would move on when the lease ran out; he always moved on. Continue reading “The Hit Man (things are seldom what they seem)”

Keep taking the pills: November Short Story

Things are seldom what they seem…..

How true in the case of the  Smith family Tragedy. Nice people by all accounts, and near neighbours, so it was with a frisson of shock that Jill read the article in the local paper. The whole family had been found dead; the police were not looking for anyone in connection with the incident and there was no information as to how the two adults, one seven year old and a young baby had met their fate.

Continue reading “Keep taking the pills: November Short Story”

The Last Night (CW Competition)

She opened one eye. “What the hell was the time?”

She was fed up with not sleeping properly and waking up at some God-forsaken hour in the middle of the night. She switched on the lamp and looked for the clock. Then she remembered that she hadn’t brought the alarm down last night when she had decided that she could not bear to sleep upstairs again and had dragged the mattress off the spare single bed and rolled it down the stairs. She’d gone back up, grabbed the pillows, sheets and duvet off the brass four poster, hurled them on top of the mattress and had virtually flown down the stairs herself.

Continue reading “The Last Night (CW Competition)”

‘Things Are Seldom What They Seem’ (The Da Vinci Cod Revisited)

This may well be my last post on this or any other site.  Until last Friday,  I was a  typical,  fairly dour Scot who shared our  deep national scepticism about anybody or anything.  All that changed  a few short hours ago when I uncovered  a deep secret  about which certain international  dark forces do not want us to know. It may be that I will go the way of many others and that I and my knowledge will be as ruthlessly and efficiently suppressed as they were. Nonetheless, I will do my utmost to spread that knowledge in the short time that I may have left to me. Continue reading “‘Things Are Seldom What They Seem’ (The Da Vinci Cod Revisited)”

’Things are seldom what they seem…’, Writing Competition November 2010

The major turning point in Dennis’s life started with an innocuous enough comment.
“We should get a dog,” said his wife Madeleine one Wednesday morning over breakfast. Continue reading “’Things are seldom what they seem…’, Writing Competition November 2010”

Heat (things are seldom what they seem)- Janus comp

The tabloids had run out of clichés when the world decided to burn. Editors tried to express in print the blazing rays emanating from the big yellow star in the sky: Searing heat scorches Earth, Another fiery day, This is the age of Apollo’s rage. The capricious Sun was blazing and the times were-a-changing.

For three days record-breaking recordings of high temperatures had been reported around the planet causing catastrophe and change. The poles were melting, from space a red ring could be seen circling the Equator, tidal waves churned the doldrums and birds of paradise were sighted in the Thames. Continue reading “Heat (things are seldom what they seem)- Janus comp”