monster was close behind, groaning with teh weight of its recent feeding. The awnings above shuddered witht eh raor, the inhuman aching roar of a beast long gone from the mortal realm. The man gripped his shoulder, a wound sputtering orange-red blood. The beast hunted my scent and fear, grasping at the walls of the citadel with its massive tendrils.
A mouth emerged from its muddied hide, screaming with the fuel of nightmares and horrific things. It was the face of a child, crying and in seconds, it was swallowed back into the amorpheous body of the beast. The man...
There was blood on my pillow. For that matter, there was blood in my mouth; It tasted like copper. I don't usually notice the taste of blood, but this caught me somewhat by surprise.
I got up, gargled some water, and carefully probed my mouth with my tongue. As far as I could tell, nothing hurt, and no more blood was coming out. Maybe I cut myself early in my sleep.
I got up properly, fully enjoying the freshly risen sun which was busy spraying it's yellow rays through the forest canopy. There was a fresh campfire pit just visible...
She had made her bed and she now had to lie in it: that was what her mother had told her and what she now believed. So she was lying in it, like a good little girl – meek and mild, silent and compliant: behaviour that had got her to where she was now – unhappy, stuck, unravelling. Because old habits die hard, you see, and it is difficult to change. How does one forget three decades of learned behaviour? How does one peel off and discard the labels people attach? They don’t, that’s how, because they can’t – not...
The spotlight travelled the circumference of the room in search of a victim, looking to curb its own discomfort by persuading the unwanted attention on to another. Beneath its bright glare the chosen individual trebled and froze, as if caught in headlights. Then, becoming aware of the line of eyes, the press of bodies – waiting, watching, for her to spring into action, to move, to come alive – she lifted her arms, stretching them out, inhaling deeply.
Her performance opened with a slow dance, the words of a song low and soft on her breath, barely above a whisper....
It’s like each of our lives is played out alone, obedient to the rules of a separate game board, the ladders, the squares, following the thread of a unique tale, a tail that curls around until it meets up with its maker, its head, forming a neat ball (transparent, weightless), floating effortlessly on the wind, drifting along alongside billions and trillions of other small balls, all caught up in their own complex narratives.
Yet interestingly, while it is easy enough to peer inside each of these other balls as we pass by them, (noting, as we do so, what its...
Smell of moss, picked up by wind and lifted by trees. Flash of fire-rimmed eyes, toss of disdainful hair, gold-threaded-with-crimson. Derisive eyes and a tight little mouth, quick to contempt and slow to praise. Slender hands and slender frame roped the man in as easy as you please, and for what seemed like a thousand years promises of glittering gold kept her tethered to him like a
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. I have no idea who they are. I don't recognise the outline, the shape. I think the figure is a woman. She, if she is a she, is tall and slim, almost skeletal, like a witch. This thought scares me. I don't want to be visited by a witch, especially not the ghost of a dead witch. Which is worse? A live witch, with a wand and a broom? Or a ghost witch, with neither because she is no longer a physical substance? Would the live witch or the ghost witch...
"Even in a finite universe, a rock doesn't keep being a rock. Things are always disintegrating and becoming other things." Our Tragic Universe, Scarlett Thomas
There was once a rock, a very old rock, a rock which had laid low for a very long time. It couldn't remember how long that long time actually was but somehow knew without needing to remember that that long time was long enough. It was a rock that took great pride in its appearance, habitually watering its neat lawn of grass, combing its thick coat of moss, trimming it at least once a week....
She was confused. Usually there was a title, a prompt, a line, a place to start from. Today it simply said "Write as you please, in six minutes, like a breeze".
Breeze, now there's a word she was familiar with. There was always a breeze, always a cruel wind. It hunched her shoulders and tightened her neck and made it a necessity to always be wound around in a scarf, tightly constricted.
Breeze is a soft sounding word, reminiscent of the ocean, the sea, sail boats and people swimming. It makes one think of a Coastal town, of Europe, of...
The city was empty. That was the only remarkable thing about it. Its streets weren't paved with gold, it's shops sold the usual junk, it had poor districts and upper class suburbs.
The interesting thing was, the streets were empty, the shops had no employees and no customers and it's housing housed nothing. No one was there.
Well... there was one person there, there must have been, or how else could I be telling you this right now? Huh? Didn't think of that did you?
oh... right... CCTV... yeah, good point... sorry.