Read Part One

Read Part Two

3

“What did you do at school today?” I asked Lucy, trying to drive through the obstacle course of primary school children with a loose grasp of road safety and parents in oversized SUVs with an even looser grasp of road courtesy.

“We did maths in the morning and we learned about cubes and cubic centimetres.”

“Oh, that sounds difficult,” I said, pulling into a gap to let a car with no intention of stopping for me go past, “could you do it alright?”

“Yes, daddy, I got a gold star. See” I glanced quickly at the little sticker on her red jumper.

“Well done, sweetie” I said.

(more…)

Rabbit

I bite my lip. A rabbit crawls from my chest.
Down my arm, it sits on the back of my hand
and looks up at me. Contemptible creature,
I sneer. I try to shake it from my hand. Still
it sits there, staring pathetically up at me
with glassy eyes. I stare back. My features soften.
It looks to my breast. I shake my head, sadly.
Tentatively, the rabbit crawls up my arm
and sits uneasily on my shoulder.
There it stays, nibbling at my ear.
Then she enters the room and the rabbit
darts back into the spaces between my ribs.
At night it lays with me, nuzzling against me.
Contemptible creature.

Read Part One

Read Part Three

2

I dropped my keys into the little dish on the shelf by the side of the door, next to the waist-high rubber plant. Then I slipped off my shoes, pushing them with my toes side-by-side next to Gemma’s battered trainers, and Lucy’s shiny pink-and-white light-up ones next to Gemma’s, and then, on the other side of my shoes, my plain fleece slippers, a present from Lucy last Christmas, which I slipped on now.

(more…)

I realise I probably spend as much time apologising for not updating my site as I do actually updating it, but in an ideal world, it would be updated far more regularly. However, of late I have been busy, particularly with university work as deadlines loom (less than three weeks to finish a twenty page play of which I have (badly) written two pages, as well as co-write and perform a second play). Also, I have written little that I consider postworthy and so, delving into my back-catalogue, I found this piece I wrote about eighteen months ago. Perhaps I might change some of the phrasing were I to go through it now, but I feel it stands up pretty well and, being the longest piece I’ve ever finished (very nearly a novella), it’s one of my acheivements of writing. Here is the first chapter:
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