A stiff sporadic wind blew sand against Joe’s bare chest and whipped the crests of the breaking waves into a froth. Some of the sand caught in the thick hairs that covered his chest and shoulders, most of which were black, but a few of which, particularly in the bright August sunshine, had a silver sheen. Joe brushed the sand away, felt it scratch against his skin as it resisted the movement of his hand. It seemed strange to him, when he thought about it, that all sand had once been rocks, as big as boulders, or as big as the cliffs that guarded this eroding stretch of coastline, or as big as anything, and all these rocks had been worn down and worn down until they could not be worn down any more and all that was left was these minute grains; millions and billions of them.

When he was a child, Joe’s father had once told him that there were more stars in the universe than there were grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. Joe had looked out across the yellow-grey expanse and thought that on any beach alone there must be millions of grains of sand. That had been forty or so miles up the coast, near Scarborough, where Joe had spent his childhood summer holidays, and nearly the same number of years ago. He rarely went up there now, having little cause to, but knew the town had changed with the years that had passed. Time changed stars and sand too: stars burned out and all sand would eventually be pushed deeper and deeper underground until it was again pressed back into rock.

Joe’s reverie was broken when he saw a girl, perhaps fourteen, maybe younger, wading into the chocolate-coloured waves. A full bust, that belied her apparent age, protruded awkwardly from her chest, covered by a dark-coloured vest-top. Joe watched her, thought she was pretty, thought she was the type of girl he would once have stared at with a beating heart across the classroom, but not the type of girl he had married.

(more…)

Hey, can I come in? So you know how your girlfriend just broke up with you? Well I figure you probably got some condoms left over, yeah? Do you think I could nick a couple? Thing is it’s going great with Hannah and me and I’m thinking… y’know, and she doesn’t want to wait for me to run down to the shop, I mean, talk about eager, and I don’t really want to go down anyway at this time just to buy some… you’ve got some, yeah? Ah, cheers mate, I owe you one.

Oh, by the way, you might want to turn your music up for the next hour or so, just saying, you know what I get like, could get a bit loud, y’know, through the wall, what you listening to anyway? Coldplay? Nice one. Well, anyway, cheers again, that’s my night sorted, see you in the morning.

He rides up on a bicycle by the ornamental pond next to which I am sitting; a coffee-skinned man whose young son follows behind on a red bicycle of his own. The child’s bike has stabilisers and so can stand on its own when the son dismounts and while his father props his own bike against the bench opposite my own. Between us is the glassy surface of the pond, reflecting the billowed clouds above. The man calls out, a name I do not quite catch, and a girl appears from behind one of the buildings which surround the nearby bandstand. She is wearing a checkered blue school-dress and does not have a bicycle. Perhaps when the man and the boy picked her up from school she rode on the luggage rack of her father’s bicycle, or on the cross-bar, else she sits on the saddle and holds her father’s waist as he leans forwards to peddle, but in the park she walks a little way behind.

When she catches up to the boys, the father’s sharp face impassive, the brother’s round and excited, the man takes from his bike a net which he had tied there either with elastic bands or string. He also produces a bag of crumbled bread and crusts which I had not noticed until that moment and, these two items in hand, he sits down at the water’s edge and folds his sandled feet in under his knees. The children crouch down either side of him and watch as he drops in a piece of bread, following it with the head of the net. For a few seconds nothing happens, only the clouds move overhead and the boy’s eager face is reflected in the water. His father warns him not to lean out so far and the boy draws back, waiting. I wonder if there is anything alive in the pond, having seen neither fish nor frogs there before, and only occassionally ducks whose scarcity suggests they are not residents of the park and instead are only passing through.

(more…)

Ah, I thought I was going to keep my promise and post this yesterday, but it’s just gone past midnight.

I don’t feel that’s entirely my fault: I was called into work unexpectedly and have only just, fighting through post-work, food and shower drowsiness found the time to make the final edits of this story, which I fear might not actually stand up to any hyperbolic statements I may or may not have made about it (I’m really too tired to remember what I said about it, if anything). Regardless, it is a good story, possibly a great one, and I think there’s a fair bit going on in it, which I hope will come across in subsequent re-readings of the story, if not the first time through.

So, yes, I am proud to have this as my one hundredth post, and I hope you all enjoy it,

Henry.

The New House

“Hey,” said Kate, “hey, stranger.”

She grabbed Jay’s arm, brought him to a stop in the cloying heat of an August Saturday as he picked his way through the crowd. People continued to push past, making little, if any, concession.

“Hey,” he said, looking at her, surprised.

“You nearly walked right past me,” she said.

(more…)

A cartoon flashed across the screen; all bright colours and high-pitched childish voices from tinny speakers. In the corner of the screen an immobile, ghostly presence; the famous round face and over-sized ears, behind which danced Mickey, Donald, Goofy and the rest, acting out an approximation of a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mickey was Lysander. Goofy was Puck. It’s easier that way; saves the writers from coming up with original plot lines. Not that Rachael knew that. Perhaps she might have guessed this episode was based on another story from the mock-Elizabethan costumes, but it would be another four years or so until she learned who Shakespeare was. From downstairs came her mother’s voice, shouting over the raucous cartoon voices, over a baby’s wail, over the shouts of boys playing football outside and the middle-distance hum of traffic.

“Rachael.”

“What?” She uncrossed her legs, hopped off the pink My Little Pony sheets of her bed and went over to the door frame where she hung off the door, letting it swing with her body-weight and felt the smooth white paint under her fingers. “What?” she repeated.

“Come downstairs,” her mother said. Rachael sighed, flicked her head back towards the TV. The adverts were on now anyway: blonde girls dancing with glittering plastic hoops in the sunshine, spiky-haired boys in sunglasses chewing gum, blowing bubbles. Rachael slumped downstairs, letting her bare feet fall heavily on each step, while, in the cramped kitchen her mother tried to comfort Michael, Rachael’s baby brother, and unpacked shopping from white and green Asda bags. Entering the kitchen Rachael began to root into one of the bags, searching for sweets and chocolate, making the thin plastic crinkle as her slender hands moved over a packet of mince, a bag of carrots, some folded up magazines.

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(This one’s kind of like Jigsaw Puzzle.)

Collective Student First-Year Dream

I’m terrified.
“You’ll make lots of friends.”
The words sounded hollow. What if school had been a fluke, all my friends until now exceptional people, not like the rest of the world? The words came true though: I made lots of friends.

We watched a film together, she and our friend, huddled on floor cushions, the screen illuminating our faces, a spring breeze through the open window. Our friend fell asleep, and it was like we were alone, alone and complicit when he gurgled in his sleep and we looked at each other. I thought then of putting my arm around her, but I didn’t. Had we been properly alone, then I would.

How many nights had I sat with him in his darkened room watching him play videogames, sharing his pain in each failure, his joy in each success, thinking ‘is this what a relationship is’? I suppose that never crossed his mind: he only had eyes for her.

(more…)

Not quite Hemingway, but still, a story in six words:

A beautiful girl walks into traffic.

The man had wondered before how old he would be when he felt old. He was not old now, but he felt it as he pushed the door. It was unlocked, like all the doors, of which he might have chosen any, except that this one, belonging to a secluded house atop a rural hill, had held a certain appeal for him. Perhaps it was that even from a distance the house looked as if it had once been lived in. He stepped into the cool embrace of the damp air that lingered about the hallway. The light in here was dim, the few beams of sunlight that penetrated the dirty window above the door and squeezed their way between the man and the door-frame being absorbed by the musty carpet. This house had definitely been lived in, loved even, but now it was what might once have been called a ‘fixer-upper’.

The man walked through to the first room on the left, which had once been the living room. As he entered he saw a spider dash across the floral white settee that looked as if it had been worn-out for a long time. It must have been comfortable though, must have been sat in hundreds of times as the family gathered around the TV that now sat impotently against the wall to the side of the fireplace. The man put down his backpack on the sofa as he went to inspect the TV, his body distorted along with the room as he moved closer to the reflection on the lifeless grey glass of the screen. For a second he fancied he could see reflected behind him the family who had lived here, sat together on the settee and its two satellite floral armchairs, but he knew no one was there, so he did not turn round. Instead, he continued staring into the dull grey screen.

(more…)

Read Part One

Queue long in the supermarket, was lunchtime though, and it’s sunny. Supermarkets always so much busier when it’s sunny, don’t people eat when it’s cloudy? Felt bad letting Sam pay for everything, but he insisted, he’s sweet like that. How much was it though? Twenty-something, most of that was the Malibu. I said “get the cheap one,” but “no,” he said, “the cheap one’s nasty.” What else? French sticks, yes, and olives and Greek cheese, well he likes those more than I do, beef jerky too, I’ve never had it so I don’t know, but he likes that, said he hadn’t had it since he went to America with his dad years ago. Think he misses his dad sometimes, especially the way things often are between him and Jake, and the other house-mate never around, always out or working or sleeping, I’ve only spoken to him about twice. Still, he’s got me. Squeeze his arm, there. He’s smiling at me. It always seems to be sunny when I’m with you.

Yes, there’s the park, at the end of this road. The food’s in Sam’s backpack, the blanket and the Malibu are in mine. Not a blanket: the cover from the sofa in the living room. Jake was sitting on it when we got in, playing Nintendo games, but when we started making the picnic in the kitchen next door, talking and laughing, he disappeared. There were no blankets: we stole the cover. Mm. This is happiness, this, the park, the picnic in our backpacks. What else? Coca Cola to mix with the Malibu, and plastic cups to mix it in, cheese and pineapple on sticks, picked up a whole pineapple at first, that’s what gave me the idea, then saw a tin of chunks and remembered the last time I tried to carve a pineapple, that was back, when?, November, me and the girls not long moved in, like a fruity murder scene Lou had said, so I left it in the bread aisle. It looked ridiculous, all leafy and ridgy in amongst the Hovis and the Warburtons, had to laugh, and then one of the staff was looking at me so I ran away.

(more…)

Sunlight red in my eyes, like a flame to a photograph, first rainbow then brown, burning away the colours, but quick! Before the image goes, what is it? A lake, yes, in a forest. The water’s silver, bright!, but I know it’s warm, like a bath, a bed, a hug, a sofa, a womb. Beckoning it beckons me, my PJs falling away as I walk, nearly there, nearly there, but then, then I fall, fingers outreaching. I touch the water. Why fall? A crooked root in the leaves. All?

All.

Awake now, open eyes, bright!, scrunch into warmy pillow. What’s that against my ankle? His leg, all hairy and bony. Still asleep? In this light? Not facing it like I am though. Cotton all blurry in my eye, seeming to stretch out for miles before it reaches him. Is he dreaming? So peaceful. He always looks so serious when awake, even when he’s not, but now he looks carefree, like a little boy. Little cherub. Was that a frown? I’ll kiss him. Oh, his hands are in the way, stuck out in front of him, one on top of the other, like he’s praying, or pleading. They’re warm. I can reach his neck now. There; where he’s tender, between his Adam’s apple and his tendons. Felt the cartilage of it against my lips, and his stubble against my nose. Hope he shaves today, otherwise he’s all scratchy when we kiss. He hasn’t moved. Is he dreaming? Wonder why he sleeps like that; foetal position: I like to stretch out. Oh, he wrapped around me in the night, I wonder if he remembers. Don’t think he woke up, but he certainly woke me. Thought I was being crushed! One arm around my neck and the other across my chest. Had to prise him off. Perhaps he was in a dream.

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