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.

(more…)

I knocked on Elle’s front door. The street was silent but for the distant whoosh of traffic, the calls of children in a school playground and an aeroplane passing overhead. The door opened. Elle’s brother, Nick, stood there. He wore a white t-shirt and tight-fitting black jeans with a hole in the knee. His hair was wet. He looked at me.

“Is Elle in?” I asked.

“Rob, right?”

I nodded.

“No, she’s not in,” Nick said, “I think she went to college.”

“Oh,” I said, “she doesn’t usually today.”

“No,” Nick said, “she had to hand something in or something.”

“Oh.”

I rocked back on my heels, pushed my thumbs into my jeans pockets, looked at the door-frame.

“I think she said she wouldn’t be long. Have you tried texting her?”

“I don’t have any credit.”

Nick looked past me for a moment. I turned to see a lady in a brown coat walking a long-haired dog. I turned back round.

“Do you want to come in and wait for her?” Nick asked.

(more…)

A man driving a red sports-car overtakes a funeral procession. His wife, in the passenger seat, with the seat tipped back, is in labour.

“Sorry,” he mouths silently to the driver of the hearse as he narrowly avoids an oncoming lorry.

SCENE FIVE

Harry enters hesitantly from SR and looks around.

HARRY: (To himself) I’m pretty sure I didn’t write anything about Lucy running off crying. What happened? Guess I’d better set up the next scene.

Harry drags TABLE 2 over to CSR and places it on its side to represent Esmerelda’s bedroom wall. He also moves one of the chairs a little way behind the table and faces it towards the audience. Then Harry exits SL. Esmerelda enters SR. She sits in the chair and mimes combing her hair as if looking in a mirror. Horatio enters SL and mimes throwing stones at Esmerelda’s bedroom window. Hearing the sound Esmerelda rises, walks to the table, and throws open the ‘window’.

HORATIO: Oh beauty! Oh Emma-

ESMERELDA: Esmerelda.

HORATIO: Oh Esmerelda! I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but I had to see you again. Can I come in?

ESMERELDA: My parents are asleep and I’m getting ready for bed.

HORATIO: Do they despise me, your parents, like Juliet’s despised Romeo’s? Can they not see the beauty of our love?

ESMERELDA: I have not yet told them. It’s all happening so fast (aside) without any real plot development.

(more…)

Fluorescent supermarket strip-lighting lit her blue eyes, though romantically he considered they might have sparkled anywhere. There were other checkouts open, some with shorter queues, but he had chosen hers: There was something about the lines of her hair as they swirled behind her ear to the loose doubled-over ponytail above her neck, and her slimness, not just in her frame but in her precise economical movements that he liked. He stood, watching her serve the customer in front, feeling inadequate with his frozen pizzas and microwave ready-meal.

“Hi,” she said with a smile.

“Hi,” he repeated, reflecting the smile with a quick honest tightening of his own dimples. Their eyes met, momentarily. Blue. Brown. Did she smile like that for all the customers, he wondered. Perhaps that was why they hired her: that smile. A smile like that brightens someone’s day. A girl like that brightens someone’s day.

No, she didn’t smile like that for everyone who passed by, certainly not for the old drunkards smelling of fags, buying own-brand vodka and whisky, in whose eyes glinted a little semi-concious letch; nor for the shaven-headed twenty-something males in tracksuits nonchalantly dropping packs of Carlsberg onto the conveyor belt; nor even for the haughty middle-aged, middle-class women buying pre-packed, adjective laden, fillets of salmon: for these stereotypes, the basis of which had been one or two regulars, but the labelling of which had been applied whole groups that had all blended into that single entity known as ‘customer’, her smile always felt forced, strained. Not that they noticed.

(more…)

Read Part One

SCENE THREE

Extra 1 and Extra 2 sit on the two US chairs. Horatio and Esmerelda enter SR, Esmerelda’s arm linked somewhat uneasily through Horatio’s.

HORATIO: Here we are, at (with strong emphasis for the audience’s benefit) the theatre.

ESMERELDA: What are we going to see?

HORATIO: A play.

TRENT: Obviously.

Emma stifles a snicker.

ESMERELDA: What play, Horatio?

HORATIO: William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’, a classic love story about two starcross’d lovers who desperately want to be together, but cannot be because their families are at war and they do not have the benefits, the freedoms, of our modern- day life where there is nothing to keep two people who love each other apart.

(more…)

Unfortunately I have been, and continue to be, rather too busy to write anything for the site. There should be some new content in a few weeks, but until then I’ll post the short play I wrote for submission at the end of last year. I realise that reading plays is rather boring, but this one barely merits performance, so this is the only form in which it’s available. Hopefully this will tide over my miniscule, though much appreciated, readership until I have some time to get something decent up here, and in the meantime I might bug Molly to let me put some more of her poetry up (or anyone else that wants to volunteer something). Here’s the play:

Horatio & Esmerelda

SCENE ONE

The Stage is empty and illuminated with white artificial stage lighting. HARRY walks out to the front of the stage. TRENT is sitting, as he will be for much of the play, in the first row of the audience, writing in a notebook.

HARRY: Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Harold Singer, writer, actor and casting director, and I would like to welcome you to the first performance of my first play, ‘Horatio and Esmerelda’. Tonight I shall be playing the part of Horatio, a shy young man who overcomes his insecurities when he meets the girl of his dreams in a library. Slowly, as their love blooms, she brings him more and more out of his shell, bestows him with that lustre that only love can-

TRENT raises his hand, a pen between his fingers, as if in a classroom

HARRY: (To Trent) Um, yes?

TRENT: What are you doing?

(more…)

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11

12

“Mark, sorry about Friday night, just leaving like that. And sorry that I’ve not been in touch. I really owe you an explanation, and here it is: a couple of months ago, I got really involved with this guy, and it was all going well. Apart from his children, and though we got on really well, his kids just hated me for some reason, and it was like no matter what I did, I could not get them to like me. And eventually they kind of just broke up our relationship. Like even though we were getting along really well, he told me it just wasn’t working out, and it was all because of his kids. And it really hurt me.

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