Fiction
-
A Ripper of a Tale.
Like many writers, especially those with an interest in the darker side of the human condition, I have a fascination with Jack the Ripper. The killings were quite horrendous but I’m sure they are not alone in their violence, even for their time at the end of the 19th century. What endures is the mystery…
-
The Particular Salinity Of Tears
Thalia walks the beach each day. She goes at dawn when the sun pinks the sky behind the hills and dew pearls the grass along the roadside. The beach is small and narrow, nestled between two outcrops of rock where seals bask with their pups. Low tide doesn’t add much to the beach’s depth. It…
-
You Are What You Eat
This short story was published in Flash Flood Journal several years ago. It is very loosely based on something said in a real life incident. You’ve got to love the internet (and friends who share the weirdness with you). Trigger warning: this story is very dark, contains bad language, low morals and pigs. Still with…
-
And The Angels Cried
I know that most people are scared of “The Witching Hour”, when both hands point in supplication to a darkened heaven, pleading to an ambivalent god for mercy, but I’ve always found the minute just before the scariest of all; the moments when you know what’s going to come but haven’t time to change the…
-
Help Wanted
FENCER REQUIRED Our current fence is old. It once was straight, but time, winds and snowfall has turned it as twisted as one of grandad’s tales.
-
Witch- A Flash Fiction
Dad called my mother’s mother a witch. He said she saw a dancing sprite weaving in and out of flames, cast like a shadow on her bedroom wall, the night before a fire stole her middle child. The green curtains that hung on his bedroom wall were deemed to be the cause, she said, everyone…
-
The Perfect Family
In the best traditions of Christmas, I’ve written a ghost story. The subject matter is very delicate so I think it only fair to issue some trigger warnings. If you have suffered from infertility, miscarriage or SIDS, you may find the following distressing. The Perfect Family Joe had left her after the second baby.…
-
See Ma Resolutions?
This is written for the same narrator as See Ma Man? I hope you enjoy it. See Ma Resolutions? See me? See New Year’s resolutions? Ah hate them, so ah dae. Every year ah say ah’m no gonnae dae them ony mair, but as sure as a murder oan Eastenders Christmas edition, ah aye end…
-
Poppies In The Snow
I wrote this story several years ago as part of a remembrance event at our local library. It felt apt to share it again today. Poppies In The Snow Sandy buttoned his old jacket and pulled the collar up. Taking his cap from the peg he turned to his son Fraser, sitting at the kitchen…