Stories tagged peter-wood

Burying the Tramp

825825 views00 comments00 favs

Heaven and hell. Hadley believed in neither. One way or another you’re a meal ticket for someone, best to be the one spending than the one being spent. The worms and insects are getting their meal ticket now, that’s for sure.

The Cenataur (Part 1)

939939 views11 comment11 fav

Love needs loathing like cold weather needs warm clothing. And all truths, untruths and part truths need a place to live when a mind gets too sardine-packed with information and cynicism... Some say there was a time when the light was brighter, the ear

Yearning

827827 views11 comment11 fav

He’d've been up there belting out the hymns then bickering with the vicar after.

nightwatch

730730 views11 comment11 fav

Breaking the cat's cradled cord she examines her fingernails. She notices a crack in the paintwork, sighs to herself. Makes a mental note to cover it over. Cover it over, paint over the cracks. There's been a lot of that recently, hasn't there?

Goliath

790790 views00 comments00 favs

He glances at the other patrons of the café. He has the mix of middle management goliath and shy, fat kid at a school swimming pool. Neither fit comfortably but it's as bespoke as his suit, protective as fat. The arm rests on the table curling protectivel

Mantis

735735 views00 comments00 favs

Sally knows the situation: if your name's on the list you can't come in. If they try to walk past her, swipe their card on the electronic barrier's scanner, instead of a short benevolent bleep and the gate sliding open, it will fail. The hapless individua

Luce

10171017 views22 comments11 fav

Lucy shrugs into the corner of the train's seat. She envelopes her IPod in both hands as if she's praying or holding a conch shell: safe, secure like when she visited a Morcombe beach in the school holidays. The only giveaway's the white headphone cord.

Wednesday Night Aliens

818818 views11 comment11 fav

The old-timers at the Working Man’s Club wear a sheen of indifference every Wednesday night. Beneath the wafting, cresting mountains of burning cigarettes smoke, the train-track rattle of dominoes chipping at the dark wood tables in the corner, the consta

Love and Cigarettes

859859 views11 comment11 fav

She's waiting there, for you, in bed but the analgesic cigarette calms your mind more than her heat. She's there waiting, in your bed, eyes closed, fluttering, somewhere between the dream and practical world.

A little bit of babysitting

898898 views22 comments11 fav

Roy Williams was his real name. It had been for the last 15 years. Since retiring from the Firm he’d lived innocuously in an apartment near the Old City walls of Dubrovnik doing the occasional quick job for them. You never entirely retired from the Firm.