Spilt milk

The wood was darker than she imagined and the noises of the scurrying animals frightened her more than she would admit. It had seemed such a good idea to run away from home and escape the inevitable punishment that must surely have followed after spilling the contents...

His name was Alfred Hughes

His name was Alfred Hughes. There was a lot about him in the paper that week. They called him the Hastings Hero. He not only saved my life, but apparently he then ran straight into the hotel and dashed inside. If you look carefully at the helmet you can see where the...

We are all still here

How am I still enthralled by this place? After how long? Since I broke the watch Noriko gave me, I can’t tell the hour of the day let alone the year. But its been at least twenty five monsoons from when I first started counting. Five since Ichiro died, an old man at...

A Circus with no clowns

Circus and childhood are like bread and honey – excitement and the sweet smell of sawdust in a large multi coloured tent, whilst one sat hunched on a rough wooden bench – waiting for the whip to crack and the voice of the red-coated ringmaster to peel out, ‘Welcome to...

My dinner guests

I didn’t expect him to turn up with a monkey. Very cute though; the monkey, that is, not David. He said he had picked it up in Indonesia and out of all the animals he had filmed, he had found this one hard to resist. So, as Mij the otter, had become part of Gavin...

Model Manuscript Retribution Part four

For the next two days Nick emerged only for the toilet. He worked into the early hours of the mornings and then slept on the very comfortable couch at night. Each of the two days at mealtimes a tray was placed outside of the study door with plain but well prepared...