31 October 07 - 14:55Trial & Terror
Trial and Terror
First published 'The Black Lily' 1996.
Everything suddenly went awfully quiet or - as some may have had it, given back their hearing - awfully loud. I was the only one in the room with a working ear, on the left side of the head. The clumsy rosette on the right was already without sound as well as numb to the touch. But now even my good one had finished gristling over, hence the abrupt - yet paradoxically gradual - arrival of quiet. The onset of deafness, if accompanied by a crescendo of noise, can seem gradual whilst, in actual fact, it is due to a fibrous pad completing its growth over the lug’s orifice: a split second for the tiny homunculus to come to its eventual fruition as a sentient ear-plug. But can this gradualness happen within such a short space of time? If so, there is no such phenomenon as true suddenness, but merely slow-motion shock. The stuck piston of the hardened tongue, the welding of the bowels, even ...
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23 October 07 - 18:42Dark Oasis
The garden possessed a single tree. Whilst not exactly a secret garden, its position off a beaten track ensured seclusion. Hamsita - a young receptionist - regularly took her lunch-break there, together with a few other in-the-knows such as Harry the office doorman and his heart-throb of the moment from Office Stores called Trudy. There were a few complete strangers now and again, but each of them only came once. Today was a particularly hot day in early May, with unbroken blue skies which the weatherman had promised to last as long as he could continue forecasting. Did the weatherman live in the clouds? So what did he do on cloudless days like this one? Hamsita was evidently in a frivolous mood today.
But her favorite seat in the garden was already occupied. She suddenly cringed at the possible nature of a stranger on her bench. Done up in heavier clothes than the temperature required, a man-shape at that. Very few women came here. Except Harry's sweethearts. She ...
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12 October 07 - 18:29Stretch of the Imagination
Published 'Kimota' 1995
Costermongers, ironmongers, whoremongers, fishmongers, boroughmongers, scandalmongers (flanked by gossipmongers and rumourmongers), weirdmongers, wordmongers, one scaremonger, as the official gatecrasher and token jinx ... and with loads of other off-loaders, the convention was, nevertheless, intended to be a low-key affair; but when the guest-list was finally drawn up, whistles of surprise escaped from pursed lips like a pipe-organ practising its scales. Obviously, bigger issues were to be on the agenda than the organisers had first planned. In fact, mongers and their ilk were not to be the only attendees, because more delegates were matchmakers, go-betweens, bootleggers, gong-farmers, pistol-packers, sidewinders, bushwhackers, dog-stealers, gobstoppers, barnstormers, steeplejacks (flanked by pot-holers and chimneystackers), head-bangers, brainstormers, paratroopers, party-poopers, party-poppers, stringfellows ... ...
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