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A Painted Sky

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Sky the colour of wet slate, clouds like smudged chalk, up to the demarcation of a double rainbow. Beyond this: perfect edged white, cyanine stillness. Other words, immaterial: other frescos, outshone. Nature flummoxes with a magnitude we can only faintly sketch. I attempt to describe a feeling of symbiotic absorption. Cross out notes, words are too clumsy. Allude to a space behind words, a silent resonance. Rain gathers, confers; at the right density, it drops.  

Salt And Sugar

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Hail fell, just the size of rough-cut rock salt, bouncing over the lane all pretty and fleeting. It melts on the ground, joins a rain stream undercutting the edge of the new tarmac. Dog looks up and then ignores it. She has pheasants to put to flight. Mr is outside pressing juice from blackberries. He says he thought of fetching the car to us when the hail struck, then he had remembered how I love a change of weather. He's right, it was delightful: just that slight difference, it puts crystals at my feet. I needed that, today: a boost, a sign, a few crystals at my feet. Dared to spend money on three cinema tickets. It is Bond's fiftieth birthday, and we don't go out much. Sneak a look at the faces of Mr and Boy by the light of the title credits. Rapt and joyful; I liked the film immensely, but this was my favourite scene. On the way home, Mr buys a Millionaire's Cheesecake. 

Luna's Beast

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I have been blog-tagged. A writerly sort of tag, in which one drags out an old story snippet. Most of mine aren't on any useful USB, but are actual paper copies, unbound sheets of tatty A4 paper. I considered saying 'No thank you, this looks too difficult,' but then curiosity kicked me firmly in the pants. Paper all over the office now. Reading stuff, avidly, blanching. It is like seeing photographs of yourself with painful teenage hair. Embarrassing, but something to be secretly proud of: proof that you dared to have a go at life. In this story, I have attempted to describe the artist's outsider status using a mythological fish. It went through many titles, including Luna's Beast; this snippet is from the version named 'St. Pariah.' Formative stuff! ' The water was very dark. It looked so deep. I thought that was why I felt so isolated, because the sea was enormous. I swam out to the boat. The waves were behaving strangely; I noticed this,

All Souls In The Woods

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Last night I tripped over one of our house spiders and as a result of this it became deceased. I thought to have stumbled on a small stone and shook its curled body from my sock with a remorseful 'Oh.' It was the one with six and a half legs. I laid the husk out overnight in case it was merely bluffing. This morning I consigned it to the Rayburn flames, with a little All Souls prayer that it be delivered back to the bosom of the universe. I couldn't help thinking it had been trying to tug at my trouser leg, to whisper me a secret. I shan't know it now. Mr and me took Dog walking in the secretive woods, along the literal road less travelled, through bramble cover and over fallen branches, under the strange filtered light. The woods don't quite seem real, which is why it doesn't seem odd to walk past the holes of the Border Trolls (creatures that drag their fat knuckles through the pine needles at night, patrolling old boundaries, from here to t

The Gradual Appliance Of Evil

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN:-) The smooth sides are preternaturally white. It reminds me of a headstone, the first time I see it. 'Why is the fridge in the spare bedroom?' It doesn't seem to me that the question is odd. There is a 6 foot fridge-freezer in the bedroom, but no bed. 'We had to move a few things around, that's all.' The landlady scowls. 'I'm in a hurry?' 'Oh, okay.' We follow her back down to the kitchen, where the stairs open out. 'Would it,' I ask, but I pause, and the landlady huffs. I take an audible breath and start again. 'Would it be okay to move the fridge back to the kitchen?' 'I don't know, why don't you ask it?' She shows her teeth. I think it's a smile. 'So, if you want it, be quick, I have another viewing this afternoon.' Sharp looking teeth, behind that slash of red lipstick. 'We'll take it.' Luce nods, resigned. 'There's nothing left on

A Little Flux

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Best Cinematic Pose  Girl is at the cinema, most likely swooning, first over Bond James Bond, second over costumes, though the order may change. 'OhMyGod!' she will say, and the lack of spacing between words here is representative not typographically erroneous: 'Mum! YouShouldHaveSeenIt!' I will be on the sofa, mostly half asleep, mostly lost in editing, with one small sliver of me on an inner space search mission, finding the energy to respond. Her enthusiasm will help power it. Except, she says, 'Yeah, it was all right.' I have forgotten to factor in that she is a mother too and has just moved house. She is more tired than me. When I get home I peek at the two pumpkins waiting in the pantry, I approve of my earlier cleaning efforts, I think of the lovely disgusting Halloween story I am going to post up. And take a glass of blackberry wine. 

Loops

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My brother, my father and me, circa 1974 So much revel in throwing stuff away: to be recycled, where possible, one adds, but the joy lies most in the feeling of having cleared space; yet on my desk is a lightly corroded camera battery that I can't quite bring myself to drop into the bin. Boy has opted to study photography, a balance to his sciences and history. We have dug out my father's old cameras; an OM10, an OM20, a couple of Tamron lenses. Film is a mystery to digital age Boy, so I sprung open the back of a camera body and yelped because there was a film in it. The odds on there being any pictures are slim, but I shall try developing it. Boy was two when my father died- there might even be a photograph of Small Boy to discover. I bought some new batteries to power the cameras back to life. Boy prised out the old ones with a cotton bud, handed each one to me as it came free. Quite corroded, the first three, but the last one had a shiny flat surface. I kept it