A Rustle of Paper

Posts

January 11, 2022

Covid Reflections I am lucky. I’m not a supermarket worker. I don’t drive a delivery van Or a bus Or a train. I don’t work 12 hour shifts With inadequate PPE on A&E or ITU or in a care home I’m not old Or ill Or immunocompromised. I’ve not stared into terrified eyes And whispered final farewells via WhatsApp. I’ve lost no loved ones Or grieved at scaled back funerals. So I am lucky. I know I am lucky. I am lucky to have children And a granddaughter To miss for weeks And then months. I am lucky to have friends To eventually meet outside But not to hug. I am lucky to be jabbed Three times now Tho I’m still not immune. I am lucky that the pubs are open again And the restaurants And the shops And the hairdressers Tho I still don’t go. I am lucky to have government figures So easy to view. I used to make my own graphs Of the cases And the deaths Till the numbers got so big That the lines shot off right o

August 18, 2021

The Silver Spoon Andrea pressed her foot firmly down on the pedal of the kitchen bin. The lid opened in response, inviting her to dispose of the spoon. And yet she couldn’t. Andrea was pretty sure the silver spoon was worthless. Especially after recent events. Her children didn’t want anything to do with it and her best friend had suggested she just chuck the thing away. Except now, when it came to it, she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Andrea removed her foot from the pedal, the bin lid fell, cutting off the disposal option for now. She carried the spoon to the table. The spoon lay, nestled in its bed of cream faux-satin, inside a tiny box made of gold coloured cardboard. The box had a clear plastic lid embossed with the words ‘community plate’. There was a small pink ribbon tied around one corner of the box. If Andrea had been born a boy, the ribbon would have been blue. And if Andrea had been born a couple of hours later, nearer the actual time, the silver spoon wo

May 10, 2021

Flash Fiction Reader, I was dismayed. The house was a blackened ruin, bereft of battlements, roof and chimneys. What tragedy had befallen this place? Had my master survived? He who was my equal despite gulfs in age and status. He who had loved me. He who had lied. He who had proposed whilst not free to do so. Reader, I should perhaps have suspected. I had sensed her presence, heard the deranged laughter, witnessed the results of her madness, but it was not until the wed ding day that ‘the impediment’ had been revealed. I had fled that very night, yet the bond could not be severed. Hence, my return. And now they were telling me that she had been killed and my master horribly injured. I found him at last, mutilated and blind but still as much my dearest love as I, his plain Jane, was his. Reader, I married him.

April 27, 2021

Dialogue Homework ‘Ice and lemon?’ Olly asked. ‘Yeah, whatever’ the woman replied. Not a great start for Olly’s customer engagement offensive, but he persisted. ‘You here for the concert?’ ‘No’ ‘Oh, ok, meeting someone?’ ‘No, just passing’ Another voice interrupted, ‘She’s not interested mate, not your type is he love?’ The voice was that of a middle-aged man, dressed in a manner Olly’s mother would have described as ‘smart/casual’ but sadly not smart enough to disguise the beginnings of a beer gut. The man edged his bar stool closer to the woman. ‘These youngsters, they just don’t have the chat-up lines, do they?’ The woman looked weary. ‘He’s just doing his job.’ Olly was grateful, ‘Thanks, trying my best.’ The man ignored him and leaned further towards the woman. ‘So where are you passing from and to?’ The woman raised her gaze from her glass to the man’s expectant eyes. ‘From the hospice and back to the hospice.’ ‘Oh …... sorry love, I’ll,

April 18, 2021

The night before …. Caitlin was awake. She ought to have been asleep and it should have been easy, swaddled in the softness of her winceyette sheets under the gentle weight of her quilted eiderdown. The sheets smelt faintly of washing powder and outdoors drying and the eiderdown radiated a soporific warmth. But Caitlin was far too excited to succumb to the bed linen’s sedative effects and was, instead, fully immersed in the delightful sensations particular to this night. Pots clattered in the kitchen below. The clatterer summoned up wave upon wave of aromas that spiralled upwards towards the insomniac. Caitlin tried to identify the components of the brew. Overriding all the delights were the sausage rolls. Caitlin’s nose judged them to be just about ready to come out of the oven, her salivating mouth judged them ready to be eaten. Caitlin imagined devouring them hot, she savoured the flakiness of the pastry and the herby meatiness of the interiors - and suddenly, the cold i

April 11, 2021

A weekend away The rugs and cushions were surprisingly soft. They had both fallen asleep after their picnic lunch by the romantic ruins of Kilmalkedar and Joe was the first to awaken. He woke slowly, with a strange mix of contentment and unease. The source of those feelings slumbered on beside him, breathing gently through a slightly open mouth. Joe frowned, then smiled, as he remembered the dream Katie had told him about as she had driven them to this place. It was a dream she had had as a child, but one which she had never forgotten, one she said sustained her whenever she felt down. Young Katie had dreamed of a man who had lain beside her, his body curled around hers. She had felt utterly safe and totally protected in the arms of this man, and had known that the man loved her unreservedly. Katie had then, without once taking her eyes off the curving road, told Joe that with him, for the first time ever in real life, she was feeling the same sense of certainty. Joe was the