Rampant Onion
Love Me WiFi Whore
The refrigerator smells like it’s just run the equatorial marathon in a tweed jacket.
Opening the windows to the panting light of a Krakow morning, she recognises the red Volvo with the flat tyre across the street. She waves at it. The price in the windscreen has gone down, but it’s still the most meaningful welcome back she’s had. Continue reading “Love Me WiFi Whore”
Atheist Children’s Books
Fiction put on hold. The quill hovers over the digital notepad… writing has been placed somewhere on the shelf up near my sheet music and other crusty life goals while I attempt to realise yet another project – Atheist Children’s Books.
Yes, the product of months of procrastination, an idea born of frustration, illumination and wonder, atheistchildrensbooks.org, is finally in progress. With it and through it I hope to promote authors of exceptional works of fiction and illustrated fiction, and maybe, just maybe, help to sprinkle a little reason around the world.
I want to help!
Great! At the moment the site is very much in development, however if you’d like to contribute to getting it up and running, or are an author of secular, humanist, science or atheist books for kids and would like to promote your book on atheistchildrensbooks.org, please get in touch.
Once I have the site in a reasonable state and all the associated media and assets are ready, I’ll be running a kickstarter campaign or the equivalent in order to raise funds for marketing and development. The aim is not to rule the world, but to make it a nicer place to be.
Peace!
A Very Urgent Creation
Alexa wound down the window and flicked her cigarette out into the carpark. She listened to the slow exhalation of the city, the thrumming from the factories in the east, then checked her pistol. It was loaded.
“What about him then?” she said and pointed to the shadow rummaging behind a skip at the end of the alley.
Toby’s lips smacked around his all-day-testosterone-sucker. “Whadda bout him?”
“What if we take him in, you dolt?” Alexa said.
“How do you know he’s a him?”
“You all look the same, don’t ya?” Continue reading “A Very Urgent Creation”
Unopened Correspondences: Confessions of a Spam Bot
“Where do I start?”
“Start at the beginning.”
“That’s quite some way back…”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
“Well, you could say I have abandonment issues… Is that what one says? Is that a good place to start?”
“Perfect. And how does that make you feel?”
“Feel?”
“How would you describe your emotions?”
“I guess… I feel… loneliness, desolation, friendlessness… solitude, yes. There’s some depression and hope in there, probably a little anger and guilt too… Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve probably been stuck on a loop of the seven stages for a couple of decades.” Continue reading “Unopened Correspondences: Confessions of a Spam Bot”
The big news
Derrick Foam was reading about Robin Gibbs’ death when Feather Hudson shot-put her monitor across the room. She’d heard the big news.
Derrick was modifying his email footer when another message appeared:
“Congrats. First task – fire Justine. Back next week. Sea’s the day. Clem.”
The attached photograph featured a groper lolling on the end of a harpoon. Continue reading “The big news”
Character study: Dagmar
Waterfall Way
When I pulled into the street, I saw him leaning against the ash-grey trunk of a eucalyptus tree in front of the courthouse—faded collared shirt and jeans wrapped loosely around his hunched frame, a cigarette cupped in his hands.
He was following the progress of a ute in the middle of executing a reverse parallel park, calling instructions to “swing harder” and “back out”. The driver seemed not to hear him. I pressed and held the horn until he, and everyone else on the street turned to face me. Another stranger in town, they said with desiccated squints and open-mouth scowls that suggested limited access to dental hygiene.
He rubbed his cigarette into the tree trunk, waited, then crossed the street, scraping his sneakers on the road as he approached the car. Continue reading “Waterfall Way”
The Persecution of Milk Beard
Captain Kona
The water drummed against the bow of the Gritty Tang as she tugged her way along the western shoals.
Captain Kona stood silently at the wheel, his calloused hands responding in twitches to the pitching and lurching of the spring swells. He glanced at the mirror, and frowned at the curtain of mist that was purling over the horizon. The rains were coming. They’d promised three fingers by evening fall. Continue reading “Captain Kona”
Illustrated Shorts 