As we boarded the train, I noticed the white of a dog collar under the man's scarf. Yet moments earlier, I had watched as he stood at the centre of the doors, impeding the passengers who needed to alight from the train. We sat down at the same bank of seats, and during our short … Continue reading Cloth
Category: writing
Lemon Meringue Pie
I've spent the summer looking over old work, returning to a past self and his observations, reclaiming the writing from his caprices. In those years, I wrote in a white hot state, as though a clock were ticking, and I had to beat it. It was hardly sustainable; it was hardly writing, really, more of … Continue reading Lemon Meringue Pie
Lowly
Drive to the junkyard,to check out the weather beating into ironwork,the torsion of steel. Or swing by the dealerof aggregate and masonry, blue quartz and white limeare drifting pyramids on the concrete forecourt,where a seashell is astray from the channel bed.A house is all that remains. Pass the wall by the railway,where nettles sway in … Continue reading Lowly
Particle Physics
'Vorster watched the paraplegics racing their wheelchairs around the basketball field. Two years earlier, while driving home one evening, he had seen Cosmos 253 breaking up on re-entry. For half a minute the sky had been filled with hundreds of glowing fragments, like an immense air force on fire. Vorster stood up as the audience … Continue reading Particle Physics
Blue Nib
Penny Falls Burnt sugar, breezy heat. White pollen and the carsick feeling of newly minted shame. It was gambling’s first twitch, in a summer amusement park,as I kept pace with a friend who cast away guilt moneywith easy prodigality. The arcade pumped like an … Continue reading Blue Nib
Catacombs
On a short trip to Kiev, we found our way to the Lavra, a monastery close to the river. White walls and cobblestone streets, a cathedral rebuilt brick by brick after being destroyed by Soviet partisans. The remains of the old wall had been sealed in place, a memento, a relic. Of course, relics were … Continue reading Catacombs
Memories of the Perfect City
The perfect city predated the city. It lay in a hectare of damp fields, formed out of pylons and the reach of old oaks along the hedgerows. I wandered from door to door, persuading neighbours of the value of a life without cars. Future roads superimposed over old roads, the routes, the hideouts. An act … Continue reading Memories of the Perfect City
Vapour
Vapour A road trip. That old saloon: deep bluefinned in a quaint English way,more sea bass than marlin. No destination.We were testing freedom, heading out across the fen landscape, where aircraftbuzzed tree crowns and farm buildingsand tore away, stitching trailsacross our temporary portion of sky. Read more online at Ink, Sweat and Tears
At The Palazzo
We bought fresh orange juice on the street and moved away from the main square, deeper into the barrio. The building lay behind a high iron fence, the gate dismantled to leave the way clear. A hard sun. Ash-coloured walls sliced with red aerosol daubs, that hurried, runic script which is the same in any … Continue reading At The Palazzo
A Pressed Red Flower In The Abandoned Archive
After returning from Indonesia, I found a short term research job with the Unit of Disaster Management, an obscure research unit located in offices outside of Waterloo. On a nine month contract, my duties were low level and banal, but gradually, as my work became appreciated and deadlines loomed, I moved onto more important projects. … Continue reading A Pressed Red Flower In The Abandoned Archive
Absence Club 