The Brigantine lurched to starboard, sails filled and beams creaked their pain, snapping hard against the rigging, straining the beams as the sailors danced around the flailing ropes, trying to slow the snapping. Backs, hard against the winds. Torrents of water smashing into the hull and spitting over the railing and onto the deck that is awash with men, ropes, sweat, blood and pain. The captain pulled his tricorn deeper onto his skull as the wheel nearly spun out of his g

Standing at the 2-kilometre-high precipice he looks down at purple valleys. Orange-blue clouds scatter below. This tiny boy, sole survivor of the escape pod, stares at the two suns beaming like white and yellow balls near the horizon. Being a ‘space-baby’, this is the only world he will feel. Other worlds are only video. He steps off the cliff and dives in a crux pose. Holding the pose till air pins his arms along his torso. Goggles dig into his face, mouth tight, eyes b

“It’s such an easy subject—fruit—I mean there are so many all around us. They even name record companies after them. And that singer, you know, the one that got shot for crossing the road with the other band members.” “A band member called Lemon???” “Yeah, he was famous for staying in bed with his girlfriend who couldn’t sing, the Japanese one. Had a son called Julie. Even wrote a song about him, you know the one. He owned a submarine the same colour and even had a d

Coolness over body. Family, friends glide through the gentle water of Bay. Faster, slower, up, down. Flow along beautiful, soft, gentle, ultra-sensor currents. Sonics through azure, guide to fishies, especially soft little ones. Love little ones. Fun sneaking up on and nudging schnapper or two by tail tips. Scares shyte out of them. They wobble, spin trying to not be devoured. I do ‘cause I can, makes me giggle, blow out bubbles of joy. Boat people come look. They

Blinking, slowly. For an eternity, his lid closes like time standing still. Staring through eyes of eternal pain, lenses of excruciating agony, focus, an eon of torment. The bullet rips into his side. He sees it slide into his flesh, a micrometre, a microsecond at a time. Molecules of blood float in super slow-motion out of the ever-widening cavity. Dancing a ballet of beauty, spinning, twisting, twirling. One degree at a time. One micro-second frame by frame.

“Guy” is male and old French for ‘guide or lead’. Guy of Gisborne tried trapping Robin and stealing Marian. Sebastian sings at people and promotes falsehood. One is very Pearcing, another Richie directs and married a virgin. Others have been stand-up-Guys and even fall-Guys. My-Guy, frat-Guy, goofy-Guy, chill-Guy, even a Toy-Story-Guy. Some even companioned dolls. One guarded gunpowder, arrested, tortured (over a few days), finally confessing that he tried to blow up par

Shaking snow off his bear-hide Grog trudges into the cave. “Corrrr, bloody cold out there. Freeze tha tits offya mammoth”. He kicks the sabre-tooth skull down the back of the cave. “Awwww Grog darlinnnggg, don’t mess the place up ya big hairy slob” minces Og. “Pterry, my big bird flew today but was so cold she couldn’t get off the cliff, so she laid an egg. That’s tonight’s din-dins.” “Fair dinkum, gotta stop livin’ with mates n’ go find a woman” grunts Grog. “Only if you

Age, age, does not weary them, but makes them get the absolute shits! I hate this, I now tell jokes that my daily exercise is tying up my shoelaces, that if I drop something, I leave it there till I drop something ‘really important’, kick it over to the first thing just “to make doing exercise” a worthwhile activity. I like how remote controllers reduce getting up and down but hate how my thumb now has bulging muscles it’s not supposed to have. Washing up is a three-day

Dark, threatening water swirling far below drifted him back to her twenty-five years before. Before famine, armistice, bomb dropping, their world was tense but not like now. Now, no one trusts neighbours, friends or nation. She was breathtaking. He would stand and stare, trying to stop his lower jaw from flopping open. But the mind, the steel trap, now that was the big attractor. Without that her face was mere dressing. Had she forgotten their pledge, lost love-inte

“Movement. T-men, squirters, could be locals. Get Terp to ping ‘em.” “They’re coming around.” Creeping a few inches, looking through the infra-red scope. Two thermals moving behind the low cement wall heading for the well. The first-time-out POG kneels, blasting at the wall end. Buckets fly. Diving out, covering the distance in seconds. Two small, mangled bodies in scarves lay still. “How the fuck could we tell.” shouts POG hysterically. Reaching down slow

The westerly wind winds down the valley so heavily that people become winded. It is hard to tell if it is a planetary or a primary wind, like a trade or westerly or even polar easterly. Maybe a periodic or secondary wind like a monsoon, a land or sea breeze. It could even be a mountain or valley breeze. Local winds can include a Chinook, Bora or Mistral. But, it seems, after I played my woodwind I ate a cabbage, bean and curried egg meal and it has given me tremendous gaseous

Slowly. Very, very slowly. Muscles imperceptibly moving. Eyes still, forward, focussed, rivetted, locked on. Mottled light on mottled fur. Head still, level, unflinching. Muscles glide forward. Mouth twitches, chattering silently. Eyes stay locked. Leaves and branches silently push apart. Mottled shadow glides slowwwwwwly forward, soundless. Holding, still, moving, holding. Gliding. Holding. Waiting. Millimetre moving, gliding, holding. Eyes unblinking. Prey stops, blin

“Hiya, I’m Miles. 6’2”, beer-bellied, broad with full Ned-Kelly beard. I have a Sinead hairstyle (vale Sinead), lots of wigs but love my Dolly and Cher the best. Dusky Rose and Magenta are my fav nail colours, always one Crypt Black. Lotsa frocks, stylish suits, evening wear of course, red pumps and my C-F-M-Boots, fishys, sheers, with nice tasteful jewellery, accoutrements and rings. But sometimes, just trackies, plaids and Uggs. Don’t like much fluff and flounces. I’

He sat, a stool staring out across the wide green valley. Mountains each side creating a V of green amidst almost vertical slopes of rock. Sheer faces standing over the valley succumbing its existence. He wandered what had happened in the green Shangrila over its eons? So many tragedies and glories had been fought for and die here, now part of the soil, enriching the green so bright in the sun it almost hurt his eyes. He drifted back into memories of past. The battles

Muffling dawn stirs, settles a cold mist and bows the soft brome. The village bodach wheezingly, struggles onto one elbow, shakingly dropping back to his fliuch pillowcase and damp sheets. Breathing is now like sucking mead through rough linen damask. Eyes demented red and bulging. Hands shaking ‘ta crith air’ as his heart beats the rattle of a demonic bodhran. His bleary eyes search and cry out for his sweet Roisen but she left with Manannan mac Lir a long time afore

Red heat blisters skin unless wrapped in heavy woollen greatcoats, shields, and gloves. Goggles and ear muffs unable to stop pain. Giant brick-lined iron ladles slop molten steel across the foundry. Massive gloves and coats, aprons, thick face shields struggle. Red-glowing iron bars snake through ramming, compressing, shuddering mill-blocks squeezing thinner and longer. Standing on guides, men push flaming bars through the next guide, furnace, mill-block. Raw coal at

Heat and flames burning bushy eyebrows, aromatic smoke wafting, Nandolnd, the crumpled gnome, moves the long-handled broadtruele inside his 400-year-old cob oven to allow his loaves equal touching of the muffled flames. “Glonadir, my son, it’s our family honour to create the hleifr for our village.” He slides the pole in practiced thrusts, a blade of grace, to keep the bread moving inside the hearth. With gnarled knuckles glistening, the best loaf flings from the oven m

Atmospheric water vapour, frozen into ice crystals, falling in light, white flakes piling up at the front door. A mass of flickering white spots streaming across the television. John Snow misleading everyone with elaborate and insincere words whilst eating a dish of vanilla snow and spraying the room with frozen gas of carbon dioxide. He pulls another line of cocaine from the glass table, sucks on an advocaat, lemonade and ice snowball cocktail and shakes his snow-globe

I don’t know what and why people do things? They just burst out with some rigmarole, some pansy-arsed drivel and expect people to believe what they say no matter how stupidly inaccurate it may be. Well, it must be inaccurate if I don’t agree with it. It must be codswallop if it doesn’t balance with every little thing I propose. Why else would God and the laws of nature ever give me these absolutely wonderful thoughts, if they weren’t perfectly true and correct? Nature ju

With a deafening roar and violent spinning wind the 60-meter-wide blinding disc touches down in the football car park. Thousands of terrified sports fans scream, stare, gasp. A 6-meter decapod slowly descends as if floating. Its green slime drips on crushed cars, dissolving them. A beam of red laser sheers off the top half of the grandstand. The 15-meter-high lone sign flashes off and on. “Guest Car Park”. The creature goes completely silent, as if thinking, processi