Canvas

You’re sitting on an armchair, a mug of tea beside you, your child on your lap. She’s holding a book. She keeps asking where you got it from. You don’t recognise it.

Before you, a blank expanse stretches out, bleak and never ending. There’s nothing in sight that can jog your memory, because there’s nothing in sight. At all. It’s just empty and barren, devoid of anything whatsoever, just you and nothing, just you in nothing, and if you’re the only thing left doesn’t that make you nothing, too?

‘Dad?’ She’s looking at you with big eyes, waiting. As you turn to look at her, you notice something at your side. Something that can make the nothing go away.

Anna YoungLauren WalshApril 2, 2024fiction, reflections, Reality

Back to Oakwood

I used to be a much more troubled man than I am now. Not that I’ve got it all sorted. But it was only three years ago that I let such a good thing fall apart, and everything had to be built back up from scratch.

It was the week after I’d spiralled again, except that time I really didn’t go back. Instead I’d found this place not too far out from work, and they were letting me stay for pennies. Oakwood Apartments was the name. It’s funny how they decided on that. I’m sure the whole thing came out the arse end of a cement mixer.

Gregory GoursaudLauren WalshFebruary 18, 2024fiction, reflections

Pomegranate Seeds

I often dream of killing my father. Not always in the most sensible way. Sometimes he stands there as I drive a knife through his neck. He doesn’t move, but he does scream. And I cry when he dies in my arms. I tell him I’m sorry. I ask for his forgiveness, but he never says a word. Sometimes he is already dead, a simple concept I am stuck trying to bring back to life in one way or another. Either through making a deal with the devil or pouring him into a mould, trying to shape him back into being. I always fail. And though I cry and apologise, he’s not there to listen. He’s dead. I call out to the heavens, full of anger and hate. I beg for them to give him back, but in a dream there is no one but myself to listen.

Yoshi Cristina Ortiz LealNigella MarxFebruary 10, 2024fiction, dreams

Mists

Sitting on the wall, she lets her feet hang into the old chapel. The congregation fell silent long ago, their passionate adorations no longer giving the place purpose, for what are walls without people? The priest continues longer so the histories say, staggering through life on a pitiful wage, trapped on that savage land so remote and distant from company. But he was loyal to his duty and his lord and so stayed as he was bidden.

Caitlin ParryMia MantonNovember 1, 2022fiction, Contact

Blue China

It was hard to explain to somebody else, but while you were in the middle of it all, it just felt worth it. Worth the way things fell apart and worth the abruptness with which they ended.

Blissful Loneliness

Everywhere I went, there was a person. Nowhere in sight could I find an empty landscape, a clean sheet of grass, a skyline without a skyscraper. My car couldn’t take me away fast enough, as it grumbled all the way to Dartmoor.

Eleanor BrahamGuest UserFebruary 19, 2022isolation, dartmoor, wild, nature, fiction, adventure

The Arsonist

It was as if all time had slowed, slurred as your figure emerged from that crumbling doorway. Like an angel descending, you reached out your hand to pull me out from my own material despair. The flames licked at our feet, and I felt myself melt into your arms.

Isabel LondonGuest UserNovember 11, 2021fiction, arson, sinister

What Lies in God's Wake

Bedtime is my favourite part of the day. That’s when Mum comes to kiss me goodnight, always exactly in the middle of my forehead…

Aayushi JainGuest UserMarch 28, 2019childhood, fiction, family, episodicComment

FICTION