There is a choice of seventeen different culprits. Seventeen flats, seventeen collections of people or persons. Twelve women and eleven men live here. One dog, two cats, one baby. He can rule out the cats, dog, baby and men. Its a woman who does it. A woman who aggravates him and makes his blood boil.[Read more]
Author Archives: boxa
There is no beauty in death, he fussed around the open casket, a tuck here, a smoothing there. No beauty in death, only absence. He’d read that once, in one of his English novels and it captured the business elegantly. He never liked the notion of open caskets. Symbolic to be sure, for some a[Read more]
The electricity cut out without warning. No! No! Nonononononono! The scream left his mouth involuntarily as he raced to find the card for the meter. Nononono please no, as he wrenched off the beanie holding his greasy hair back, slipping on a shirt with no holes and running out of the room. Bugger bugger bugger[Read more]
Every time he climbs the stairs, she sees that he looks in. Is it a reflex? Is it curiosity? Is it a little more sinister? The stairs run along her loungeroom windows, so many people walking up to the top flats do peep in, then realise what they’re doing and look away quickly. Embarrassed. She[Read more]
It was a very small patch of sunlight that lingered in the cool of the evening. But it had been there a while; the stones flat surface was warm to the touch and just wide enough for her to settle comfortably on it. Curling her small and delicate feet underneath, absorbing the small amount of[Read more]
It was a weary, bone tiredness. The one that leeches the light and colour from everything. She took a deep breath and willed her eyes open, trying to hold back the tears at the thought of another day. The mantra started. just get through today, take one step then the next. Just get through this[Read more]
He liked busking as people made their way to work.It seemed to hold more purpose. A melody or tune to make the morning less daunting. Most were wrapped up in their own world, their own music, marching to the beat of the business drum. He enjoyed the surprise that occasionally graced a face… They didn’t expect[Read more]
He smiled as he came in to the room after the guests had left. Some people make the bed, some people don’t and he felt you could always tell from that what sort of person they were. Last nights guests were a young couple, obviously smitten with each other, so he gave them the Juliet[Read more]
When she was twelve her father brought home one of the posh magazines from work. Thick and glossy. With pages and pages of big beautiful homes in creams with hints of colours. Their flat above the newsagents was all browns and greens; it smelt of paper, old and new, forgotten meals and the acridity of[Read more]
She lay still. Completely stiff. Staring at the harsh fluorescent lighting… There was a crack near the metal vent, directly above. It was cool though, blissfully cool, blissfully quiet. Someone else’s child was screaming in the distance. Someone else’s partner was quibbling about the necessity of quinoa. She wiggled slightly, her hair making a comforting[Read more]