Blue Sea Writers

The benefits of giving and getting critique

No candles burned in the windows, no torches lit the muddy village greens

I was the only one of the children who knew that father was never coming home.

William Morris was always home at 6 pm on Mondays. It was now 6.15. There had been no call. That was not like William. He always called.

It was getting harder to keep track of which identity he was supposed to be using. He shuffled through passports the way a croupier riffles…

I was a happy farmer. Before. I can’t place the defining moment. The moment I was abducted. It was slow.

She wasn’t enamoured by artists. Unpractical, slovenly, dramatic. A precocious vocation to make sense of things. Nonsense.

The house was different the next morning. I felt it before I opened my eyes, a stillness that made my heart flutter.

He snapped the stem off and, with a wincing effort, cracked the fruit open. The flesh glistened a lurid pink studded with tiny yellow…

Two bodies lay prone on the bare ground.

I heard the slam of the doors, the rattle of seat belts.

There’s not enough bleach in the world to get that kind of stain out.

I’m walking light, nothing pulling me along.

She stood with a pile of his clothes at her feet, the last reminder of their life together.

Her left knee was creaky and sore, the new running shoes still stiff, but she liked the feel of the rubber cleats biting into the earth and…

I made a mental note and immediately forgot it.

Footsteps towards the kitchen. Light switch.

“Lock-down rules! The world’s gone mad, and so have we!”

Angela took another drink of wine and wiped away an imaginary tear.

A large brown leather briefcase, a late night and an awful lot of cash