MicroFlashFiction - Short Stories and Experimental Narratives. '...my experimental approach to writing is suited to this medium...it's an odd kind of laughter sometimes...and it's always in the hidden places...(an ongoing series of) imaginative journeys into experimental fiction...' Writing Review, Q+A - 2024. Steve Coel
3 Extracts -
The severed road blankets the grey undemanding hill as it reluctantly inclines towards the sea.
Here, regimented lines of steel, brown with rust, envelop the park where lovers argue and kiss and where young men drink as children play.
And from the sea comes the smell and spell of promises with stones rattling on concrete and flesh.
Steve Coel
In Severed Road, the narrative centre is replaced by observation of landscape and character is being marginalised.
2021
Extracts...
In many honest pursuits of dishonesty
views of broader realities emerge.
( Community Commentary )
It's found up along cobbled visions of forgotten towns in times disputed by all who lived them.
In places where small children are seen, and then caught by Pentax and Olympus, playing on empty streets near to crumbling demolished homes and where trains full of people are always leaving for somewhere better.
Tall ships, hanging over brick wall, skulk in this broken vision. Tall ships made by small people whose dreams, daily smashed, mirror the horror of this passing time.
Crisp tied visitors arrive and leave. As they always have, and always will. Quick decisions made over ignored pie and cake shaping the stockpile land laid bare by scheme.
Windowless empty youth painted buildings scatter to wind and sudden downpour.
In large open working spaces; in tired, dormant, feral communities, few people gather each morning for early shift. The vacancy of thinking is foremost in time spent here. Labour too is vague, mechanical and undisputed. There is no choice or imagination taking place here. Daily life is held in the pursuit of something that always happens somewhere else and the routine is undertaken without thought or emotion. Tiredness is instant and contagious. Jokes are few, clumsy and dulled by lack of echo.
Here, uniforms cheap and ill fitting, signify nothing but cowardice and lack of respect.
Draft #3 - The Wasted Land(scape) : A Noticeboard of Dishonesty ( 2021 )
Steve Coel
To the listener:
My mind falls apart every time I hear that someone's just been knifed / Or gunned down by a stranger whose now running for their life / If you see anyone that you desire just trying to be free / ( crowd noise ).
( crowd noise )/ The cries of pain come through again as the marksman hits the spot / ( crowd noise ).
Because I don't want no arguing no butchery or spite / ( crowd noise )/ As I look in your eyes I can see a fire I can feel you burning still / As the heart of the matter comes home to me ( Shouting ) you are my sweetest pill.
