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
Mystery man, shadow man is what they used to call him. Him, the latest three day thin whistle at dusk millionaire returning from sea, to die like his father again, over and over. Shallower seas back then, better cut cloth, broader smiles. Now, after too many rope marks and twisted bone accidents, life comes mixed to stillness with drink, sharp curses and dark corners.
Steve Coel
National Flash Fiction Day 2021
1. Morning
Is all about frail, weightless, frightened older men who come into cafe for daily three hour coffees, game of cards and who all talk endless bollocks about non existent winning horses.
2. Afternoon
Is mainly about shapeless local smackheads and hard core druggies who come into cafe to settle small debts and to boast about knowing where next deal is going to happen.
3. Evenings
End of the day for some, sees cheap fatty meals and shelter from the pain of the street.
4. Late Nights
Is all about 'real money' being made in busy stockrooms of empty shops.
Steve Coel
National Flash Fiction Day 2021
2021
Day Time
The crump of ancient motor and distant shriek of bird, splits open the clipped hedges and curved field of gate cupped harvest.
Here, when brown water fallen from rusty pipe clings to chipped rock, is where sweaty paths lead up into singing overgrown wired woods that close in on long forgotten cylindered reminders of hard labour and childhood.
Night Time
Stepping inside broken windowed shopfronts, you walk in silence through ankle cement, wooden glue, canal wire and rusty nail.
Steve Coel
In her regulation daytime armour
still cracking with coarse whispers
and yesterdays broken promise,
the young girl pushes
her vape shadowed baby carrier
past boarded up pub windows.
Her world is the High Street
where each day
a bitter grey tide
shambles downhill
towards abandoned blue churches
and disappearing city light.
And it is here
plastic shoes will slap
into one off needles
that litter fishless gutters
and where, even on dry days
the pavement is damp.
Steve Coel
In you comes -
in your sad seven year old
ironic tracksuit
and pair of box fresh.
In you comes -
looking for deals
on the board
behind the counter
which we all knows
show same best day
as last time, last week, last year.
In you comes -
doing quick sums
and ordering a dozen shots
with your release money
which you quickly shares out
to punters who isn't interested.
In you comes -
barely missed
and completely blitzed
just another forgotten
madman.
In you comes -
a madman bent by routine;
a madman twisted by addiction;
a madman caught in the to and fro
of the outside which has turned its back
and good riddance.
In you comes -
a madman smelling of time.
Once you bypass
the last starched lightning tree
you enter a hillside world
of midnight stream
and border wire music.
Here, across shilling debris,
early shadow
and blisters of high mist,
nature composes movement
from iron and broken bone.
Steve Coel
Here,
where young people
never return
and there
are no paths,
is the place
language goes to die
and old people
still stop to watch
lost cars
drive pass.
Steve Coel