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
Here -
Where...narrow lane romance flickers over roof ridged hedge..
Where...bladed vape chatter tumbles into unlit corridor..
Where...slippery couples meet between sheets of harsh fabric..
Where...dead meat flags hang from rusty hook in damp empty rows..
Where...weightless men saunter early into cotton hospital shroud..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Here -
Where...secret hill people hide their harvest crust earnings..
Where...swift water threatens high floating walls of greasy moss and slippery cracked slate..
Where...silver steps to gated harbour crash into scalloped boats..
Where...fussy overcoats and woollen carpet shape grassy valley roadway..
Where...night light blooms on weathered cardboard shelter..
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...fly-tipped memory eats up roofless factory space..
Where...stripped bare wall paintings spray the cold message of futile argument..
Where...bricked up elegance is submerged behind hungry false promise..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Etched from St. Augustine's stone into the headland below, you'll find a length of coast that bleeds into the docks. Here, the ritual is of kerbs being painted by elderly welders, daily recruited in pubs that still echo the empty space between water and youth.
Mystery man, shadow man is what they used to call him. Him when he was the latest three day thin whistle at dusk millionaire returning from sea to die like his father. Shallower sea back then mind, better cut cloth, broader smiles. Now though, after too many rope marks and twisted bone, life comes mixed to stillness with drink, sharp curses and dark corners.
Stepping away from the street you pass through a broken broad open two door. Inside, along damp tired walls, you discover anointed paint quietly peeling, a high congregation of brown paper and leather, and frayed by disappointment, unclean fragile carpet falling into gloomy empty corners.
