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...fake grins act as currency..
Where...simple gestures are challenged and closely debated..
Where...daily trauma functions alongside passing rumour..
Where...narrow concrete staircases funnel nervous jealous glances..
Where...starched wrinkled skin sticks to stretched bone..
Where...young people die old..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Once you bypass the last lightning tree..
you enter a hillside world of midnight stream and border wire music..
walk across the shilling debris and early shadow..
and watch as blisters of high mist compose movement from iron and broken bone.
Begin by the shallow path that slopes unevenly away from the Shadow Nut Wood..
go towards the broken hill and distant wet rock..
you will soon find the corrugated tunnels built to hide, imprison and shelter straight back frightened animals..
twist open the unyielding buckle of weed that lies thick with the embrace of both mud and food..
and note how death stamps its mark into heated spot creating an acid smell of ripped air, fallen dead leaf and crippled motor oil.
Here -
Where...steep dark pictures dent curved sky-line..
Where...dead fruit is picked clean by unseen nightlife..
Where...leather shoes crack salted grit iron pavement..
Where...early day widows gather to taunt community editors..
Where...heavy bronze wire divides night time misery along broken river front..
Where...cheap tables split abandoned doorways..
Where...warehouse beams trap steel smile and welded arm..
Where...blossom heavy rubble lounges outside fenced in destruction..
Where...fallen brick slices papered railing..
Where...waste pipe lined side streets issue warning to hooded sleepless vagrant..
Where...top floor swearing is frequent..
Where...cliff edge bramble holds litter to ransom..
Where...cold slab chipped rock fountain is smiling and love struck..
Where...mobile notes are glued to pavements damp with summer..
Where...waistcoat watches lie trapped in muddied brickwork..
Where...skin is scissored..
Where...sunlit sea crag is clogged with blue nylon futures..
Where...plastic sand cuts foot and dead wood..
Where...safe walking looks like running..
Where...glitter ball glamour is boarded and gig postered..
Where...barber shop window reflects passing stooped daytime..
Where...sham smiles turn away and re-locate..
Where...singing electric wire hangs on whispering waterway tree..
Where...church bell hymns crack open egg shell mourning..
Where...runaway daydream sinks into warm mud..
Where...sober chatter corrupts polluted chamber and cork lined corridor..
Where...busy ripped cloth store front is box fresh and smokey..
Where...puzzled footstep is matched with clumsy frail voice..
Where...pick-up warnings are scratched into street corner metal..
Where...small creatures move tightly through weed walls at midday..
Where...glass shadow stretches into shoeless avenue..
Where...blank looks remain stubborn with old age..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Today...dry docks glisten with salty channel rain as woollen old men sit on one of their favourite benches. Each will smile broadly as together they remember the songs and laughter of the young hard welders they once were. Today...visitors will glance at walls of dismal grey photographs. Some of the photographs show weary men and women waving half empty beer glasses in the air. Others are of car empty streets clogged with leather boots being dragged to early shifts. And some are of boys playing scrappy football with tight balls of Western and Echo in muddy parks bordered with adverts for cheap beer and bread.
Tomorrow...the old men will be back as usual and see it all once more as yet again departing visitors will pass by them unnoticed.
Here -
Where...busy ripped cloth store front is box fresh and smokey..
Where...puzzled footstep is matched with clumsy frail voice..
Where...pick-up warnings are scratched into street corner metal..
Where...small creatures move tightly through weed walls at midday..
Where...glass shadow stretches into shoeless avenue..
Where...blank looks remain stubborn with old age..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
Here -
Where...safe walking looks like running..
Where...glitter ball glamour is boarded and gig postered..
Where...barber shop window reflects passing stooped daytime..
Where...sham smiles turn away and re-locate..
Where...singing electric wire hangs on whiskered waterway tree..
Where...happiness is hidden in fly tipped back lane..
Where...church bell hymns crack open egg shell mourning..
Where...crafted leather shoes sink into warm mud..
Where...sober chatter corrupts polluted chamber and cork lined corridor..
is the place language comes to die.
Steve Coel / An 11.59 Publication
All along the Mercy Road in six month empty paper towns elderly people in torn slippers walk painfully along iron grit footpaths. Their cotton bags are half full with out of date tins of meat and dried fruit as they chatter to each other about childhood, romance and warm hands. Life for them will end here, these places once called home, and their shared memories will soon be forgotten as nature wipes away each doorstep dream and bridal curtain.
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.
