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 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.
Here -
Where...cracked window wired doorways smell of cheap red wine and restless sleep..
Where...burnt out bandstand and gritted wall hold the sky in place..
Where...top floor swearing is frequent..
Where...bitter hands rub endlessly into painted brick..
Where...poor disguises are deliberate..
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...thick suited men drink bottled park bench liquid breakfast..
Where...melted slices of stairway rug fold into careless shoe..
Where...dead meat flags hang from rusty hook in damp empty rows..
Where...closed shops remain open..
Where...the big vision is narrow and short-lived..
is the place language comes to die.
Here -
Where...bladed vape chatter tumbles into unlit corridor..
Where...sour heeled machinery lies idle..
Where...cracked glass memory leans into elbowed temper..
Where...crippled time shelters from hillside churched solitude..
Where...rusty thimble alcoholics drink cold cartons of charity coffee..
is the place language comes to die.
In her regulation daytime armour that still cracks with the coarse whisper of yesterdays broken promise, the young girl pushes her vape shadowed baby carrier past boarded up pub windows. Her world is the local high street, where each day a bitter grey tide shambles downhill towards abandoned blue churches and disappearing city light. And it is here her plastic shoes will slap into one off needles that litter paper gutters and where, even on dry days, the pavement is damp.
Some rules have never been written down because everyone knows what they are. It's an odd kind of laughter sometimes.
Row after row of empty houses. Once they had people living in them, families. They don't anymore because they're not very nice. Rooms small, stairs narrow, walls too thin and the road that now passes each front door is always busy and dangerous. Cold and damp the window frames rotted, so with water dripping everywhere, the floorboards warped and sagged. These houses are twenty years old.
It's found up along the cobbled visions of forgotten northern towns in times disputed by all who lived them.
In these places caught by Pentax and Olympus, children play on empty streets near to crumbled demolished homes.
Tall ships hang over brick walls in this broken vision. Tall ships made by small grey people whose dreams, daily smashed, mirror the horror of departure.
Close by, crisp tied visitors make quick decisions over ignored pie and local cake.
Morning
Is about frail, weightless, frightened older men who come into the cafe for daily three hour coffees, games of cards and who all talk endless bollocks about non existent winning horses.
Afternoon
Is centred on shapeless local smackheads and hard core druggies who come into the cafe to settle small debts and to boast about knowing where the next deal is going to happen.
Evening
End of the day for some. Sees cheap fatty meals and shelter from the pain of the street.
Late Night
Is all about 'real money' being made in the busy stockrooms of empty shops.
