Outside in - Your Town An 11.59 Publication

Outside In - Your Town, Any Town

By 

Steve Coel

Like looking out through our window I do.

Looking out I sometimes wonder to myself what it must be like negotiating your way through all the stuff on the sidewalk. 
Bit of an adventure I suspects.

There's been all sorts of complaints I'm telling you. Bruised knees is popular. 
Letters from council have stopped, don't know why.

Owner will be pleased when I sees him.

Still; we hardly have any customers come in anymore, so looking out the window gives me something to do while I wait to answer the phone and pass on the message. 

Owner won't ever let me listen to my i-pad, even though he knows I can't read. 

Didn't tell me why either.

Doesn't really explain why we have all the stuff outside the shop on the sidewalk though  does it?

I can't help wondering where it all comes from to be honest. 

Outside in - Your Town, Any Town [ Draft ], from Tin Collector [ A Series of Micro Flash Fictions ] by Steve Coel, 2015.

An 11.59 Publication

Paste Ups [ June / July, 2015 ] - An 11.59 Publication.

steve coel

An 11.59 Publication

Glare - Extract. Illustrations.

Illustrations.

steve coel

steve coel

An 11.59 Publication

Vol.1. Posters. 2015. An 11.59 Publication.

To follow...

c. Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

Apples and Pears

Apples and Pears

Got another letter today.

Don’t know who from. Don’t know where from. It’s just another reminder. Just like the all the others.

Then.

Times were different and some say if you remember what you were doing you weren’t there.

But I remember.

It was great.

Saturday nights dancing at the ‘Apples and Pears’ with all the other Mods and then off we’d all go Sunday morning, to Southend or Margate, for a laugh.

But for me it only took one big mistake to make all those good things stop and that was seeing that stupid card in the pub window down the Old Kent.

All it said was: Fence wanted. Ask for Chick any Saturday afternoon before closing time. Cash paid.

So for a dare the next Saturday, after listening to new singles with the girls down Woolworths, I went over there and asked for Chick.

Didn’t really understand what it all meant back then.

Do now.

                                                          

So anyway I got another letter today.

Don’t know who sends them or where they’re from but I do know why they’re sent and I do know why they’re sent to me.

Now.

Down the market this afternoon people commented about my sixties hairstyle and how it suits me, some even asked after mother.

But I don’t like talking, never did, so I just got on with things. I mean; after all those years inside I’ve learnt to keep myself to myself. And as for mother, well least said really.

So here I am.

I keep myself clean and live off the money I got given on release. It’s what they owe me after all, seeing as how I’ve kept my mouth shut all these years.

So when each new letter, like the one today, comes, I read it just once, and put it away with the others.

There’s no way round it, I am what I am, a rich women with no life.

Pity mother isn’t alive to share it with me really.

Apples and Pears [ Draft ], from Tin Collector [ A Series of Micro Flash Fictions ] by Steve Coel, 2015.

Cycling for Happiness. An 11.59 Publication.

Cycling for Happiness

By

Steve Coel.

In all fairness she'd expected the water to be pretty cold. After all, it was November and the summer hadn't been anything like she had hoped and she knew well enough that what her family really needed was to get some sun on their bones. But there you go, what you gonna do about it?

So, even being short of money and that, she'd taken them all away for the weekend for a treat, the break she reckoned would do them all a bit of good.

                                                  c. Steve Coel [ 2015 ]

Houses were mostly boarded up it being out of season but she had managed to book them into a side street B and B. Thing is the rides on the front were all boarded up for the winter too. As a result the kids were generally pretty miserable, but they say that a change of scenery can put a lot of other things in the shade. 

So they say.

Like i've heard that if a car drives on to your foot adrenalin gives you the strength to pick the car up so as how you can move your foot to safety. So I've heard.

Still, no-one's really sure where she got the strength to go into the water with the kids like that.

Cycling for Happiness [ Draft ], from Tin Collector [ A Series of Micro Flash Fictions ] by Steve Coel, 2015.

An 11.59 Publication.

A version / draft of this microflashfiction story appears in the April 2015 UK Edition of flashfloodjournal.

Shopping Trolley. An 11.59 Publication.

Shopping Trolley

By Steve Coel.

Like a dream it was just now, watching you walk barefoot and unconcerned across the wet road, it being early morning and all.

You must have started the evening with shoes, but there you go.

No CCTV to follow your every movement.

Not here.

Not yet.

But you're being watched my friend.

Trust me, you're being watched.

c. Steve Coel [ 2015 ]

Yeh it's quiet around here.

Well apart from the splashing water from the broken guttering and the occasional gun fire.

Odd that.

The guns usually start later, at a more sociable time like.

No real point. No-one to frighten see.

This time of day is just showing off.

So what the fuck you think you're doing around here this early in the morning is beyond me.

But then I'm not being paid to think or worry about stupid little fucks like you am I?

Oh well better get on. 
Now, if I can just get this knife a bit further in I can 
be on my own way as well.

Shit, was that gunfire again?

Shopping Trolley [ Draft ], from Tin Collector 
[ A Selection of Micro Flash Fictions ] by Steve Coel, 2015.

An 11.59 Publication.

Walking Backwards. An 11.59 Publication.

Walking Backwards. 

By Steve Coel. 

Our hero figures that if he hangs around by the tube station long enough then it stands to rights that some pretty lady will eventually notice him, like what they see, stop and start chatting to him.

That's what our hero figures anyway.

For, [ if the truth be known ], our hero is genuinely trying to stop the rot of a miserable existence. 

Ugly and simple is the unfortunate combination our hero inherits from a bully, he will never meet, who dated his unwilling, frightened and lonely mother briefly at an evening class.

However; after several saturdays standing around outside the tube station, mainly spent chewing his favourite gum and trying to read the free newspaper, our hero is now beginning to think that this particular idea might lack merit. 

Yes, he has been spoken to. 

Not by pretty ladies.

No. 

The PCSO's simply wondered if he was, well, simply lost.

c. Steve Coel

The hostile newspaper vendor, on the other side of the entrance to the tube station, who keeps telling him to 'fuck off', doesn't really count in his overall estimation of things.

Now our hero decides, [ even though the initial fire has most definitely not been his fault, he'll blame the vendors cigarette and not his ], it best if he goes the long way home. That way he can avoid all the fuss and give himself some time to come up with a new and even better way of meeting some pretty ladies.

Walking Backwards [ Draft ], from Tin Collector [ A selection of Micro Flash Fictions ] by Steve Coel, 2015.

An 11.59 Publication

Evolution - A brief history of Micro Flash Fiction.

Evolution.

Part 1.

Merry Christmas, Mother.
Merry Christmas, Ma.
Hi Mommy, Mommy - and a hot cha cha!

                                           [ HM Walker / Laurel / Hardy ]

Part 2.

A Merry Christmas husband;
Happy New Year's nigh.
I wish you Easter greetings;
hooray for the Fourth of July!

                                           [ HM Walker / Laurel / Hardy ]

Part 3.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

                                           [ Hemingway ]

An 11.59 Publication

Day

Day

Be prepared.

I had the idea at the top of the hill as I walked past a 

corner-shop.

I had been walking for over 2 hours.

By the time I'd reached the used car sales pitch, on the next 

corner, I was definitely mulling it over and re-shaping it. This 

meant that I thought the idea was probably worth writing about.

Across the road now and under the railway bridge I'd shaped and 

formalised it some more. Opposite the empty park, free from 

distractions, I contemplated the ideas relevance and originality 

and was really pleased with it.

It had a simplicity that I liked.

Simple style, simple language, no messing.

I resolved to sit down later and draft it.

So.

I can remember where I had the idea.

But for the life of me I can't recall now what the hell it was 

all about.

Anwastad Strydoedd *14, 2014. 

[ For Michael in Stourport ]

steve coel

In the same week I saw four writers, I vaguely know, at work.

One was writing in a cafe at the local arts centre.

Another in the Co-Op canteen around the corner from where I 

currently live.

Both on lap tops.

Writing away.

In public.

Another was in a coffee shop, doodling mostly, and the last, 

busily sat scribbling away in the pub.

This public writing seems to be OK for some. 

Some biographies I read seem to make this quite clear.

Is it some form of new performing art perhaps?

Of course it could be they've got no where else to write.

I know how that goes.

It could be they pick up on the sounds around them and write 

where they need too.

Or even when they have too.

Like the 150 metre / 260 yard episode.

I could have stopped at the bottom of the hill, written my notes 

and then been able to take it to the next stage.

I didn't and therefore I can't.

Manifesto for the New Writing.

Keep

it

simple.

 steve coel

An 11.59 Publication