promise is a promise

promise is a promise

by

steve coel

1]

today.

doorway.

long corridor.

2]

place used to be arcade.

not now.

shops are long gone, roof caved in, steel mesh windows ripped out by scrappies, walls decorated courtesy of local youth.

no charge.

3]

nice touch that.

4]

so you could say it's quiet round this way now there's nothing left to nick.

5]

council says places like this is going to be developed.

we'll see.

6]

meantime, it's where i comes to spend my days, to finish jobs i been doing during the night.

7]

i'll have finished in about six months anyways.

8]

do what the fuck they wants then.

all of them.

9]

and if they ever finds what i been hidin' round here won't be any come back.

10]

promise is a promise.

promise is a promise [ Draft ], from Tin Collector [ A Series of Micro Flash Fictions ] by Steve Coel, 2015.

Arfordir Byw

steve coel

An 11.59 Publication, Birmingham

carry on waiting. An 11.59 Publication

carry on waiting

by 

steve coel.

part 1: outside Like.

story starts on the street i suppose.
my street.
outside like.
always a good place to start a story i reckons.
begins with police searching a car.
wrong car as it happens.
other footies are holding some guy against a wall while others check his jacket in doorway of the adult store.
i understands they won't find nothing.

part 2: busy day.

sunny day.
busy day.
bad atmosphere.
looks passed between people trying hard not to know each other, failing badly it would seem.
should do better.
so what's the story then.
bit of back story always useful right?

part 3: early for some.

morning.
early for some.
late for others.
someone, it seems, is clearly not quite making it through the day, is getting desperate and is needing some action pretty quick.
like right away is about what it's about.
so.
quick snatch job is all.
bad call is what it is.
being watched see.
being watched quite closely as it happens. 
decision time.
do i?
let it go and carry on waiting.
or move in...blow cover?
luckily for all involved uniformed footie steps in.
very lucky.

part 4: laugh that.

footies seen everything, and nothing, as usual.
bit of a chase.
laugh that.
likes a good chase. 
who doesn't?
security joined in too.
laugh that too.
twats they are for joining in though cos peoples quick round here when opportunity arises.
so it is.
quick in and out, even though they knows cameras sees them all.
and they knows security'll speak to them later.
poor bastards.
but hey, what you going to do?
i'll have word with them prior like, it's what i do, my job.
like i told you, my street.
so that's the back story.
reckons you knows the rest...

carry on waiting [ Draft ], from Tin Collector [ A Series of Micro Flash Fictions ] by Steve Coel, 2015.

An 11.59 Publication

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

Cais Archif

Sometimes you just get to thinking about people and places you used to know well...
[ From Sept. 2009 ]

*****

Oct. 2014

I still keep coming across really great writers of micro-fiction on my travels.
New art, new writing, new ways of thinking creatively.
ALL committed to making a difference.
Respect to you all.

Tidal Movements

Mono / Tidal Movements [ 2013 ]

steve coel

 Tidal movements

Walking across the field that afternoon the man and his daughter had come across the young man picking mushrooms. They greeted him simply, commented about the chill, damp day and continued on their walk. The younger man returned to his now shattered day dreaming while the man and his daughter continued on their way, concluding a queer conversation about the animals they had carefully placed on the opposite side of the valley that morning. Later that week, in the local newspaper, the man and his daughter spotted a picture of the young man and a short report about his tragic accident at sea. They smiled at each other with relief, recalling the conversation they’d had with him.  They also spoke briefly, and secretly, about his sad ending and then continued constructing their models for the valley.

From Stubborn Lines c. Steve Coel 2013

An 11.59 Publication

steve coel

An 11.59 Publication

The House

The House.

South London - 1988

                                                
                                                Row after row after row

                                                all completely empty.

                                                Once they had people living in them,

                                                they don't any more.

                                                They're not very nice houses.

                                                Rooms small,

                                                stairs 

                                                narrow

                                                and walls

                                                too thin.

                                                The garden is tiny

                                                the road that passes the front door 

                                                is very busy and dangerous.

                                                This house is cold and damp

                                                window frames rotted

                                                water drips everywhere

                                                floorboards warp and sag.

                                                This house is twenty years old.

The House - The Fingers Give Lace [ 1997 ]: c. Steve Coel

An 11.59 Publication

c. SBUKARTIST - Happy Valley Series [ 2013 ]

Always Raining

[1]

It always rained.

It never stopped.

It rained so hard that umbrellas curled and died and young boys disappeared into puddles so deep that monsters lurked in the depths and rivers broke their banks and washed away innocent villages.

So memorials were built and from shallow pockets coins and notes were found. 

Erected outside pubs and parks, market places and banks, needles of granite reminded people of the guilt and waste, of young men, wise before their years torn from bosom and coal fire.

And years passed, and young men died, old.

[2]

The wide open, free spaces of childhood when everything and everyone is big and breezy.

The long grass, the hollow tree that becomes a castle and fortress, the ocean of  pond and its wild animals.

And then; narrow streets, noisy with old women washing and gossiping, and old men coughing and smoking and staring.

Brown and grey, memories frizzle and fry with bacon and eggs on open fires and rain that never stops.

Crack, crack, pain and metal and blood.

Dyfyniad - Mud On A Plate

An 11.59 Publication.

c. Steve Coel 2010