Film characters charge into danger without blinking — ancient curses, exploding cities, mysterious blokes in hats climbing through windows… they just crack on like it’s all perfectly normal. Meanwhile, the average British person is still trying to find their slippers and work out who left the heating on. What follows is what actually happens when all that cinematic nonsense turns up in real life. In the early hours of the morning you wake up to discover a man dressed as a clergyman — sporting sunglasses…
Garrett learned early that straightness was a lie. In the seventies, before the tobacco stains on his fingers had become permanent - before the old skin smell, he sat in a student flat where the curtains were never fully open and argued about the shape of the world with a fellow student. “Nothing’s truly straight,” Simon said, voice flattened by smoke. “You draw, you zoom in, and there are burrs. A laser? Dust and air make it dance.” He traced an imaginary ruler-line in…
Garrison’s mother had always said he wasted too much time and far too much money on “pointless contraptions.” She said this often, especially during dinner, and especially louder when the bills arrived. So naturally, the moment Garrison completed excavation of what he insisted was a “cosmic telephone” from deep beneath the Skeleton Coast, he did what any self-respecting futurist would do: he tried to make a call and spoke a call destination into the container. The first successful connection was to the man who…
Karen flipped through the smudged pages of the Farneholme Gazette with the grace of someone rifling through garbage. The paper, much like the village itself, offered nothing but petty crime, damp politics, and obituary columns. She’d once cared - once fought - but the creeping disillusionment that had infected Farneholme’s older folk had finally reached her too. Whatever fire she’d held for saving this place had gone out. Yobs, druggies, council rot . . . they could all have it. She raised her chipped…
Percy had been waking to vomit every night at 2:30 a.m. for six long weeks, the bucket on his bedside table as much a fixture in the bedroom as the snoring colossus he called “dear”, sleeping next to him. Despite Margaret’s attempts to find him a solution, even with all the back-patting and gentle nursing, Percy suspected her of foul play. Evidence did not align with his suspicions; he had never caught her in the act of imperilment, and through various hospital and specialist…
London was under siege. Its people were stooped - eyes firmly on the stone bricks, lifting their heads only to gauge the next ten steps. There was no danger of bumping into one another. They dared not touch. Most did not leave their homes. The Black Death could not sympathise with the repercussions of its presence - it knew nothing of clemency. It thrived in the weakened human spirit, the pessimism working as fuel in the body for its abduction of it. The plague…
The recording ended in silence. Monsignor Vescari removed his glasses and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. Outside, Rome’s bells tolled the Angelus, their echo faint against the stone. The air in the study felt charged, as if the words he had heard still lingered, unwilling to leave. On the desk, the CD spun its final rotation, whispering to a stop like a dying breath. He sat motionless for a time, the letter open before him, until decision overcame caution. Rising,…
Mrs. Rabastandratana’s squeaky wheels and excited whoops tempered the fear storm spreading around the hall. Making her way to the front of the crowd, she leaped from her chair to perform a spasmodic jig in front of Rosie and the beast before taking a bow. My father’s face was incredulous, though fear had gripped him enough to not intervene. “Let’s sing a song from the old country” she bellowed joyously. The piano, still intact, became the new focal point in the room as Mrs.
Rosie looked different. Strong and upright, the slight hunch she’d always carried was gone. Her carriage reminded me of an encyclopaedia illustration I once saw of Joan of Arc rallying troops - resolute, beckoning confrontation. Towering beside her, the worm stood in an S-shape, its cavernous mouth dripping fluids onto the parquet flooring. Its breathing was a slow, rhythmic pulsing. Ripples passed through its pale pink body, each ending in a rush of air that sounded like breath pushed through cold fingers on a…
At 4 p.m., sandwiches distributed, I found myself staring out of the windows again. An old-fashioned lamp on the driveway had come on, likely on a timer to light the way on short winter days. Rain fell with impossible ferocity, though the windows remained free of droplets. Bushes were dragged in every direction across the shingle, pulling small stones and dried leaves from the ground which became briefly airborne, giving the uprooted flora the form of a living creature. I couldn’t work out if…
