'us'
February 2010
Finally finished this bad boy - feedback very very welcome.

He was properly drunk tonight, a rare sight and one that did not bode well. The eyes that knew him well enough to gauge and pass judgement across the dinner table all noted the abrupt, irritated jerk to his head, the uneven sway to his step, the grating curtness to his ( Read more... )

Gods above. “What do you know about it?” Brutus snapped, leaning back and curling a protective hand around his glass as he glared reproachfully at the other man. “You’re obviously misinformed if you call a matter of honour an assassination. We-”

“No, no, you’re right, you’re right.” Dillinger’s voice was soothing - a good voice for radio, he’d heard ( Read more... )

'Wouldn't You Miss Me At All?'
September 2009

Oliver had lived alone eight years too many and, out of what he deemed an appropriate amount of self-pity, refused to count the weekend flings and the stupid late nights and that one two-week maybe of a few months ago. People used to joke about getting old and pathetic, but he’d owned that with pride for ( Read more... )

He and his wife got along well for a couple whose marriage was mostly over. He had Rebecca and maybe she had someone as well, though he doubted it. She didn’t even have a car of her own. What kind of person conducts an affair without having a car? He drove everywhere all the time. Couldn’t imagine life without an automobile, really. There was ( Read more... )

When The Levee Breaks
Inspired by Kenneth Branagh's portrayal of Henning von Tresckow
(Let me know what you think - this is the first thing I've managed to finish in weeks, blah).

Can’t sleep anymore. It’s not surprising, really, not at all, but the realisation’s terrible when it sinks through your face and weighs heavy against the curved sockets of ( Read more... )

Yellow
Written for E.K's Creative Writing class in the style of Grace Paley. November 2008

Doris looked even fatter than when I saw her seven months pregnant with my child. She was sitting in her usual spot by the dessert table and talking to a bald man I didn’t know, and even from here I could see that she had spilled part of her martini down the ( Read more... )

Weddings And Funerals
Inspired by Shakespeare's Hamlet. October 2008

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He had not come to the funeral.

The priest’s chanting was muffled and foggy behind the miles of black veil. She stared straight ahead and watched the slight sway of the delicately embroidered roses inches from her eyes, wondering vaguely what was causing the movement. The air in ( Read more... )

The Bard
Inspired by Shakespeare’s Lavache and ‘God Speaks of Marty Robbins’
August 2008

The bard stood just outside the boxed shape of the door, the old wooden frame enclosing one of those vaguely familiar portraits that hang unseen in common spaces - spread, imploring hands, tilted head, slight frown. All was silhouetted by the light of the tavern, ( Read more... )

Young Man Blues
Written in May of 2008 at the Breadloaf Young Writer's Conference

It was either the cold or the rot that was causing the smoke-stained paint to peel, but after a while, they stopped noticing the mould and the damp because the cold was always worse and the flat never ended up feeling like home.

Two of them were kids with disapproving ( Read more... )

Woodstock
Written in early 2008 for David Holdt's Writer's Workshop class

It is nearly sunrise.

The night is dark and the sky dusted with stars. People are packed around us by the hundred thousand, tripping and listening and talking and fucking and smoking and eating and waiting, waiting like we are. Waiting takes a long time. Waiting in the cold and ( Read more... )