Martin Probert Davies's Blog

Deadline for Writers. 12 Short Stories in 12 Months – October – Prompt: Excellence – Word Count: 1800.

Maida Vale felt a shiver blast through her spine as she pressed herself against the observation window. On the other side, a dozen or so people sat inside the sleek, semi-opaque chrome chamber, eyes closed, each wired to a matted nest of glimmering cables. The air hummed with a faint harmonic overtone, like a tuning fork struck in order to focus the minds being cleansed, as the Excellence Engine honed their skills.

It was beautiful in its own way, if beauty could be sterile. A single curved pod for each client, suspended like pearls in liquid silver with no dust, no scent or untreated air. The faint vibration was the only clue to the perfection being constructed.

She turned to her manager. ‘They all look so calm.’

His face remained passive. ‘That’s the idea Maida, the fear, distraction, the hesitation, it’s all stripped away. When they emerge, they will be flawless.’

Maida felt him turn her shoulder to face him.

‘As you will be too.’

She nodded but said nothing. It was all she had ever wanted. Ever since she had picked up her first guitar as a child, the stage was the only place she had ever wanted to be. The problem had always been that she didn’t feel like she was good enough to warrant her place.

Just last week, playing at one of her favourite venues, it just… wasn’t there. When she was on form, she could stand with the best of them, but performances like that, in her mind, were few and far between. That night, her guitar felt heavy, unnatural, and her throat was as dry as sand. She’d played these songs a hundred times, but the notes were tangled, the words stuck in her inflamed larynx and the sweat stung as it poured into her eyes. She stared at the end of the microphone when her eyes refused to stay closed, and tried to ignore the listless crowd jeering before her.

People said afterwards that it was great. They said that the crowd had loved it. The owner of the venue immediately booked more dates. But in Maida’s head it was an absolute disaster. She hadn’t heard the cheers, or the repeated calls for one more song. She had seen the couple towards the back shake their heads and walk away. She had stared as a group of drunken lads appeared to be on the verge of violence. She had heard the tightness and struggles of the notes she had forced out. It wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t good enough.

But now, she would be flawless.

Inside, it was much colder than Maida had imagined.

‘Excellence is a state of mind,’ said Dr Zen, his voice as even as a metronome, ‘The Engine doesn’t change who you are, it simply filters out the interference, the doubt, anxiety and fear. You will remain you, just a better you,’

‘Better,’ Maida repeated softly, ‘And is it permanent? Could it be reversed?’

‘I suppose that’s technically possible,’ Zen replied. ‘But rare. The brain learns quickly to prefer clarity. Talking of which, how far are we going today? Do you want to maintain your impulses as they are, or are we going all in? I know some clients find that any unfiltered residue emotion can still complicate performance.’

‘I just want to play perfectly,’ Maida replied, ‘Every time. Be at my very best, every single time.’

‘Good, good. Your management company has suggested that this is the way to go. If you’re happy, we will begin.’

Inside the pod, the cold dissipated as Maida felt a warmth slowly crawl across her skin, as if the sun was burning off the cold mist of a winter’s day. She felt flashes and twitches deep inside her head as a voice in her ear whispered numbers and soft, hypnotic phrases.

Calibration. Focus. Balance.

Colours, angles and memories flickered across the inside of her eyelids. The failed performance, the disillusioned crowd before her, the applause that had once thrilled her but now did nothing. Her first guitar. That Christmas where the whole family had sat around her as she had torn the paper covering her maiden instrument and gasped as her dreams came true. The struggles of learning what to do with it, the difficulty in making it sing.

All of it dissolved into pale light.

Let go, the voice seemed to repeat.

And so she did.

When she opened her eyes at some unknown time later, the world felt newly sharpened. Edges gleamed, colours had purpose, and their shadows outlined the details of the world vividly. Sounds aligned themselves into patterns she could almost see.

‘Welcome back, Maida,’ Dr. Zen said. ‘How do you feel?’

Maida blinked and stared into his dark brown eyes, studying the black rivers of his iris as she spoke.

‘Clear,’ she said. ‘Very… clear.’

‘Good,’ he replied, ‘Your gig is in an hour, you’d better get going.’

It was perfect. Flawless.

She sang every note as intended. Every strum of the guitar was precise and predictable. No trepidation. No fear. Maida owned the stage as the crowds watched in awe at the masterclass unravelling before them. She surged, confidence personified, every chord a harmonic perfection resonating across the room.

Afterwards, people congratulated her and told her how much they had loved it, just like they had before. But this time, Maida believed it herself. She had felt it… at least… she thought she had. The laudatory comments seemed distant and muffled, and she smiled back, polite and perfect, but nothing more. Rather than being fulfilled, she felt ambivalent.

Perhaps she was just tired.

She went back home after packing up and tried to sleep. It came, but only fleetingly, and for the first time in many years, she didn’t dream.

Performances became routine, as did her day. Play, rest, and recalibrate.

Her management company were happy, she had recorded an album in half the time allotted for it with most songs down in just a few takes. She had people begging her for lessons, but Maida didn’t teach anymore as she had found it hard to explain anything beyond the mechanics of producing the sounds.

‘You play like a machine,’ one of her last students had said in awe.

She had smiled and thanked him, but was unsure whether it was praise or not.

All she had ever wanted was to be great. To be perfect, to be able to perform at her best, every single night. And now she had it… but sometimes she thought back, trying to remember what it used to feel like – what her music had made her feel. How a wrong note could sting and trigger nerves so strong that it would make her fingers shake in a way that made her feel alive. No, not alive, scared, frightened, insecure – that’s what it was. It was bad.

Definitely a bad thing.

But the memories were blurred. Sanitised out of existence.

That evening she had another gig. This one was for her management company, and for Dr. Zen. An album launch coupled with a symposium for potential Excellence Engine investors. She had been asked if she would mind doing it, and had automatically agreed.

The music unfurled flawlessly, as it always did now. The rows of identical suits sat before her, as flawless as her performance, but as she played she felt a twitch in her finger. As she closed the penultimate number, it became a tremor and, for a fleeting second, she heard a single note waver.

Maida ignored it, and got to the end, but there was a sinking feeling in her stomach, a feeling that she had almost forgotten about completely.

Afterwards, Dr. Zen met her in private. ‘You hesitated.’

‘I thought I heard something,’ Maida replied.

‘Echoes,’ Zen said, ‘Residual emotion, it’s not uncommon. We can schedule a recalibration.’

Maida didn’t go home that night. Instead, she found herself outside on of the city centre streets, where the fog was giving way to rusted rooftops and the smell of cold rain. She hadn’t been to this spot since she was young, but saw the door of the small bar that had drawn her there stood open. Inside, a man was playing an old guitar that couldn’t keep its tuning, but produced a sound full of warmth,

Maida entered and stood listening, her heart heavy with something she couldn’t quite remember.

The man finished his set, and to her surprise wandered over.

‘You’re Maida Vale,’ he said, surprised.

She nodded, timidly. A feeling she hadn’t felt for a while.

He looked almost painfully at her, a lifetime of haggard experience etched across his face.

‘It’s a shame what happened to you.’

Maida was taken aback. The words stung, igniting an anger from nowhere.

‘How dare you,’ she said, ‘I perform to crowds a hundred times the size of this. I have a best-selling album. I bring it every night. I play… perfectly.’

The man didn’t flinch.

‘Maybe that’s the problem.’

She didn’t answer.

His face softened, laughter lines turning his features into an inviting glow. He picked up his guitar, and strummed a single, imperfect chord and let it hang in the air, the dissonant frequencies swimming in the night breeze.

‘Come on, sit. Play with me.’

He handed her the guitar. The strings felt rough under her fingers, resisting her coaxing. She tried to play, but the instrument sounded wrong. Flat. Unmeasured. Her fingers refused to improvise. They knew the shape of every chord, but couldn’t sense them.

‘You don’t need to fix it,’ he said as he watched her struggle, ‘You just need to feel it.’

She put the guitar down and left without a word.

The recalibration chamber was waiting.

‘It’s natural to doubt,’ Dr. Zen looked at her kindly, ‘The mind resists simplicity. But you want excellence.

Perfection even. That means release. Excellence is a freedom from failure.’

Maida hesitated. ‘But isn’t failure part of… isn’t it?…’

Zen touched her arm gently. ‘Let’s begin.’

The pod closed around her once more.

A couple of nights later, Maida was playing the biggest gig of her life. Everything was going perfectly.

But it wasn’t right.

The crowd seemed rigid, the stage seemed inert. The lights shone out onto the watchers, and that’s when she saw him. The man with the guitar, leaning against the fencing below the stage.

The words stuck in her throat. Maida started to panic as they caught, ripping her cords red raw. She started to scream, grabbing her guitar by the neck and smashing it down on the stage, shattering it into a million shards. The pieces morphed into the scattered remains of the Excellence Engine in her mind as she kicked over the amps, roared down the microphone, a tribal, guttural scream of angst. In the wings, her manager was horrified, but as she looked up at the crowd, they were also screaming. Raging. Egging her on as the whole auditorium erupted into a frenzy of raw emotion.

It was the one they talked about for years.

The gig that made her.

Deadlines for Writers. 12 Poems in 12 Months – August – Prompt: Measured

I often wonder,
How do we measure success?
Hope it’s not by length…

Yeah, so… not going to lie, I may have forgotten about this deadline! Next month…

Deadline for Writers. 12 Short Stories in 12 Months – September– Prompt: Cup and Saucer – Word Count: 1000.

The street was busy but made no sound as Jack shuffled along, eyes on the scraps of paper tumbling in the cold November breeze. He sighed, tucking his hands into his suit trouser pockets, his polished shoes clunking mechanically on the pavement as he raised his head to survey the grey world around him.

What was he doing with his life?

A whistle, faint and melancholy, broke his thoughts. He looked up to see a dishevelled man sweeping the dusty pavement in front of an old, ramshackle café. Odd. Jack had walked this street a thousand times and never seen it.

The place looked as if it had stood there for centuries. He was strangely drawn to it.

Inside, the café was dim and almost empty. The dishevelled man followed him in, giving Jack a look heavy with understanding. Without a word, he set a porcelain cup and saucer in front of him, filled with a dark, steaming tea.

“Thank you… how did you know…?”

The man only smiled, his eyes carrying something ancient.

The cup was intricately decorated, the clink against the saucer ringing with unnatural resonance. The sweet, dark steam curled upward as Jack raised it to his lips…

“JACK!”

He jumped. His boss was glaring across the meeting table. Everyone was staring, even Amy. Beautiful Amy.

Exactly where he’d been an hour ago.

Oh God, he thought, I must have fallen asleep.

“I think this meeting is over,” the boss said a little while later, “you can all go. Jack, a word?”

The others shuffled out ambivalently, except Amy who threw him a perplexed but worried glance.

“What the hell was that?” the boss asked, before launching into a tirade. Jack, however, wasn’t listening.This is exactly how it went before.

“Go, take an early lunch, and think about what you need to do.”

Jack left the meeting room and headed towards the stairs as a young intern came racing past him, late for a meeting. Her heels caught in the carpet, and she went flying. Jack leapt forward and managed to grab her arm before she fell.

“You OK?”

“Yes, thanks, sorry…”

He ascended the stairs and walked out into the grey November breeze, shoes clunking…

And there he was again. The melancholy whistle. The ramshackle café. Exactly as before.

He sat. The man brought over the tea, with the same knowing smile. The cup clinked as before. It had a small chip on the rim, Jack couldn’t recall if that was there before. He took a sip…

“JACK!”

Jack jumped as his boss shouted his name across the meeting table.

He listened to his boss’s shouting. He caught the intern. He left the office. He walked down the street, and back to the café. He took a sip of tea.

“JACK!”

And jumped once again, back in the meeting room.

Back at the café this time, he looked deep into the old man’s eyes. Pay attention. He tried to remember what they were talking about before. He sipped the tea.

“JACK!”

“Sorry sir,” he replied, “so, this is how I see it…”

“Thank you, meeting over,” the boss said a little while later, “you can all go. Jack, a word?… I expected a little more.

You were supposed to have that estimate for the upgrade work…”

Damn. He had forgotten about that.

He caught the intern and walked down the street to the café. The old man brought over the cup, but as he placed it down, Jack now noticed a crack appearing down the side. He looked up, but the old man just nodded and walked away.

He sipped.

“JACK!”

“Sorry sir, so, we’ll start with the estimate for the upgrade work. We’ll have to add a day or two as the analyst team is behind…”

“Really?” the boss replied, “Amy – care to explain?”

Amy was not happy. Perhaps he should leave that bit out.

Jack lost count of how many times he replayed that hour. Whatever he did, he just couldn’t make it perfect. The old man, eyes full of warning, placed the cup on the table gingerly. It now had several cracks, and the handle was beginning to come away.

For the first time, he spoke.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I can do better.” Jack replied, “And I need to say something to Amy.”

He went back. He floored everyone in the meeting room. He took a deep breath, heart pounding, and as they left the room, he called over to Amy.

“Look, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you, you’re the most amazing person I know, I just…”
There was a scream. The intern was tumbling headfirst down the stairs. They ran over to see the girl crumpled unnaturally as a pool of red started to ooze around her…

Jack ran out into the street.

“What are you doing?!” screamed Amy, “Call 999, get help! Jack!! Come back! Help!!”

But he was already sprinting down the street.

“Quick!” Jack begged, bursting into the café. “I’ve got to go back!”

The old man hesitated. His hand trembled as he lowered the cup. Porcelain split and fell away, shattering into a thousand shards across the table.

Jack collapse back into the chair in shock. What had he done?

The old man looked Jack in the eye. A single tear ran down his cheek.

“Time runs out for everyone.”

There was an almighty flash as the world collapsed in on itself.

Jack gasped. He was back in the meeting room.

His pulse slowed as a strange calm settled over him.

He didn’t scramble for perfect answers this time. He let the meeting end. He grabbed the intern before she fell. He stepped outside into the November breeze, his shoes clunking against the pavement.

The café was gone. Only the grey wind and the street remained.

Jack stopped, breathing in the ordinary world. Its noise. Its grit. Its imperfection. He thought of Amy, of the intern, of the work he had been half-living through. He thought of all the chances he had wasted, waiting for another loop, another sip, another fix.

It was time to stop rewinding. Time to change.

He accepted the mistakes. He would need them, use them, maybe even find something better in them.

Before he ran out of time.

Deadlines for Writers. 12 Poems in 12 Months – July– Prompt: Song

I ’m afraid I have cheated somewhat this month, but I thought the story fitted the prompt so well. This was a poem, called Another War, Another Line I wrote way back in 2015 immediately after the UK Parliament voted to start yet another bombing campaign in the Middle East (coupled with David Cameron ’s infamous ‘swarm of migrants ’comment). Syria I think it was that time. There have been so many …

It was then taken about a year later, worked around a bit, and turned into a song called The Self Proclaimed Law, which can be listened to on YouTube below.

Another War, Another Line

So another war, another line.
It may be in your name – it’s not in mine.
But the boys at the end of the ballistic strike
Do not worry or care if it’s wrong or right.
For the death still flows from the same direction,
From West to East, and then back through deflection
Of lies and laws and bitter devotion,
Bastardised votes and corrupted emotion.

The same old tale since Picot and Sykes,
Drew their lines in the sand, and defended the rights
Of the Empire, Republic, the King and the Tsar,
To orchestrate borders and lord from afar.
Crusading, campaigning, it’s all just a game,
And those who oppose it are clearly insane,
As there’s always collateral damage in war –
But it’s never the sons of the self-proclaimed law.

So although it’s in your name, and not in mine,
It’s my son who’s taking the shots for your line,
My daughter who lies staring blank, bleeding out,
While the boys of the strike just keep preaching about
How their children were killed by the westerner’s knives,
An eye for an eye, their souls for our lives –
And the bitterness grows. And will never subside.
The sickening price of the warmonger’s pride
Keeps on growing and growing, but never so great
That the profiteers’ pockets collapse with the weight
Of a million lost souls, and a million lost homes,
And a million strong swarm with nowhere to go.
So another war, and another line,
And so it continues.
For your sons and mine.

Deadline for Writers. 12 Short Stories in 12 Months – July– Prompt: Loyal– Word Count: 750.

They say the dead don’t haunt you unless you owe them something.

I used to think that was nothing more than superstition—old tales spun to comfort guilty hearts. That was before James Turner started showing up again.

The first time, I was sitting on the porch, cradling a cup of weak tea between aching hands, watching rain gather in the drain. He just… appeared. Leaning against the old oak tree like he used to when we were twenty, both of us full of bluster and belief in causes bigger than ourselves.

I blinked. Once. Twice.

“James?” I croaked.

He said nothing. Just gave me that tired half-smile of his. The same one he wore the day he died.

Then he was gone.

Maybe it was the meds. The blood pressure tablets had been knocking me about lately. Or maybe it was something worse. Something creeping in at the edges of memory. But he returned, night after night. He would never say anything, not a single, ghostly sound. I would call his name, but it seemed silly. What if someone heard me?

After a week, I got angry. I didn’t care who was listening.

“What do you want from me?!” I barked into the night.

The wind rustled the leaves. He didn’t flinch. I told myself I was losing it.

Then I found the letter.

It was tucked inside an old rucksack I hadn’t opened in years, wrapped in oilcloth beneath a pile of medals I’d never had the heart to display. The envelope was yellowed with age, the ink faded but unmistakably his.

“To Ellie, if I don’t come back.”

The guilt hit me harder than the shrapnel.

He’d given it to me the day before the ambush. “Just in case,” he’d said, and handed it over with his lopsided grin. I’d promised him I’d deliver it myself. “You owe me that,” he’d joked, but it was never a joke to me. I owed him everything.

But then he died.

Gunned down beside me, eyes wide and empty.

And when it came to it, I froze. Internally shut down. I knew I couldn’t face her. I’d just… kept it. Never found the courage to deliver it. I had let him down. My most loyal friend.

That night, I sat on the porch again. James was there, as always, but this time I called out to him softly.

“I found it. I’m sorry. I’ll do it, I swear.”

He nodded, and vanished.

***

It took me three days to find her.

Ellie Turner—now Ellie Moore—was living in a quiet assisted living home two towns over. A retired schoolteacher. A widow, once again. A life that had kept moving, even after his had stopped.

When I arrived, letter trembling in my hand, I had asked to speak with her. The nurse had raised an eyebrow but nodded. She was smaller than I remembered from the photos, her back a little stooped, but her eyes… her eyes still held that spark he used to talk about.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I knew your husband,” I said. “Your first husband, James.”

She blinked. Sat up straighter. “James Turner?”

I nodded. “We served together. I was there when…”

She reached out. “You’re Paul.”

I froze. “How do you—?”

“He wrote about you. In every letter,” she said with a soft smile. “Referred to you as brothers.”

I didn’t know what to say. I just held out the envelope.

“He gave me this. I was supposed to bring it to you. After. But I… I didn’t.”

We sat in silence as she opened it. The paper, old and delicate, crackled like autumn leaves. Her eyes scanned the words.

She smiled through delicate tears.

“It’s nothing but stories. He talks about our wedding day. The cold meat salad I hated. The daughter we always hoped for but never had.” She folded the letter like it was something sacred, then brought it to her lips. “He was reliving our memories, to say goodbye, to make sure they mattered.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I was a coward.”

She took my hand in hers. “No. You came now. And that means everything.”

***

That night, I sat on the porch again. The stars were sharp and clear for once. No clouds. No rain.

James was there, but he wasn’t tired anymore. He looked different. Younger. Whole.

He raised a hand in salute and was gone.

I knew that it was goodbye. Goodbye for real.

Miss you and love you.

Sleep well old friend.

Deadlines for Writers. 12 Poems in 12 Months – June– Prompt: Like

I need to write, like, a poem,
Or something,
Like, about something that I, like, er… like,
A dream or some shit.
But the deadline is, like, today,
And I’ve been so distracted,
It’s totally insane,
Scrolling through my feed takes literally forever,
Two minutes it’ll take?
Yeah right, like, whatever …

Jesus! OK! Look I ’m doing it!
GOD-dah… right.
FFS, it’s like, totally impossible.
Ha! Look at that! What a cute dog!
It talks!
It, like, totally made me lol,
Literally, lol,
Not like, out loud, but, you know, thumbs up.
Liked.
Anyway …

What was the question again though?!
What do I like?
What’s my vibe, bro?
I dunno, like, who gives a shit?
I’ll just ask AI,
Or fucking… Google it.

Whatever man.
It’s not like it matters anymore.

Deadline for Writers. 12 Short Stories in 12 Months – June– Prompt: Purpose– Word Count: 1200.

The old door creaked as Edgar Lark let himself in, just as he had done for the last twelve years or so. He couldn’t be sure how long it had been exactly, but every morning at precisely nine o’clock he opened up the Alderway Public Library and got to work. He dusted the shelves, reorganised the same misfiled books, and rewound the film projector that hadn’t played for as long as he could remember.

As with all the days past, the library clock ticked through to the afternoon. There was no one else there to hear it. Edgar sat at the main desk as dust spun through a shaft of afternoon light, dancing above the warped wooden floors below. Outside, weeds had claimed the pavements, and only the wind stirred in what was left of Alderway High Street. It had been almost a decade since the last visitor, and yet, still, Edgar came.

He didn’t truly know why. He believed in rituals. They kept him going. To what end, though, he wasn’t so sure. It was difficult to see a purpose in anything since the Great Decay, but something inside of Edgar felt that it was important to open the library. It was important that it continued to be.

He was repairing the spine of a children’s picture book, his own small way of fighting back against the decaying world, when from nowhere, he heard it. It took him a second to register but he’d definitely heard it.

The creak of the old, unlocked door.

And footsteps.

Edgar stared down as the sound got closer, his heart pounding. Another creak. This time from the warped wooden floors. He looked up.

A small girl stood before him. She looked about seven. Her clothes were dusty, her shoes frayed, and her dark hair hung in an unwashed, tangled array of chaos.

“Hello,” she said, her voice soft and cautious. “Is this where the stories are?”

Edgar stared back in slight disbelief but hid his trepidation as he blinked. “Yes,” he said, his voice raspy from disuse. “Yes, it is.”

The girl stepped a little closer.

“My name’s Lilac.”

He nodded at her courteously. “Edgar Lark. Librarian. At your service, young lady.”

“Do you really have stories? Like… real ones?”

“The best kind. The real kind.”

Edgar led her to the children’s section, one of the more neglected areas of the library. It had been so long. Lilac rang her fingers along the dusty shelves before pulling out an old, battered copy of The Velveteen Rabbit.

“Can you read this to me? I can’t do it myself.”

They sat together on an old bean bag amongst the dust and debris, a place buried by physical decline, yet untouched by time even now. He read aloud, his voice sore and frail at first, but eventually finding some rhythm. Lilac listened with wide eyes, slowly curling herself up like a cat beside him.

“He was real.” she whispered, “The story was real. I could feel it.”

She came back. The next afternoon. And the next.

Every morning, at precisely nine o’clock, Edgar would open the door with new purpose. He would select some books for Lilac with care and plan their reading lessons. In the afternoon, he would make tea in the cracked staffroom kettle and clean corners of the library he had long neglected whilst Lilac pulled tome after tome from the shelves – not just fairy tales, but atlases, science books and anything else that caught her eye. She devoured it all.

She asked questions constantly. “Were there really so many people before?”

“Like the stars.” Edgar replied, his damp eyes unnoticed.

“Why do the stars move?”

“It is not the stars that move,” he replied, “it is us.”

“Do you think animals talk when we’re not listening? Like the rabbits?”

Edgar answered as many questions as he could. What he couldn’t answer, they looked up together from the dusty shelves of their sanctuary, and if they still didn’t know, he would make a story up that fit.

One day, she arrived late, her face smudged with ash and her hair more dishevelled than ever.

“Are you OK, Lilac?” Edgar asked.

The little girl nodded. “It’s OK, Mr. Lark. We had to move camp again. Some men came looking for batteries, but it’s OK now. They are gone, but we had to move.”

He didn’t probe any further. It was clear that her world was very different from the one he remembered.

That evening, as they read under a dim lamp, she asked him yet another question. “Why do you stay here Mr. Lark, all alone?”

Edgar thought for a moment.

“Because someone has to,” he finally replied. “Because someone must remember the stories. Because stories matter, even when there’s no one to listen. In fact, they may matter even more then.”

She didn’t say anything but seemed to understand.

*****

A week passed. Then another. Lilac had not returned.

Edgar waited, each day a little hollower. The first one had been a disappointment, the next a surprise, but now… he still opened up at precisely nine o’clock. He prepared the lessons and the tea. He reread The Velveteen Rabbit aloud to the empty room. It didn’t ask any questions.

Then, some days later, just as suddenly as before, he heard the old, unlocked door creak again.

But it wasn’t Lilac.

Three figures stood before him on the warped wooden floor. Two women and a man, armed, and cloaked in tattered patchwork coats, their sun-leathered and cautious faces anxiously analysing the old library now encasing them.

“Are you Mr. Lark?” one woman asked.

Edgar didn’t say anything but nodded slowly.

“We came from what was the northern settlement. A girl in our group, Lilac, said you taught her to read. She told us stories – stories we hadn’t heard since before the Decay…”

Edgar swallowed as he cut her off, “Is she alright? Is Lilac OK?”

The man nodded. “She is. She desperately wanted to come back, but we had to move quickly. She told us where to find you when it was safe again. She asked us to find out if we could take some books.”

Edgar closed his eyes to contain the moisture of relief. He led them through the library.

They stayed for several hours. Edgar showed them which volumes would last on the road, and how to repair pages and spines. He packed them a crate of tales, poetry, guides and manuals.

On top, he placed his old, worn journal. The last story. The one about the keeper of forgotten things, and the child who lit the lantern again.

They offered to take him with them. He declined.

As they prepared to leave, one of the women turned to him, “Why did you keep doing all this, even though nobody came?”

“Because I always felt that somebody might.” he replied. “And they did.”

*****

The years passed. In a new valley settlement blooming beside the great river, a young girl sat beside a fire, holding a worn journal. She turned the last page and looked up at her mother.

“Who was Edgar Lark?”

Her mother smiled.

Across the night sky, the stars still moved, and the people came to watch and listen.

Deadlines for Writers. 12 Poems in 12 Months – May– Prompt: Hollow

My friends say I’m too ugly to get a hundred likes,
As I dance in my bikini in expensive film-like light,
My dopamine addiction is fishing for a bite,
But now I have a million,
And still, I don’t feel right.

My latest stunt is awesome! You simply won’t believe!
I’m overly dramatic so you have to notice me!
Everybody’s saying it! It’s literally insane!
It’s definitely gonna blow your mind!
By rotting out your brain.

Forty hours a week you work? What is wrong with you?!
Just click the link below to see – you could be like me too!
Look at my expensive suit and check out my fast car,
I’ll charge you fifty quid a month,
But you’ll never get that far.

Still single, with my perfect bod and filtered profile pic,
Inadequacy is what I sell – you’re ugly, poor and thick.
Look at my athleticism, lap up my perfect face,
I want you to admire me!
Not notice that it’s fake.

What happened to the Social dream? The worlds we planned to gain,
To bring us altogether and share each other’s pain?
Hollow truths and hollow lies – is that what’s with us now?
It seems to be more likely,
That we’ve lost our way somehow.

But money talks and sex still sells, it’s the just the way it is.
A hollow world for hollow minds inevitably fits.
So if I want more views I need to get the headline right,
As I grab my best bikini,
And fire up the lights…

New Post:
My friends say I’m too ugly to get a hundred likes.
(1.4M like this)

Deadline for Writers. 12 Short Stories in 12 Months – May– Prompt: Cloud– Word Count: 1800.

This is the first of these assignments that I’m really not happy with. I ran out of time, so it’s no where near as edited or refined as I would like. However, I made the deadline, so it is what it is…

“Ah, I love this one.”

Alicia watched the scene fondly. The moisture in her pupils threatened to break free and dampen her cheeks, but time had hardened its resolve.

She was looking through her late mother’s eyes—at herself, age six, screaming with glee, wrapped in an oversized winter coat as she dashed along the beach, chased by a playful tormentor.

“Alicia! I’m going to get you!”

The sound of her mother’s voice still hit hard, even now, years after the accident. Alicia didn’t remember the details—she’d been only twelve—but even nineteen years later, the grief still lingered. At least she had the memories.

She often spent whole days inside her mother’s memory files. Alicia felt lucky to live in a time when memories could be extracted and stored directly in the cloud—no devices, no cameras—just pure neural capture. And luckier still that her mother had done it.

Now, Alicia lived in those memories, stored in the HoloCloud, rendered in full sensory immersion. It wasn’t cheap, but it let her walk through her mother’s world, feel her breath, see through her eyes. Some called it unhealthy. A refusal to grieve. But they didn’t understand. How could they? As long as she had these memories, her mother wasn’t truly gone.

In fact, she spent so much time looking through her eyes, it sometimes felt as if she was her mother. Almost enough to bring her back.

Alicia gestured into the air, flicking through holographic files a few feet away: her ninth birthday. Her first day of secondary school. Her mother’s wedding day.

She loved that one—seeing her parents so young and in love—but it was always tinged with regret. She didn’t really know her father now. Sometimes she wondered if she’d even recognize him. Possibly stout, maybe greying. That’s if he was still alive, of course.

She played the wedding again. Her father stared back at her, mesmerized, as she walked down the aisle. She returned the look lovingly, as she had a hundred times before, but this time—

Something was different.

Halfway down the aisle, she turned her gaze left. Rows of smiling faces… and then, one man. Jet-black hair, still as stone, with an almost unnatural gaze drawing her mother’s eyes like a magnet. Alicia tried to focus on his face, but the scene stalled and pixellated, the sound glitched horribly as the virtual procession spewed back into the real world.

Error trying to read. File corrupted. Error code 8695-DF54-45FB.

Alicia groaned in frustration. This was happening far too often now. Yes, her HoloCloud display unit was a few years old, but for the money she paid it wasn’t good enough.

She looked around, the room was completely dark, nothing betraying the current time of day, and she became aware of her aches and cramps. Her body felt soft and showed the inevitable signs of inactivity. It felt weighed down, heavy, tingling with a kind of phantom touch, feeling almost broken. She hated this world.

She rebooted the system – a few flicks of her wrist and pawing the air a few times – and found herself running along the beach again.

“Alicia! I’m going to get you!”

She giggled with delight as her mother caught her in her arms. She had lived this memory a thousand times, the cold winter wind blowing her mother’s hair across her vision as it battered her daughters smiling face, a face emanating nothing but warmth despite the blustery sea breeze…

“Hey!”

Alicia jumped as they swung around. This wasn’t the memory. Not another corruption, surely? A man was marching briskly towards them with purpose, as the mother glanced back at her daughter.

“Mummy, who’s that man?”

“I don’t know sweetheart.”

Her mother’s voice. Real, yet wrong. Alicia’s pulse quickened – she had read about this. Sick individuals hacking into people memories, just for laughs, infecting the files… that must be what’s going on here. Any minute it’d crash. Perhaps another reboot would sort it.

Her mother glanced back at the man. Alicia gasped.

It was him. The man from the wedding.

He was staring right at them, almost skeletal, opening his mouth to speak-

“ALICIA!!!’

Alicia screamed and shut the unit down. Her gasping, panicked breath reverberated around the dark silence of her living room. Her dark world. There was nothing here. Nobody here. And yet… a beeping. She checked her unit, but it didn’t seem to be coming from that. She couldn’t even tell if it was in the room.

Ignoring it, she rebooted again, desperately hoping that it would work. She daren’t open her favourites, just in case, so started flicking through some archived files.

Then she saw it. A memory she had never seen.

Accident.

Her virtual fingers hovered over the image. She had always wanted to know what had happened, but… was it really something she wanted to see? And why hadn’t she noticed it until now? Could it be the hack? How would they know?

She gestured, and immediately she was behind her mother’s eyes again.

They were in the car, her as her mother, and the young twelve-year-old Alicia next to her. Strange… she had no personal memory of this. She smiled at her daughter, then turned to the road ahead—

The truck slammed into them with apocalyptic force. Glass exploded inward, shards slicing through air and skin as an acoustic hell ripped through their eardrums. Screams turned to static. Alicia’s body jolted forward, ribcage crushed against the steering wheel, lungs emptied in a single punch of agony. She heard the crunch of her own bones. The car seemed to crumple like foil.

Alicia tried to move, but her limbs disobeyed. Her vision blurred, ears ringing with a high, unbearable tone. Her daughter’s face, or her face, swam into view —blood streaked down from her nose, her lips moving in a scream Alicia couldn’t hear.

A muddled silence throbbed in her head as the world blurred. She momentarily focused on her twelve-year-old self, still silently shrieking. Some people came, they opened the passenger door, “My daughter,” Alicia muttered with her mother’s voice, tasting copper on her tongue, “Get her out, please save her…”. She looked OK, Alicia told herself, a little bloodied, but the daughter looked fine. She continued to scream as the people helped her out of the car, but all Alicia could hear still was that muffled high-pitched tone.

But then, a knock.

A loud knocking on the driver’s door. She heard it clearly, despite the rest of the world being so foggy. Alicia peered up, half dazed, but knew who it was even before looking. He was there again. The man. Dark-haired. Pale. Watching her with eyes too deep to read.

He opened the door and led her out of the car. She felt no pain, and moved easily, despite the dull ache throbbing through her body.

“You need to come with me,” the man was pulling her now, not aggressively, but suggesting she had no further options, “It is time, Alicia”.

She stared into his eyes, his dark almost gaunt features burrowing deep into her. There was an uneasiness to his demeanour, as if he meant her harm, but not to hurt her. He moved like mist. Nobody else seemed to notice either of them as they wandered slowly away from the wreckage.

“Who are you?” she cried, “What is wrong with you?! How messed up do you have to be to screw with people’s memories?!”

The man ignored her questions.

“You’re spending too much time here Alicia,” he said, “we need to get you back into the real world now. It’s time to move on.”

“I’m not Alicia,” she replied, realising the man was directly addressing her, “Alicia’s my daughter, they got her out of the car… my mother’s name was… was…”

She couldn’t remember.

“And I’ve got you, Alicia,” he replied calmly, “Look.”

Alicia looked back at the wreckage. Her mother – she – slumped over the steering wheel. How could that be? This was her mother’s memory, how could she be looking at herself?

“Mum!”

The cry didn’t come from inside her. It came from behind. From the child. The young Alicia who was now running towards them.

Confusion took hold as Alicia realised who was with her, holding her hand tightly as they ran down the road. He looked just as he had at the wedding, when she gazed at him lovingly down the aisle.

“Alicia!” the man who appeared to be her father called, “Alicia, we’re here! We’re here! Me and Skye, we’re both here!”

Skye?

‘Who’s Skye?” her mother’s voice asked.

The girl sobbed. “Mum, please, it’s me, Skye… please wake up, please…”

“Alicia! It’s me, Darren,” the man – her father – called. “You’re confused, you’re spending too much time in the HoloCloud, but we’re here, in the real world, we’re waiting for you to return with the light… just come back and turn on the light.”

The girl calling herself Skye spoke like an adult trapped in a child’s voice.

“You know, deep down, I know you do. You know that this isn’t real.” Skye grabbed her mother with both arms, “The dark room, where nothing ever happens? You sit and decay, flicking through your memories… you need to open your eyes and see! We’re here mum, we’re here, please, just wake up! Come back to the light!”

“Your name is Alicia!”, Alicia screamed back at her, “You’re my daughter! Me! Alicia! Why are you doing this to me?! Why?!…”

Skye collapsed, sobbing. “They’re going to turn it off. Please, Mum. Please. Come back… stop going into those memories, please, come back to the light.”

The dark man took Alicia by the shoulder and pulled her around to face him.

“Go back to the dark, Alicia” the man said, “We are coming now. It is time.”

Alicia stared back at the gaunt, almost lifeless face. “Who are you?”

“ALICIA!!!”

It all cut out.

The hologram dissipated instantly. The room was dark and deathly silent, but then, slowly, Alicia began to hear multiple footsteps getting closer. She didn’t move.

The beeping was louder.

Perhaps she should get up and open the curtains, let the light in. If she felt the warm sun on her face, or the sound of a bustling city, then she would know for sure she was back in the real world. But she hated this world, and her seemingly broken body.

Alicia took a deep breath, waved her heads in the air, and she was once again back on that beautiful, blustery beach, smiling her mother’s smile.

“Alicia! I’m going to get you!”

Somewhere, in a real still-dark world, a knock echoed.

But Alicia was already gone.

Smiling. Running.

Lost in a memory that didn’t need any answers.

Deadlines for Writers. 12 Poems in 12 Months – April– Prompt: Triolet or Tell

I found this assignment tough. I think I may have let my rage get the better of me… !

To write a fucking Triolet,
Is harder than it seems.
Is it worth thine blood and sweat,
To write a fucking Triolet?
Which lines hath rhymes? I oft forget,
Her witless rhyming scheme.
To write a fucking Triolet,
Is harder than it seems!