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Posted in
Crime Stories
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Posted on
10:58 AM
It's a hot day and I hate my wife.
We're playing Scrabble. That's how bad it is. I'm 42 years old, it's a blistering hot Sunday afternoon and all I can think of to do with my life is to play Scrabble.
I should be out, doing exercise, spending money, meeting people. I don't think I've spoken to anyone except my wife since Thursday morning. On Thursday morning I spoke to the milkman.
My letters are crap.
I play, appropriately, BEGIN. With the N on the little pink star. Twenty-two points.
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Posted in
Crime Stories
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Posted on
10:54 AM
Ed was told to go to Boston to bring back Rollo's daughter. Ed had been to Boston before, knew his way around, and could be trusted to do what he was told. He was the best choice of all the boys. Pyres explained this to Ed twice, two more times than he needed to. Ed sat and drank his beer, not saying anything while Pyres rolled on.
'In case somethin' does happen, you know cops, you know how to get around. You know what you can and can't do up there. The getting around is the big thing. Those streets are crazy up there. Little one-ways and shit. No numbers. None of the other guys would be comfortable.'
Ed drank more of his beer. If Rollo wanted him to go, he would go. He did know Boston, though he did not see it as all that hard to get around, but certainly a
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Posted in
Children Stories
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Posted on
10:45 AM
This story begins with Once Upon A Time, because the best stories do, of course.
So, Once Upon A Time, and imagine if you can, a steep sided valley cluttered with giant, spiky green pine trees and thick, green grass that reaches to the top of your socks so that when you run, you have to bring your knees up high, like running through water. Wildflowers spread their sweet heady perfume along the gentle breezes and bees hum musically to themselves as they cheerily collect flower pollen.
People are very happy here and they work hard, keeping their houses spick and span and their children's faces clean.
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Posted in
Children Stories
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Posted on
10:36 AM
No one knew how Mr. Sticky got in the fish tank.
"He's very small," Mum said as she peered at the tiny water snail. "Just a black dot."
"He'll grow," said Abby and pulled her pyjama bottoms up again before she got into bed. They were always falling down.
In the morning Abby jumped out of bed and switched on the light in her fish tank.
Gerry, the fat orange goldfish, was dozing inside the stone archway. Jaws was already awake, swimming along the front of the tank with his white tail floating and twitching. It took Abby a while to find Mr. Sticky because he was clinging to the glass near the bottom, right next to the gravel.
The tap on her shoulder freezes her; the quiet, warning voice in her ear is exactly what she has feared. In a small dark place inside herself she is prepared for both. She had not expected a teenager.
"Come with me please, Madam," the young man says, his back stiff with self-importance.
He is young enough to be her son; young enough to be one of the troubled youths she tutors in the small charity-run literacy programme in the suburbs. She is tutoring a boy now: he has a tattoo on his forehead that spells HATE and eyes that dart around the room, alert for predators. This young man, though also dark skinned and mixed-race, keeps his eyes averted. He is smooth suited and smells of fresh citrus cologne as he grips her arm and leads her to the manager's office.
The manager is tired and he lowers his pale lashes when he asks to see her ID, as if asking for something intimate, inappropriate. Then he turns to his computer.
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Posted in
Short Stories
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Posted on
4:37 AM
Painful as it is to think about, murder has become a grim fact of modern society, and solving one involves more than the contributions of the police an witnesses. It also involves the detailed work of people in the fields of forensic science and medicine: scientists and doctors who analyze evidence to help solve murders.
