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6

I fitted the lock on the bathroom door that evening. It took about twenty minutes. When I was finished I admired my handiwork, trying out the shiny gold-coloured lock a couple of times to make sure it worked, then I went to tell Gemma.

I knocked on her door and, when there was no immediate answer, pushed down on the handle to go in. The door would not open. I pushed a little harder and still it seemed it stuck. A few moments later I heard a little click and Gemma opened the door.

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WOOF Contest – Top Picks:

Poetry
Khaye Cardenas  - “The Woman’s Silent Prayer” - Every woman’s silent prayer.
Dragon Blogger - “Two Sides To Every Tale” - Poem about a man being wrongly accused and sentenced.
Dragon Blogger - “Why Does Mommy Cry?” - Emotional poem about parents fighting from the mind of a child.
Daisy Bookworm - “Breath” - A poem detailing the evils of wearing real, steel boned corsets for a woman.
exquisite corpse – “Great Is The Morning” – Collaborative Poetry.
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5

I stood now in the café on the top floor of the big Waterstones in Guildford, waiting for a coffee. It was Sunday. I had been out to buy a lock for the bathroom door when I had remembered there was a book I wanted and may as well get while I was out.

It was not often that I actually got out of the house anywhere, except to the supermarket or Lucy’s school or to give Gemma lifts to places. I was going to buy the lock the day before, but Gemma had gone to town a little while after the bathroom incident and had not returned until after six, and with her out I had not wanted to leave Lucy alone. I thought as well that the town would be too busy on a Saturday, so I waited until today.

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Tracing a separate path between streams and puddles on the undulating concrete she passes in front of me, head down, water bouncing off the shiny gumdrop-green raincoat she wears. It suits her: It suits her scent: not the scent of perfume, or of shampoo, or washing powder, or even a body scent, but something more intangible and unexpected, like icing sugar or sherbet. Airy, aura-like, this scent was so distinctive that it would linger after she had left, like paper leaves fallen from a breeze-blown tree. If she fell, I might catch her, rather than poring over the lines on fallen paper leaves, but, inexplicably too tense, I never touched her, fearing always her delicacy, as if she were made of dust and dreams suspended on a wire skeleton.

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4

“Dad, will you give me a lift down to the sports ground in a bit?” This was Gemma. It was Friday evening.

“What for?” She sighed when I asked this, looking at me as if it was perfectly obvious, then said in a slightly patronising voice,

“To go hang out with my friends.” I was about to reprimand her for speaking like that but decided against it and instead asked,

“What time?”

“About seven.”

It was half six already.

“You haven’t eaten yet.” I said.

“What we having?”

“Fish and chips.” She wrinkled her nose and I felt a little dismayed; she always used to really like fish and chips.

“I’m not hungry yet,” she paused, thinking, “you could drop me off on your way to the fish shop.”

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3

“What did you do at school today?” I asked Lucy, trying to drive through the obstacle course of primary school children with a loose grasp of road safety and parents in oversized SUVs with an even looser grasp of road courtesy.

“We did maths in the morning and we learned about cubes and cubic centimetres.”

“Oh, that sounds difficult,” I said, pulling into a gap to let a car with no intention of stopping for me go past, “could you do it alright?”

“Yes, daddy, I got a gold star. See” I glanced quickly at the little sticker on her red jumper.

“Well done, sweetie” I said.

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2

I dropped my keys into the little dish on the shelf by the side of the door, next to the waist-high rubber plant. Then I slipped off my shoes, pushing them with my toes side-by-side next to Gemma’s battered trainers, and Lucy’s shiny pink-and-white light-up ones next to Gemma’s, and then, on the other side of my shoes, my plain fleece slippers, a present from Lucy last Christmas, which I slipped on now.

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I realise I probably spend as much time apologising for not updating my site as I do actually updating it, but in an ideal world, it would be updated far more regularly. However, of late I have been busy, particularly with university work as deadlines loom (less than three weeks to finish a twenty page play of which I have (badly) written two pages, as well as co-write and perform a second play). Also, I have written little that I consider postworthy and so, delving into my back-catalogue, I found this piece I wrote about eighteen months ago. Perhaps I might change some of the phrasing were I to go through it now, but I feel it stands up pretty well and, being the longest piece I’ve ever finished (very nearly a novella), it’s one of my acheivements of writing. Here is the first chapter: (more…)

i think i mentioned it before but my bike got stolen – well they caught the guy who stole it – wouldnt you just know it – he was a chav – yeah – they showed me a picture of him – baseball cap and everything - it was this pixellated CCTV still – from like a cash converters or somewhere – cos the police had sent out the description of my bike to all the second-hand shops – silly bastard – he might have known the police would do that - so when they caught him they came round my house – to take a statement (more…)

It’s a boring Sunday. Rain beats against my windscreen, my bonnet, my roof, like a thousand fingers drumming a monotonous, impatient rhythm against the glass and the metal. The clouds it falls from have cast a twilight over the whole day, but I think now it finally must be dusk, because the streetlights have switched themselves on and are casting an orange glaze over the dark blue tarmac, under the dark blue sky.

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