I'm a daydreamer with a pen in hand, weaving tales that transport me and others to new realities. Reading is my portal to endless universes, and I devour everything from magical realism to sci-fi epics (though a good mystery never goes amiss!). My background in archaeology fuels my fascination with history, ensuring even fantastical stories have a touch of real-world richness.
Writing is my escape, my passion, and the bridge that connects me to a community of incredible fellow creators. Through words, I explore the unseen, celebrate the extraordinary, and find magic in the everyday.
I don’t expect I am alone in finding the summer a poor time for writing.
The weather is better (well I do live in Scotland, so it remains fickle) and it draws you out and with no school to occupy my child … the limited free time I have to write vanishes.
Autumn and winter for me are deeper times of creativity. I feel more myself in the Autumn, and in the winter, I turn into a cave dwelling hermit, so writing is easier!
Hopefully now schools back on I might find my muse again?
Freya enjoying a slow walk My favourite tree – well one of themYellow Craigs Beach
‘I woke at six. I need no alarm clock. I was already comprehensively alarmed.’ Silence followed Murray’s smug words and he shot his audience a peevish look.
Only Owlish seemed to be listening, he blinked two large eyes and shuffled his chicken wire wings. Murray pursed his lips and decided to help them get to the punchline. He waved his left arm in the air and pulled his sleeved down, exposing raw, puckered skin, and an ugly rend which dominated most of the ruined limb. Nestled amongst the pus and tendons was a green Bakelite alarm clock, its second hand had fallen off, but the hours and minutes still ticked.
‘Comprehensively alarmed.’ He shoggled the limb and blood started to seep from the tender flesh.
Owlish turned his head away, the whole hundred and eighty degrees.
‘Clearly I’m only one whose had their coffee this morning!’ Murray grumbled. He picked up a spanner and wiped dried blood from its head. ‘Speaking of coffee – De’Longhi?’ the dark corners of the shed shuffled, but nobody came forward. ‘De-Loooonnnghiiiiiii.’
A trundle of wheels answered Murrays call as finally De’Longhi rolled forth. Her feet had been replaced with office chair wheels, her lovely long legs curved upwards, to her hips which now supported a rusty coffee machine, upon which her heavy bosom rested nestled amongst the stacks of cups.
‘Cappuccino,’ Murray demanded. ‘Anyone else?’ No reply.
De’Longhi smiled weakly and started his order. Her gel nails were chipped and as she steamed the milk flakes of pink tumbled into the froth, where they spun and twisted.
‘You do make a fine coffee,’ Murray offered her rare praise. ‘Shame you had to go on maternity leave, the office wasn’t the same without you. I told you when you started, we are a family. You don’t walk away from your first family.’ He glanced down at her wheels and smirked.
De’Longhi poured the espresso and topped it with steamed milk and froth. Her mottled hands were shaking and a maggot fell from her flesh and plopped into the beverage. She started to shake, cups clattering.
‘Extra protein,’ Murray smiled, his dry lips stretching thin over stained teeth as he took the cup. As De’Longhi retreated and he slapped her behind playfully.
Owlish hooted reproachfully.
‘What?’ Silence. ‘Yeah I thought so. No backbone, you were a weak and pathetic security guard and whilst you’ve changed a great deal you’re still pitiful.’
He sipped his coffee for a moment, then pulled the sheets from the workbench. Gary the intern lay there, his mouth bound with gaffer tape. Next to him was the office fax machine, the one that only he had been able to work, when Gary left his placement, returning to college the damned thing had given up.
Murray ran a finger along the machine, ‘You weren’t the only one who missed him. But he’s here now.’ He smiled at Gary, ‘Aren’t you.’ The lads eyes bulged and he strained at the telephone cords binding his limbs. ‘No, no my dear boy don’t fret, this is a job for life. Think of it, lifelong security, not many companies offer that anymore.’
Murray turned away to consider his sketched-out plans, he had been careful to consult with the fax machines manual while planning Gary’s premotion. Tinkering was a fine art you could never be too careful.
‘Tell me Gary, where do you see yourself in ten years’ time?’ he asked wondering if he had left enough room for upgrades, what if the office went fully digital, switched to email entirely. ‘Do you know how to send and receive emails? You’re young, is that something you’ve learnt at your fancy college?’ Murray turned back to the youth, but Gary wasn’t on the workbench anymore, nor was the fax machine.
‘Gary?’
A flash of white and something heavy smashed into Murrays face. The fax machine. Gary swung again, this time striking Murray in the stomach.
‘I quit!’ Gary roared as Murray slumped to the ground. He turned and rushed towards the door where he struggled with the bolts. Just as he pulled the last one free Owlish swept in, leaping from the shelf in a flurry of wire and feathers. It didn’t take him long to subdue the youth. Murray sat up, shaking his head sadly at Gary. But he quickly brightened and smiled at Owlish, ‘Somebody’s getting their bonus this year.’
The boat lies low in the shallow water, so the hull scrapes over rocks and sticks in the silty mud, we climb out when this happens and push. The first few times I take off my boots, and then put them back on lacing them carefully, but soon I stop lacing them and then I don’t bother to put them back on. Eventually we abandon the boat, and instead we walk upriver alongside it, pushing it against the sluggish current.
Despite the lack of rain, the humidity hasn’t gone anywhere. When we first arrived all those months ago it was like walking into the hothouses at the botanical gardens. I felt wet and shiny the whole time, and it smelt like a tropical fish tank. But we’ve acclimatized, I’m used to the sheen of sweat on my face and my t-shirt sticking to my back. And the smell, I’m used to that also, rot and decay (which are really the scents of growth and life), at first it had stuck at the back of my throat, and it was hard to swallow, but now it isn’t even there.
We’ve been traveling for four days – one short jungle flight, where there were more chickens on the plane than people, a day walking along dusty old military roads, a spot of hitch hiking and now the river. Our guide, who told us to call him Tom Cruise, says his sister has a restaurant in the next village where we can spend the night. Will negotiated a good price for the boat, so we can afford a night of accommodation. I’m looking forward to not sleeping in a hammock strung between two trees in the forest. I’m afraid of the dark and there are few places darker than the rain forest at night. And the noise! The sounds of the forest are so alien I fall asleep sure I won’t wake in the morning, I am convinced a monster will kill me in the night.
Its late when we arrive at the village, which is little more than a few longhouses crowded on the riverbank. A rust brown dog lies in a pile of fishing nets, it stirs as we unload the boat and comes over to see if we have any food. Tom Cruise tries to shoe it away, but I tell him off and in apology offer the dog a chunk of the tracker bar I have just opened.
Dusk falls quickly here and it’s upon us before we have even shouldered our packs. Tom Cruise is eager to get to his sisters, he buzzes around hurrying us, though when we insist on having a smoke before we leave, he forgets his hurry and bums a rollie. We smoke a lot here – it keeps the insects away, but also because it’s a comfort and a luxury. Two things which don’t otherwise exist in the jungles of Borneo.
Tom Cruise gathers our cigarette butts, pockets them, and then he is off, leading us along the trail which wind between the houses. There are no roads here and no village boundary, the forest just starts at the edge of some hog pens. Tom Cruise pushes forwards and the jungle swallows him. We follow him, no questions asked, though it briefly occurs to me that he could be about to rob and murder us, but this doesn’t really worry me as much as it should.
It turns out his sister’s restaurant is a long way into the forest. We stumble through the thick undergrowth, and I laugh when Will accidentally kicks up a fire ants’ nest. I shouldn’t it really hurts when those things set about you, but it’s funny listening to him shriek and thrash about in the dark.
After a while we find ourselves on a well-worn path which is a welcome relief and then there are lights ahead of us and Tom Cruise calls out, ‘Hungry?’
His sister’s restaurant is a funny place, its location for a start is strange, out here in the forest a good hours walk from the village. It’s a large two-story longhouse on stilts, too big for one family and it doesn’t look like a restaurant. We troop in and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the bright glare of the bare bulbs which light the place. A bench table sits in the middle of the hall and a balcony runs around the upper level, there are doors up there – lots of them and scantily clad women hang over the rails peering down at us.
‘A restaurant,’ I raise an eyebrow at Will.
His face is sunset red, and he starts to stammer a reply, but I ignore him and stalk towards the bar at the back of the room. The smell of cooking meat stirs my stomach, and a warm beer will go nicely with that. A roof is a roof, if I get fed and I don’t have to worry about forest monsters for a night I don’t care if Tom Cruise’s sister’s restaurant is really a brothel.
This short piece is based on a trip I took many thousands of years ago to Borneo. It was an amazing adventure filled with leeches (I hate them), dodgy stomachs, endless rainforest, climbing, hiking, living on beaches and being young. We would hire locals to take us out on long treks through the rainforest and to sites, often they would give themselves celebrity names. So yes, ‘Tom Cruise’ did take us to stay at his sisters brothel, the food was amazing and it was the first bed I think I had slept in for weeks. ‘Chandler Bing’ took us climbing and showed a cave burial site, in which his ancestors rested in. We had the pleasure to meet lots of amazing people who showed us their wonderful part of the world.
I first noticed I was missing on a Thursday. It was coming up for lunch and my stomach was nagging, demanding I eat the soggy egg mayo sandwich I had stuffed in my handbag this morning as I hurried out the front door. I was standing in the corridor by the stationary cupboard, waiting for Brenda to unlock it. If I ever find out who put Brenda in charge of office supplies all those years ago when she started here, I will kill them. She takes her role as overseer of pens, paper, paperclips and staples insanely seriously. Honestly, I think the world would be a better place if when she finally gets the cupboard open, I snatch the keys from her hand, shove her into her precious cupboard and lock the door.
Brenda mumbles in a gripey manner as she places the key in the lock. She has a way of speaking that suggests the whole world is a disappointment to her and my need to replace my missing pen is just one task too many. I nod and make preprogrammed noises that I have learnt over my years working here at Duns, that I know will appease Brenda without further entangling me in any form of conversation with her.
Out of the corner of my eye I see something move. I turn and look out the window, the something is pretty large, and it lumbers between the chimneys on the roof opposite. It hops like a crow, but it’s far too big to be an average corvid.
Black and brown feathers.
Brenda tuts, she has realized I am not listening. I smile at her apologetically and wonder when I became an appeaser of such people. She opens the cupboard door, pulls the light chord and strides into the tight space of the stationary cupboard like a queen inspecting a parade. The walls are stacked high with carefully organized boxes, this place is a treasure trove of office supplies, there’s enough in here to see out the end of days filing needs. She is still tutting.
Tut, tut.
I twist my hair between my fingers, looping its dull brown strands round them. Brown, my sister got our mothers beautiful golden locks while I got our father’s boring brown ones. As soon as I left home, I got rid of them, chopping my hair super short, and dying it a different colour nearly every month. I was a rainbow. Now I’m something else, I have shed my rainbow plumage.
Drab little bird.
Brendas pudgy hand is offering me a box of clicky tipped pens, there’s five in there, rattling around. She watches with beady eyes as I take one, determined to make sure that I don’t try and sneak an extra pen. Heaven forbid such a wanton act, these supplies are for hoarding, not using. I wonder what she would do if I did take an extra pen and for a second my hand havers. Brenda’s eyes narrow, her shoulders tighten, she is tensed, coiled and ready to strike at my hand should I take more than my allotted one clicky tipped pen.
Click, click.
The thing on the roof opposite moves again. I sense it’s trying to get my attention. I pick a pen and look up at Brenda, smiling my thanks. My smile isn’t real. It isn’t my smile. It’s one I paint on when I am here, when I am on the bus, when I am doing the weekly shopping and all the other hundred little things that make up my monotonous life.
It isn’t my smile.
I glance out the window. The shadowy thing on the roof is now leaning against a red brick chimney. Casually, with a coolness that reminds me of James Dean, thanks to the nonchalant slope of its wings and the cock of its head. I was right it isn’t a crow. I am no ornithologist, but I think it might be a vulture. Like the ones from the film the jungle book. I hated that film, it terrified me.
King of the swingers.
It notices it finally has my attention and with flippant ease it holds up a sign. Brenda asks me if I am ok. I ignore her, and squint through the grey rain outside trying to read what the sign says.
‘Do it.’
Do what, I wonder. Brenda shuffles closer trying to get past me to lock up her precious stationary, she presses against me, and her breath smells like stale laundry. The vulture holds the sign up higher. Then turns it over, revealing that the other side also has writing on it. Brenda has turned her back to me and is about to close the cupboard door.
I read the new message, ‘You won’t regret it.’
I don’t even think about it. I raise both my hands and shove Brenda into the cupboard. It’s not an easy thing to do, she’s a powerful woman. She squawks as she trips forward, but again I don’t really hear her. Her voice has become a static buzz. I close the door as she tumbles into a towering pile of boxed A4 paper and turn the keys that she helpfully left in the lock.
Clunk
Outside the vulture has shuffled to the edge of the roof. It’s busy writing on another large piece of card. I wait for it to finish. Beside me Brenda is banging on the door, I can tell because its lurching in the frame, but I can’t actually hear anything, it is as if cotton wool now swaddles the world. Everything seems distanced and softened. Somewhere deep inside the office a radio is playing, its faint and the tune is familiar.
The vulture holds up its sign.
‘Feel better?’
No. I don’t.
I shrug at it helplessly and the bird begins to write again. As I wait for it to finish its scribing the radio grows louder, but I still can’t figure out what the tune is. But I know I once knew it. Word for word in fact.
The bird holds the sign up.
‘Call missing persons.’
What? I gesture with my hands. The bird smiles knowingly at me, flaps its wings and takes to the air, dropping its signs upon the street below. They scatter as they fall, twisting in the wind. The radio plays on and Brenda’s protesting bangs upon the stationary cupboard door seem to track the unidentified songs rhythm. So, I first became aware of my missing persons status on a Thursday thanks to a vulture, but if I am to be entirely honest, I’d had a sneaky suspicion something wasn’t right for a while.
Image from Microsoft Bing Image Creator – Do it vulture
Mind Burble
This piece was written as a timed exercise during a workshop. We were given the prompt I first noticed I was missing on a Thursday, which comes from Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray. I hadn’t read the book at the time, but went on to do so. I really enjoyed it, its a quirky look at the experience of middle aged women, told in a thoroughly relatable manner! I enjoyed the feminist undertones of the book and often found myself nodding along in agreement.
The child who has just thrown herself like a shield over a rotting synth causes me to pause. Forces me to see her. She lies draped upon the cowering machine and she glares at me. She’s scared, but defiant. I shift my rifle, making sure she can see its aimed at her. She takes a jagged breath but doesn’t move.
‘Step away from the synth.’ My voice is sterile and authoritative.
She shakes her head. She’s terrified, but she still doesn’t move.
‘I am here for the synth,’ I say. My gun doesn’t waver, but neither does this small half-starved human shield.
‘Not Polly.’
I stare at her from behind my visor. She’s shaking, her whole-body rattles, but she doesn’t back down. She’s tiny, malnourished, no different from any other slum rat, except that she’s brave enough to defy me, she’s able to overrule the animal parts of her brain that are probably screaming for her to run, to flee into the twisting alleys that make up the Pritech Quarter.
I am used to people protesting when we come for the synths. But not like this – Who’s going to look after me now? How am I going to get work done around the store without it? That thing cost me a lot of money. Am I going to be compensated?
Polly, an odd and soft name for a synth.
There’s chatter over the comms, other patrol members reporting in, synths being brought back to the convoy, and I am still standing here considering this street rat and her Polly. I have a job to do, I have orders, not worth the trouble of not doing my duty, I need this job. I lower my rifle and pull my holstered stun pistol, aiming it at the child. I will use it, I would rather not, but I am here for the synth, and she is in my way.
‘You have till the count of five,’
She doesn’t blink.
‘One,’ I pause giving her chance, ‘two,’ another pause, ‘Thr …’
The synth moves. With practiced ease I holster my stunner, swing my rifle up and aim it at the pair, not taking any chances. The synth gently curls a hand round the girl’s bony wrist, its missing fingers, the index and the pinkie and the synthetic epidermis on its hands looks rotten. It can’t rot, its not real, but this synth is old and that’s why I am here for it. Another virus, the work of yet another smart-arse hacker is doing the rounds. The older synths have less protection, so it struck them harder, for the most part its just affected their motor functions causing erratic twitching and immobility. But others the virus has had a more dramatic effect on, like the service synths at Sukara Sushi the virus managed to take full control of their systems, and it weaponised them. After attending that mess, I won’t be eating sushi anytime soon.
‘I will come with you Protector,’ the synth says.
Its voice is rasping and weary. It possesses a human like quality, the melancholic echoes of a lifelong lived.
‘No!’ the girl wails. It’s the first time she’s let fear and panic take control. Her stick thin legs scrabble for a purchase on the synth as it rises to its feet, a desperate attempt to hold on. ‘No, no, no!’ Her arms tighten around its neck. ‘Polly, please!’
The synth is now standing, the girl wrapped around it like a primate infant clinging to its mother. (I have seen those in reruns of centuries old documentaries, visited them in the artificial zoo.) With its full form unfolded, I can see the extent of its deterioration, the ravages which time have worked upon it. It’s an antique, a Mark Two, maybe even a relic from the Mark One era. How is this ancient machine still functioning? Its survived decades, perhaps even a century.
‘It will be ok. You will be ok,’ it assures the girl whose face is buried in its neck. Slowly and with great care it starts to detach the child. Initially she resists, fighting this removal with the same tenacious ferocity from earlier. But then as if a thread has snapped, a dam broken the fight goes out of her, her tiny body falls limp, the fierce spirit dissolving. Her surrender fractures something within me, a shard of empathy pieces the calloused armor of my rank and role. Protector, here to collect, to bring the hacked synths in for repurposing, stripping down, recycling.
My rifle is heavy. ‘I can’t do it,’ the words scrape against my throat.
With a shaky breath I lower my weapon. My mind races – scrub the data from my helmet cam, I’ve done it before, but for lesser sins. It’s a gamble, I’ve a lot to lose, people depending on me. I turn my back on the pair, heading away from the heavy shadows of this alley, the synths voice follows me through the gloom.
Productivity strode into the room. Great Idea, Inspiration and Research all cheered. Great Idea turned the computer on and hovered excitedly next to the empty chair waiting for her idol to get down to business.
On the other side of the room Distraction hurriedly picked up her phone and tried to open Facebook, but Diligence was onto her. She snatched the phone and changed their password, ensuring doom scrolling couldn’t commence. Grateful that Diligence had her back Productivity gave her friend a snappy high five as she took her seat, flexed her fingers and opened a new word document.
‘We’ve got this!’ Great Idea declared.
Inner Critic pretended to vomit, but nobody was paying her any attention. Great Idea and Inspiration both started talking at once, gushing with excitement, while Creativity began to hum. The room quickly divided, half of the occupants bubbled with anticipation, while the remainder were an agitated mess.
Great Idea and Inspiration called Research over, they conferred, and Research opened a search engine, they needed to know more.
Distraction zoned in on Research, slinking across the room seductively. ‘What are you looking at?’ She purred smiling sweetly at her target.
Research blushed, Distraction had a lovely smile, and she was looking rather attractive today. She started to explain what she was investigating, but Distraction interrupted her.
‘Ohhh,’ Distraction sighed disinterestedly. Then she leant in close to Research, ‘I like dogs, dogs are cute. Maybe we should check the adoption sights?’
Research havered, they all liked dogs. Inspiration floated over, she forced herself into the narrow space between Research and Distraction deliberately jostling the would-be tangent off the bench.
Fear of Exposure had overheard what Research was looking up. She started huffing and puffing, pacing back and forth across the room. Finally, she could take it no more.
‘That’s a controversial topic Research. I don’t think we are qualified to write about it. We could upset people.’
Inner Critic agreed while in the corner Stuck in the Middle started to cry. She wasn’t close to being needed yet, but she had a sixth sense for knowing when things could get messy and she had a bad feeling about this story already.
‘We haven’t had a cup of tea in ages,’ Distraction grumbled.
‘Or a biscuit,’ Can’t get in the Zone added. ‘I wonder if we have any biscuits, maybe we should go to the shops?’
Productivity, Inspiration, Great Idea, Research, Creativity and Diligence shared a look.
‘Get them!’ Productivity shouted.
There was a passionate tussle, but Diligence won over and soon Distraction, Can’t Get in the Zone, Perfectionism, Fear of Exposure, Inner Critic and Stuck in the Middle were all tied up in the corner of the room. For a while they mumbled and grumbled, but it was no good Productivity was on a roll.
A Year of Time 