Author: Matthew J. Richardson

Stories in Golddust Magazine, Literally Stories, Idle Ink, Writer's Egg, CafeLit, McStorytellers, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Down in the Dirt, Close to the Bone, Shooter, Soft Cartel, Fiction Junkies, and Heavenly Flower Publishing

Nomophobia

Was that a tremor of a curtain in a darkened window? No matter. A pivot, a leap, and I’m over the garden fence. A shimmy and a jump take me on top of the shed. I listen for the sound of pursuers, for the creak of a back door opening as someone checks that all is well. There is nothing but the warm night air pressing in on my eardrums.

My objective is still above me, but for a moment I look not up, but out. I feel like Dick Van Dyke taking in Victorian London, but instead of soot-stained chimneys and greasy roof tiles I have row upon row of bristling satellite dishes and TV aerials, their angles cocked at the skies to hear the better.

How has it come to this?

I wipe my hands on my trousers and take a firm grip of the satellite dish. One, two, three heaves brings it away from the wall. Brick dust sprinkles over the driveway below me, followed by the clatter of the dish as it cartwheels into the road. It stops in front of a police car. Torchlight swivels from the patrol car window, fumbling over the rooftops before finding me. They know who they’re looking for – the same man they’ve caught tearing satellite equipment from houses every night this week. No matter. My work here is done.

In a few hours that family will wake. They’ll reach for their mobiles, their television remotes. They’ll ask for Alexa. They’ll tap away at their laptops. Eventually they will conclude that they have no choice but to converse, at least in the short term. Perhaps teenagers will scuttle down from their bedrooms. Maybe parents will concern themselves with what their children have planned for the upcoming day instead of what some politician did in London yesterday. If I’m lucky, they’ll remember what it is to construct sentences, to be curious about each other.

Of course, they will need something to be curious about. Fear not nomophobics, for I have provided once again. What could be more conversation-provoking, after all, than a night prowler loose on the rooftops. My crimes will provide a spark, a fire to set those tongues wagging.

Chim Chim Cheroo.

 

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Near to the Knuckle, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, and Shooter magazine. He is an absentee member of the Glasgow Writers Group, a PhD student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father.

Not necessarily in that order

https://twitter.com/mjrichardso0

 

Book Review – Napoleon the Great

Napoleon the Great

Andrew Roberts

Penguin Books

GBP 12.99

‘…many of his civil reforms stayed in place for decades, even centuries. The Napoleonic Code forms the basis of much of European law today, while various aspects of it have been adopted by forty countries on all five inhabited continents. His bridges span the Seine and his reservoirs, canals and sewers are still in use.’ Continue reading “Book Review – Napoleon the Great” →

Blog or Journal? The submitter’s quandary.

I’ve been blogging regularly for almost a year now and it’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience. I try to publish Wednesday/Saturday as a (frequently broken) rule. The discipline is healthy and often forces me to write late into the night or to try to jumpstart the creative process in order to get ideas for stories or articles.

I do, however, find that I am asking the following question of myself on a regular basis:

‘Should I be submitting this to a magazine or journal instead of publishing on my own site?’

Continue reading “Blog or Journal? The submitter’s quandary.” →

N33DL3SS THING5

As I get older and more curmudgeonly, I find that my list of things that unaccountably irritate me is growing. As such, I find it useful to explore these newfound prejudices. Why is it that the postman leaving rubber bands by my front door induces such apoplexy? Where has my teenage nonchalance gone when it comes to double parking or cold calling from PPI companies?

Today it is the turn of private registration plates. Why should the fact that someone wish to change an identification number on their car irritate me? Is it because I can’t justify the expense of changing my own VRM? Perhaps it is a sense of unworthiness; should I be offering to take the keys of the drivers of such vehicles? Running a shammy over the bonnet before handing it back to a tuxedo-clad punter after they’ve spent an evening at the craps table?

It occurs to me that there are four reasons one might choose to have a personalised number plate. These are listed below in decreasing order of acceptability to my prematurely-aged brain. Continue reading “N33DL3SS THING5” →

Shack

The path is losing its fight with the wilderness. A few miles back, it was rutted and gashed by tyres. Now it tails off intermittently into brush and grass, the weeds on each side creeping inwards like Tour-de-France spectators eager to see their favoured rider. Soon it becomes indistinguishable with the forest floor.

My feet become my primary concern now. Roots rise from the ground like sun-bleached ribs. Sticky willow snags on my laces. I am so intent on keeping my footing that I don’t notice the ferns dragging their damp fingers over my forearms and across my rucksack as I push through the foliage. Branches reach across the sky above me, shivering against the grey sky. I am close now. Continue reading “Shack” →