Tag: #writing

A Shadow World | Short Story

A shadow world, drawn long. It grows after the sun has crested, seeping out from the church spire and the echoing viaduct. Slow at first, it crawls across the cobbles, pushing against the midday glare.

It advances, just as it retreated. The gloom reaches long-fingered down alleys and into closes – pre-dusks slinking eagerly behind the gable-end and the high, dusty hornbeam. Up drainpipes and across windowsills the shadow slips, glazing no bar to its progress. 

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The Worst Part | Short Story

In the beginning I dropped messages onto the street.

I tipped anything I could find out of the hopper window – bottle caps with biro skating across the shiny plastic, bank statement envelopes upon which my writing was cramped around the cellophane window, used paper napkins flapping drunkenly through the cold air. My messages skittered, swooped, fluttered down onto the slush-banked pavements where they lay amongst the other festive detritus.

I could only open the window briefly – he wakes if there is a chill in the air. The danger of the illicit window isn’t the worst part though. The worst part is quietly pulling the window handle up and feeling it click. The worst part is knowing that the Christmas lights playing against the glass are all the pedestrians down below can see. The worst part is looking at them all, scarves at their mouths and collars pulled high around their ears, looking down not at my paltry epistolary offerings, but at the phones, urgent and needy.

Thanks for reading, folks. Recent short stories include ‘Drip, Drip, Drip‘ and ‘Listen‘.

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, Down in the Dirt, and Shooter magazine. He has a Professional Doctorate in Education. Matthew blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.

A Clearing | Short Story

The Fishwick house was unashamedly a vanity project. It was set deep in the wooded Northumberland countryside with only a single rutted road providing access, the kind with a precipitous ridge of grass In the middle which one had to navigate via a roaring clutch. The hassle was worth it though, or at least it should have been.

Colonial in style, the building should have had no place in northern England; its displacement, however, was part of its charm. Even now, dilapidated and crowded by weeds, it retained some dreamlike quality – the wide porch which should have played host to a rocking chair, the sloping lawn which should have been littered with toy cards and half-built forts.

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The Scramble for Stories | Article

Everyone loves a good mystery. Where we used to gather around campfires, now we cluster around flatscreen televisions or curl up with our Kindles. Stories are how we approach liminal spaces within our psyches, with conjecture, narrative, and counter-narrative serving to titillate and inform.

Society’s appetite for stories is so overwhelming that we forget that their retelling is sometimes invasive. During the disappearance of Nicola Bulley near the River Wyre in January 2023, people flocked to the area to take selfies and to carry out their own investigations. Sky and ITV approached Bulley’s family after a body was found, despite their express wish for privacy[1].

It is tempting to link such exploitative behaviour and the prioritisation of story over protagonist to modern mediums such as TikTok and YouTube. However, long before electronic media made communicating a matter of moving our thumbs across mobile phones, stories were shared via word of mouth, over wirelesses, and in print.

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Wean’s Crabbit | Short Story

Wean’s crabbit. Wee pudge-balled fists fleein’ every which way, from side a crib to gummy mooth, scrunched eye socket to ma maw’s knitted blankit. Slevers and tears smeared across those ragin’-red cheeks.

Teethin’ sae he is. Ma pinky gaes in for a sook, but it’s naw what he’s wahntin’. That foot in the onesie’s fair workin’ as well, fat wee knee shudderin’ wi’ ev’ry stomp.

Liftin’ him oot his crib, the blenkit near enough comes wi’ him. The wean turns, mouths, but yeh’ve nae luck son – yer da’s got nothin’ for you. Sook all ye want. Aye, cry then, wee man, scream the hoose down. Wake the dug, the neighbours, a’body, why not? Fat lot of good it’ll dae ye.

We’re stuck here together, ye and me baith, son, in the box room before break a day, each as much use te yun another as tits on a bull.

*Thanks for reading, folks. Image courtesy of Doug8888 on Flickr. My recent short stories include ‘Frost and Fight’ and ‘The Dead Don’t Moan’.

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father. He blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com and tweets at https://twitter.com/mjrichardso0

HMS Cleopatra | Short Story | Part Four

Read part one here…

Read part two here…

Read part three here…

The sound of rolling glass permeated Bligh’s slumber and he woke slowly to the smell of rot and dampness. Looking down from his repose, he saw an empty olive-green rum bottle rolling from beneath the surgeon’s desk and under a hammock occupied by Harper. The young topman lay sleeping and, judging by the rum fumes emanating from him, was well sedated. From what he could see of the boy’s ankles, Bligh did not think that the boy would ever again climb rigging. On top of the table lay slouched the surgeon himself, drunk. Bligh sighed and looked around him. As a place of well-being and recuperation, the sick bay of the Cleopatra left a lot to be desired. Situated in the aft part of the lower deck, there was little light and even less fresh air. Bligh took a moment to wonder why surgeons, always lecturing about how bad airs contributed to disease, were put to work in one of the dankest, dingiest parts of the ship.

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HMS Cleopatra | Short Story | Part Three

Read part one here…

Read part two here…

The scene that enveloped Bligh as he reached the deck was staggering in scale. Screams and shouts issued a group of women who were being forced to the hammock nettings of the ship by marines at bayonet point. Herded together like a writhing ball of herring, Bligh wondered at just how many had come aboard since the ship had anchored. Curses and threats rained down from the wives and prostitutes, more than a few of whom were spitting and clawing at the marines. These were dockyard women; scarred, calloused, and capable of defending themselves.

Standing serenely on the poopdeck and supremely unconcerned by the tumult beneath him was Captain Cowan. A mass of seamen were gathered opposite the pressed women on the main deck, held at bay either by the marines or by the force of their Captain’s will.  Men who had grumbled and muttered at Acheson’s flogging a few days earlier were now dangerously close to open sedition. Glares of fierce hostility were directed up at the poop deck and fists were clenched in anger at the treatment of the women.

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