Young Writers.

Indulge me. Young Writers run – amongst other things – writing competitions which are often taken-up by the English departments of schools nation-wide. Recently the theme was ‘spooky stories’. Favourite Daughter’s school was involved, and OF COURSE her entry was chosen for publication. A tale that had to be told in ONLY ONE HUNDRED WORDS. It was published in a book entitled Spine Chillers that people can ACTUALLY BUY. It’s got a BLOODY ISBN NUMBER AND EVERYTHING!

Her tale is below.

Dead, Alive or Insane?

I see spirits. Remember being an infant in bed with heartbeats pulsing thick beneath you? Or them reaching out from your ceiling, hair wringing their necks? It was real for me. I was left in an asylum before I could remember. I could see the corpses in every room – how they died. Spirits stay. Why won’t they leave me? The birds caw like victims. Fog rolls. ‘I’m sick of it. Kill me.’ OK. I don’t know if I’m here or insane, but it’s dark, I’m motionless. I hear spectral laughter, it won’t stop. Is this my waiting punishment for killing?

Reading, Writing and Stories.

It’s another Father’s Day and I sleep late. I feel I’m owed it after a long working week following another - the bulk of which was spent in a strange city in an unfamiliar apartment with colleagues I eventually dreamt of murdering. But that is another story.

I have oven-chips for breakfast because I can and spend the bulk of the day in my pyjamas for the same reason. I open the Father’s Day cards that have arrived in the post on time in the first instance I can recall.

I drink tea and smoke cigarettes and stare out the window. After finally dressing and going to the shops I re-read the story my daughter wrote. And then finish reading the graphic novel I’d bought as a treat for myself whilst hanging-out in the local comic book shops with my son and daughter to feed their manga obsession when they visited only two weeks previously. The memory makes me chuckle recalling their laughter when I tell them a story one of my employers related to me about his language problems whilst living in Japan. But that is another story.

I speak to sister on the phone and we tell each other stories before finishing the story I’m reading and think about the novel I’ll almost certainly never begin.

Then I write this.