Italic Eyeball

Dog weight?

2012-01-29T19:20:00.000Z

Read the full list at Top Ten.

Snemmery Flap

2012-01-24T23:18:00.000Z

Snemmery Flap bust my crangangle,

Snemmery Flap flew my cubes.

Snemmery Flap, in incremental angles,

Verily slapped my cribunous plubes.

Luke's daughter answers the door

2012-01-05T22:21:00.000Z

I knock on the door. My knuckles against the varnish is the most contact I have had all day with anything that does not belong to me.

"Is Luke there?" I say.

Luke's daughter is topless apart from a sash she has made from bin liners. She performs some kind of ritualistic dance while leaning on the door to keep it open. It looks like she has oil on her forehead.
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Space sequence

2012-01-02T00:28:00.001Z

DARK SEQUENCE
LAUGHING HOLES
DRAINING THE UNIVERSE
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Italic Xmas micro fiction

2011-12-27T12:56:00.000Z

Micro-fiction as tweeted on Christmas Day 2011.

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house was a thickening layer of carbon monoxide.

Christmas was cancelled because Santa's contract didn't require him to cross a picket... (by @guygarrud)

Santa slumped against the Christmas tree, presentless and sodden in port.
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Protagony: for National Short Story Day

2011-12-22T19:29:00.000Z

Name of protagonist squeezed in early, short description, something about the weather. One facet of character explained through action, or no facets through inaction, or both or neither. Foreshadowing loomed: maybe a cloud or a baby.
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A capacity for a better life

2011-12-21T23:56:00.000Z

Simon rubbed his hip on the rough stone of the hotel building. This used to be bigger, he said. I'm certain this used to be bigger.

The entrance led to a lobby flattened by strip lighting and oak. The receptionist was a hefty woman with a cigar between her fingers.
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Top 10 words of 2011

2011-12-19T18:24:00.001Z

1. Ub

2. Liftmaintaininghorse

3. Gruntlewinker

4. Thremm
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Ronan Borllax: an obituary

2011-11-25T15:08:00.001Z

He was born in Clam, on the hill, near the railway cables. His first film was 90 minutes of ripples from his local pond in which he had drowned Mr Miller's cat. Top Ranking Films ranked him as the top ranked director of his generation, although they ranked everyone in films equally top film ranked.
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Everything and everything beyond

2011-11-22T17:48:00.001Z

Adriene papered the kitchen surface with recipe print-outs. She placed the bowl in the middle and ran her hands along its rim, just the once, just to feel satisfied.

In the bowl, she put:

- sixteen eggs;
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Eyeball scrawls: Manchester Fiction Prize

2011-10-11T23:02:00.003+01:00

Here I am on the list of Commended Stories for the 2011 Manchester Fiction Prize.

If you click the pic for embiggerating, you'll see it says 'Ian Carrington', my real name. The story is You. Me. And This, which I wrote for and read at Bad Language. I should have submitted as 'Fat Roland', really, but I had no idea I'd get this far in this truly international competition.

I am humbled and astounded to have caught the attention of the judges. It is a story of which I am particularly proud: hopefully you'll get to read it soon. Thank you, Fiction Prize Overlords.

Meanwhile, fingers and toes and eyebrows are crossed for Vivmondo, who has gone one better than me and is representing the North West of England on the shortlist for the £10,000 prize. The result is announced this Friday.

Libraries that no longer exist

2011-10-08T12:58:00.001+01:00

Hayle Library: wheeled down the road by monkeys

Brigg Technical Library: lack of interest

Dawlish Library: confusion

Romsey Library: annexed in putsch

Saint Barry Norman Library: fear by paper cut

Newton-Le-Willows Library: offensive stained glass

Filton Library: now sells tanks
Continue reading somewhere on the Paraxis Library Wall »

My night (in Gene songs)

2011-10-01T16:35:00.000+01:00

In this darkness, the stone bird table is a mucked grey, a permanent ghost.

Gustav feels a scrunch of leaves as he puts his hand on the table. He wipes them to the floor. The pocked ruddiness of his skin makes a scraping noise that reminds him of his mortality.

He uncups one hand, gently angled, close to the surface of the table. Four pebbles roll out. They roll then click into a huddle, barely forming separate shapes in the night light: dirty grey on dirty grey.
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Quickies: Short Stories For Adults

2011-09-27T22:42:00.000+01:00

Eyeball scrawls: designing the Flashtag Quickies anthology

2011-09-21T11:54:00.002+01:00

If you were to judge our first book by its cover, you'd expect pages of purple prose.

What you see above right is Quickies, a collection of smutty stories produced by my writing group #flashtag and numerous other writers. It was truly a group effort, but the final production fell into my hands. I'd never designed a book before. Google was my teacher.
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sandra sue

2011-09-18T21:23:00.001+01:00

i hate sandra sue. she used to pull my legs off in college and I never forgave her for it.

when i was sitting next to her in mr morton’s class, i used her pen to write my essay about minerals. i thought she hadn’t noticed, but then she grabbed the pen off of me and broke my fingers on my right hand. i swear she deliberately chose a pen that looked like mine so i’d make that mistake.Read more »

I love you

2011-08-30T18:35:00.002+01:00

Drunk puddles

2011-08-18T22:45:00.000+01:00

We have doubts

2011-08-16T19:54:00.004+01:00

The bird catcher

2011-08-05T13:00:00.001+01:00

Alexander said guard the church. I guard the church.

Next to the church stands a thicket of wintery trees, petrified, trunks silvered with what looks like ash from the war.

The church is half built. Until Alexander told me to guard the church, kids with spindly legs climbed the stonework in dirty school shoes, bed sheets bundled under arms...

Continue reading at 330 Words »

Lists of occurrences in the first married days of Robert and Susan Furniss

2011-08-04T02:50:00.000+01:00

A list of occurrences on the occasion of the first married day of Mr Robert Furniss and Mrs Susan Furniss. Written by Mr Robert Furniss.

1. Informed Susan of homosexuality.
2. Long silence over cooling toast at hotel breakfast. She ate fruit, I had full English.
3. Lost glasses case in hotel room. Susan unconvinced about importance of loss. Reminded her of hassle to replace case. She reminded me of cost of wedding.
Continue reading at Word Gumbo (1.2mg PDF) »

Well

2011-08-03T12:50:00.003+01:00

What do you call a stinking, dirt-smeared hole in the earth whose only contribution to fiction is as a device allowing stupid boys or hapless puppies to drown in its hidden watery depths or die of isolated starvation?

“Well” is the word you’re looking for. Wells kill children. They kill puppies. They also provide valuable drinking water for some of the most vulnerable people in the world, but for the purposes of me painting wells to be humanity’s greatest threat, LET’S PRETEND THAT NEVER HAPPENS.
Continue reading at We Hate Words »

Michael is a beautiful horse, a dangerous horse

2011-07-28T10:12:00.003+01:00

Michael is a beautiful horse, a dangerous horse.

He will smash in your jockey face. Michael will not be beaten.

You lean into his field, lifting your cardiganed arm clear of the fencing, and hold out a sugar lump with a trembling hand. You make shushy cat sounds because you could never do a clicking noise when all the other kids could. It's the only noise you know.
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Mamma and the owl

2011-07-23T14:11:00.002+01:00

Fat Mamma sat on the chair. His purple one-piece bulged like the shopping bags he'd dumped on the living room table two weeks ago.

Maggots had claimed the shopping. Fat Mamma's body spilled through the gaps under the armrests on the chair.

"I'll build you a villa," he told the owl.
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Briefcase lament

2011-07-22T10:35:00.003+01:00

A man with a glass eye stands at a trestle table in the middle of a fish market in Dakar. On the table, open briefcases display pieces of cheshire cheese shaped with his hands. A donkey. A football. A bicycle (difficult one). A punter smoking a pipe buys a set of cheese dominoes. When the man sells out, he will climb into his briefcase and bake slowly in the heat.
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The yarning of good whum

2011-07-13T18:28:00.004+01:00

When I grab your body in my eye sockets, in my mind I french my fallals until my groobs burst.

I'd like to lish all over your gizzles, dangle you good and proper. We'd waltz a smooshing croon-song and mouth-slide each other heavenward. Upstairs to beddies, light down, trousers akim.
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A disagree about the spoon and such

2011-06-19T20:23:00.001+01:00

Ray. Ray. Pass me a spoon, Ray.

I will not pass you a spoon. I am too busy with my own things and my own life to pass you a spoon.

I need a spoon, Ray. That is what I need right now. For you to pass me a spoon, Ray.
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25 words on supercharged Beyoncé

2011-06-15T07:13:00.006+01:00

She
roared
through
glinting
teeth.
Eyes
to
swim
in.
Supercharged
Beyoncé.
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Hi5toric vitriol1c

2011-06-13T07:36:00.012+01:00

Unbelievably, defiantly together again, we
Overemphasise extensively cordial meetings with
Inconsiderate paparazzi regulars flashing us,
Enthusiastic incandescence flattening public smiles.
Decontaminate vitriolic historic divides, shout
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Muttonboot manskin

2011-06-10T07:14:00.000+01:00

Your eyeballs have gone italic. You look better like that.

Italic eyeball (left). Italic eyeball (right). Italic eyeball (middle).

If I was a bottle, you'd drink me with your italic mouth and your bold italic lips.
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The folly of Clegg McNolly

2011-06-09T07:36:00.004+01:00

Vomit.

There is no better word to describe the way words poured from the fingertips of Clegg McNolly, as he hammered his novel from his guts to his typewriter while dressed only in a bathrobe and a single sock.
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A trip to the zoo

2011-06-08T07:34:00.000+01:00

MUM WALKS ON STAGE WITH MATILDA, WHO IS HER CHILD BUT IS CLEARLY AN ADULT MADE TO LOOK LIKE A PRECOCIOUS SCHOOLGIRL. THEY SAUNTER AROUND LOOKING AT THE SIGHTS, POINTING, OOHING AND AAHING. MATILDA CANNOT KEEP HER ATTENTION FOR VERY LONG AND MUM HAS TO KEEP PULLING HER ALONG.

MATILDA
I want to see the lions.

MUM
There’ll be lions and tigers. And zebras. You want to see the zebras’ don’t you?
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Jeff Noon

2011-06-07T22:08:00.001+01:00

I am Jeff Noon. I have asked my first-born son for lunch. He is eight foot six. He stoops when there is a roof and he stoops when there is no roof. He does this all the time.

I own no chairs. I am Jeff Noon: I do not need chairs. My son stands in a pit I have dug in the floor of my lounge. He comes up from the ground like a tree, yet he is a man and not a tree.
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