Space sequence

DARK SEQUENCE
LAUGHING HOLES
DRAINING THE UNIVERSE

Italic Xmas micro fiction

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.

Protagony: for National Short Story Day

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.

A capacity for a better life

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 hotel entrance led to a lobby flattened by strip lighting. The receptionist was a hefty woman with a cigar between her fingers.

This used to be bigger, he said. She looked at him as if he was a scab she had just picked off her elbow.
Simon stood in the lobby listening to footsteps come and go. He brought up a contact on his mobile phone then dialled.

It rang out. He left the hotel.

Simon stood on the street. This used to be bigger, he said as he pressed his body into the side of an ice cream van. This used to be a bigger van.

He stood on the beach .He lay face down in wet sand, the tide lapping into his ears. The sea, he said in a muffled voice. It used to be bigger.

  Simon had a long phone conversation with his girlfriend. You didn't answer when I called before, he said. All he heard back was the sound of her typing, the sound of her shuffling papers and the sound of her eating a tangerine.

Simon stood on a pavement. He pushed his tongue against the glass door of a Waterstone’s. He pushed until it hurt.

Have you got any height charts, he asked the twitching bookseller behind the counter. What's a height chart, said the bookseller. You know, like you have for children.

The bookseller looked sad, as if he was unsure of where he was.

Simon dialled again. He pressed the phone into the side of his head until it became an oblong extension of his skin.

This isn't working anymore, he told the phone. We used to be something else. Something bigger. He looked at the sky, wondered what it felt like. We used to be bigger, he said.

All he could hear was the sound of sucked citric juices and the tap tap tap of a Samsung laptop. She hummed absent agreement. Vague platitudinous vocal shrugs.

(Text updated: August 2012.)

Top 10 words of 2011

1. Ub

2. Liftmaintaininghorse

3. Gruntlewinker

4. Thremm

Ronan Borllax: an obituary

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.

[read the rest of this in Adropiean Galactic Lego Set Blues]

Everything and everything beyond

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;
- a yard of flour;
- a jumbo bag of Maltesers;
- mascarpone to season;
- Jeremy Handley’s Guide to Modern Sermons;
- most of her string.
- bacon;

It was too much. The plastic bowl melted on the hob. A brown mess bubbled onto her floor and into electrical sockets. A fire reduced the house to a stinking pile of ash. Into the ash, she put:

- her neighbour's house;
- a secondary school;
- 14 lengths of railway line;
- a local petition;
- children's football kit;
- four books from the A-B section of her library;
- the A47;
- spit.

It was too much. The weight of the rubble knocked the earth out of its orbit. A church full of people in Milan felt a giddy stomach lift as the planet lurched beyond the moon. The earth vanished into a black hole at end of the universe.. Into the universe, she put:

- everything;
- and everything beyond.

Adriene held the entirety of existence in her hands, held it against her beating heart. She enjoyed the dual streams of darkness and light flowing through her bones. Tomorrow, she would make pasta.

(Text updated: August 2012)

Eyeball scrawls: Manchester Fiction Prize

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

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)

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.