Issue 58 - Story Openings

‘What’s Inside’ by Peter Kenny

Hoppy Monday!

Early to work for once, you stop to watch Happy Hoppy’s Summer Farm Experience getting ready for business. The annoying whack-a-mole machine is switched on, while the incongruous bucking bronco is stripped of its overnight canvas. You can just hear the excited squeaks of breakfasting guinea pigs in the animal petting zone. In the half-a-dozen local produce stands, the pale woman who sells cutesy wax candles, quince jam and lavender honey is staring into space.

 

‘Bright By Name’ by Katherine Haynes

“Fortescue has a second-rate mind.”

These words weren’t intended for my ears, but I couldn’t help hearing them as I tiptoed past the staff room. At my daughter’s school the Principal had laid down a ‘no high heels’ rule—presumably to preserve the shining parquet of the new building—and I had been guilty of breaking it before. There’s something shaming in being told off in front of a bunch of kids, especially when you’re one of the elder mothers and not a yummy mummy.

‘The Alleyway’ by Michael Chislett

The alleyway lay between the allotments and a steeply risen bank, above which high backs of houses shadowed the narrow, often muddy lane. The four hundred yards length of it ran from the street where Dacre dwelt to the nearest bus stop. The quickest way actually, although there was another stop, up the hill, but that way took considerably longer to walk and he was one who always favoured the most direct route to a destination.

 

‘In Another Country’ by Mark Nicholls

“Is it Mrs Blenkinsop again?” The Highways Manager knew that her question was superfluous. Of course it was Mrs Benkinsop. It was pretty much always Mrs Blenkinsop.

“Her third email this month.” Philip Smith the principal Cases Officer replied with feeling. “And it’s not as if we have nothing else to do with our time. She’s very insistent.”

 

‘The Far Side of the Lake’ by Cliff McNish

On the first morning of my Canadian holiday I woke up stuck in a crazy posture: arms and legs scrunched up tight above me, gripping the double-duvet as if trying to wring every last vestige of warmth from its fabric. I felt like Gregor uncurling in Metamorphosis. Christ, I was freezing!

Not that I should have been surprised. I’d been warned that in the Northwest Territories night-time temperatures could fall below zero even in late September. We weren’t that far from the Arctic circle, after all.

 

‘Villa Metrobian’ by Sam Dawson

The village is small, clinging to the sides of a ridge, bisected by a dusty, precipitous road little wider than a pannier-carrying donkey would or could negotiate. The sky is azure, the rock baked the same dusty tan as the barren-looking soil which, nevertheless, supports a score of olive trees, twisted and ancient. There is a tiny church, a cluster of houses, a decaying villa set some distance from them. In the Greek fashion all the buildings are whitewashed. In the sunlight that whiteness is unbearable to the eyes, and he has to squint just to be able to take it all in.