The cottage stood alone on the moors, a lonely island in a vast sea of heather and cotton-grass beaten low by centuries of scouring winds blowing down off the northern glaciers. A short, piecemeal stone wall ran around the place, dividing off a parcel of land indistinguishable from any other. A rough wooden gate provided […]
She painted ladybirds. She wasn’t the only one, naturally, there were far too many ladybirds for that to be practical, but she was certainly one of the more prolific. She always carried her brushes and paints with her – little pots of shellac in yellow, orange, and oriental red. Often in the middle of conversations […]
You can almost see them sometimes, swimming through the air in a stray sparkling beam of sunlight, like after-images of the motes that dance unseen on the surface of your eye. Often, they crowd into cosy bedrooms on a warm summer’s weekend morning. Their natural environment is secret wooded glens – hollows filled with sweet […]
When she read a book, she would do the thing properly – immersed and in it for the long haul. She would respond with an “mmm” or “hmm” if spoken to, but not actually take any of the words in unless you got something between her and the page. If she was interrupted – work, […]
As the afternoon wears down into evening, the heat of the day lifts out of the rough tarmac and warps the humid air. The hard-packed dirt of the shoulder gives way within feet to rice paddies of verdant green that stretch out to the low, forested mountains away in the middle distance. There is still […]
When the bedroom lights go out, Sibble begins getting his brushes ready. Each is a tiny thing – eyelashes and sealing wax – gathered from cheeks and writing desks in the small hours. By the time your eyes are closed, he has strapped on his tiny paint pots and scampered onto the light fixture. From […]
The cobbled streets leading away from the harbour twisted and coiled like brambles. A left turn, then another, and another, and another, and rather than being back where they started, they would find themselves in an alcove off a passageway off an alley off a lane. “In here,” she would say, or “What’s down this […]
Hidden amongst the undulations of rock, the river splits in two. One of the branches winds out of the barren hills, and on to the sea. The other cascades down a cleft into the earth. Along its course a spray of plants has sprouted, starting with small grasses and flowers in tiny crevices. Just visible […]
Inch by inch, hour by hour, his hammer and chisel turned the rock into tiny splinters that stung at his hands and face. What had once been a simple overhang was now a network of tunnels and chambers burrowed into the cliff face. Some rooms were small as closets – no more than alcoves in […]