Short Stories

"The Heart Inside" by John Murphy

He does not know how long he has been there. Time has stopped. His breath is slow and controlled. The space he now occupies never meant to house a small boy like this. This Piano that once evoked music and joy now hides a fragile young life. Rain on the window his only companion now, his mother and neighbours taken hours ago, their hiding places discovered. The sound of soldiers boots on the stairs the smashing of doors and furniture, his mother crying as she was dragged away. It is quiet now. But still he stays not moving or making a sound. Alone. Tears that fell silently streak his dirty face. The boy can smell the wood that houses him. He tries to picture the room he is in with its broken furniture and smashed pictures frames. The destruction of his house and family. What comes next he thinks, but he has no answer. The world outside continues full of pain and sorrow. And the heart inside the piano goes on beating, silently hidden from the evil in the rain filled streets and his lonely soul.

"Broken Promises on Castle Street" by E. Hughes

For anyone who's ever felt sad. She waits on strangers, has wells of sadness and centuries of loss within her ancient soul. Once, was it a thousand years ago (?), she dreamed huge dreams, prayed silent prayers, hoped to live on the coast and hear the waves lap on the beach as she drifted into slumber.

Were all her dreams washed up on the inevitable shore of reality? Holding out for a bohemian existence, and instead settling for the square world, the safe world, the world of grey clouds and silver linings. She dreamt of being a princess once, waited on hand and foot, in a wonderful life surrounded by shimmering light.

She grimaced ironically, and passed her 1,000th customer a piece of apple pie, and realised, as she watched a sweaty man in a dirty vest amble down Castle street, that he and she would never find the promised land.

"We're all making plans for …..Howard" by John Owen

I don't know how I originally met him. Like stepping on some chewy, he stuck to me like a murderous shadow, never letting me move, haunting my every step. Like Randall and Hopkirk we were a team. Did I need a life roach like him, that sucked my life and soul from me step by step?

You'd pick your nose he'd scratch his own. I ate a sweet and he popped in some sugar free flipping gum. This man was insatiable. A mimic. No identity. No life independent of others. A completely empty shell. A voyeur of other peoples personalities. Worse than that he had befriended me. Along came this interloper with a fresh bag of neurosis ready to burden and unload (read share the experience) his woes onto any unwilling victim that fell for his honeyed trap. His little boy lost 'please mother me, I am helpless a kitten' con-trick. He was slowly engaged in destroying the network of friends and contacts I'd carefully built up over the years.

Was he living in a state of denial? Or was I? Was he a mirror? Did he really show me which? Whatever he represented symbolically, psychologically, to my soul, emotional and personal well being, he had to be let go of. He had to let go of me. I had to let go of him. We hatched a plan, it became known as 'Howard's End'.