Brad walked the three blocks from his apartment to Strikes and Pints with nothing to keep him company besides the sound of his defeated footsteps landing on the sidewalk. He had discovered the bowling alley dive bar in college and, now that he’s practically a regular there, he couldn’t think of a better place to find solace tonight. He paused at the final crosswalk, waiting … Continue reading Bangs vs Mullets

My baby is born with cat eyes, irises like lunar black holes. The Ophthalmologist shines a light into them, stares down the lens and tells me it might be cosmetic. I hold my breath until it hurts. We both know that Teddy can’t see the moon. I think about all the things he will not see; his grandmother’s grey-green fossil eyes, his first Liverpool shirt, … Continue reading Teddy Can’t See the Moon

This was it, the big day. After fourteen months, three weeks and five days, Ellen was finally going to meet SilverSurfer84 or, Stephen Nicolson as she knew him. When they first connected on the Doctor Who forum, ‘Time Will Tell’, the previous year, Ellen would never have imagined she’d meet someone as kind, as funny or as handsome (or certainly as his pictures suggested). They … Continue reading Time Will Tell

When I arrived in Cherating on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia one blazing afternoon in April, I had it in mind to inform anyone who enquired as to my whereabouts that I was on an assignment for the papers. I wanted to speak with the locals to uncover stories about yesteryear travelers who were believed to have undertaken ancient trans-land trade routes between China … Continue reading The Interlude