Contributors have the opportunity of suggesting an opening sentence and completing it, if they wish, which will then be published on this page for others to attempt. Submissions of no more than 200 words will then be published on this page and in time will feature in their own book.
Skulking through the garden, the fox, with a leg hanging from its mouth, passed a man reading a book on the patio....
By Tom Bowler
Skulking through the garden, the fox, with a leg hanging from its mouth, passed a man reading a book on the patio.... a man taking stock of events around him. The sight of a fox with half a rabbit in his mouth gave him a fleeting compulsion, then it passed. He wasn’t going to sink to the level of the animal, even in the midst of famine now upon the land. The old solitary man was asking the question all do in their moment of trial: what can I do but go on? He opened that book not for how to grow crops or set traps. It was about something more key to survival: holding out against the stalking fear of cracking up himself and the fear of that worse than the event itself: panic. It was a book of faith. No, he wouldn't kill for a loaf of bread. Instead, he’d share with his neighbors and rebuke the law of the jungle. Perhaps the encounter with the fox was prepared for him. His path was set now and God’s peace strangely on him as he took to the road with what he had to share.
A FOX'S SUNDAY ROAST
by Laura Sanders
Skulking through the garden, the fox, with a leg hanging from its mouth, passed a man reading a book on the patio. The man rubbed his tired eyes and had to peer hard into the distance.
"Oh golly, it's a fox!" he shouted.
At the same time, a fat bow-legged huntsman on a dappled grey gelding crashed through his privet hedge.
"Oh, I'm awfully sorry old chap, but have you seen a fox? We spotted him down at old farmer Ford's chicken farm, believe the b***** grabbed an 'en, made orf your way...?!!"
The man, Mr Grayson, by this time had coloured up red, with rage! Not only had his prize-winning roses being trampled, but the privet hedge had sustained an enormous hole where the rider and mount had barged on through. Not only that, but he could hear a pack of yelping foxhounds heading HIS WAY!!
Yikes he thought. "No no, I haven't seen a fox," he stuttered.
The yelping was coming nearer and nearer.
"Righteo mate, I'm orf!" said the huntsman. He turned his horse back through the hole into a nearby field, blew his horn three times and cantered off.
Mr Grayson breathed a sigh of relief. That was a close shave with death, he thought. However, he couldn't help but notice a brown pile near to his roses. Horse manure - that will do nicely he thought, and help resuscitate the trampled on Adam's charm cultivars!!
SUNDAY LUNCH
by Garry Davidson
Skulking through the garden, the fox, with a leg hanging from its mouth, passed a man reading a book on the patio. The man sensed movement and peered over his spectacles. The fox stopped and winked at him, then disappeared around the back of the house.
Commotion ensued. Mrs Scroggins the next door neighbour, a portly woman, was trying to squeeze through a tiny gap in the garden fence. She was waving a large wooden spoon.
“Come back ‘ere yer liitle sod,” she screamed, then noticed the man.
“Oh, sorry to disturb yah ducky,” she said. “That little bleeder stole me leg a lamb. I was just gonna put it in the oven. Last week he stole me chicken! That’s two Sunday dinners in a row ruined.”
“Oh, Mrs S I am so sorry about that. That little blighter has been around here before.”
“Too late nah, he’s probably well on his way,” said Mrs S.
She said goodbye to the man and squeezed back through the fence.
The man had roast leg of lamb for dinner and enjoyed it just as much as he had the roast chicken the Sunday before. The fox enjoyed his share too.
December 2024
Passing drivers slowed down as she fell off the kerb onto the road. One driver stopped to ask if she was okay.... (This opening was the result of my wife seeing a school girl engrossed in her smartphone and subsequently falling off a kerb into the path of a passing car. Frightening.)
The Kind Stranger?
by Donna Turner
Passing drivers slowed down as she fell off the kerb onto the road. One driver stopped to ask if she was okay. He stepped out of the car and helped her up. She flinched at his touch but he didn't notice.
“Let me drive you home, it’s late, you shouldn’t be out alone in the dark” he offered.
“No, I’ll be fine. Thank you.” She would have loved to get in the kind stranger’s car but she couldn’t trust him, could she?
“Please let me help you, I’d hate it if my daughter was out here all alone. She’s in the back, in her car seat asleep, actually.”
She peered into the back of the car and saw the rear facing car seat. Surely she could trust this man? His own baby was in the back seat.
“Okay, that would be great, thanks.”
“Hop in the back, the front seat belt is faulty, can’t be too careful!”
She climbed in the back and he closed the door. She couldn’t help a little peek at the sleeping baby but her stomach dropped when she saw it, her whole body ran cold.
There was no baby, it was just a doll.
78. Head over heels
by Garry Davidson
Passing drivers slowed down as she fell off the kerb onto the road. One driver stopped to ask if she was okay.
“Sodding shoes,” she shrieked. “Brand new, cost a bleedin' fortune and the first time I wear ‘em the ‘eel breaks off and I end up flat on me arse!”
“But are you okay?” the driver enquired.
“Do I look okay?” she bellowed. “Look at me dress, covered in muck, what a state. 'Ow can I go to the party narh?"
The dress barely concealed the parts of her body that needed to be concealed and true, it was rather soiled.
“Are you walking to the party?” the poor driver asked.
“Walking, in this owtfit” she screamed. “Do yer fink I’m bloody stupid? Me car run owt of petrol and I’m tryin' to find a petrol station.”
The driver knew there was one very close by but given the attitude decided not to say. He popped his head out of the car window, said, “Good luck” to the delightful young lady and drove on.
Mortified, she hobbled away, but (inevitably) the other heel soon snapped off and she ended up falling off the kerb onto the road again.
Rapture
by Kamran Connelly
Passing drivers slowed down as she fell off the kerb onto the road. One driver stopped to ask if she was okay.
“You alright love?” he asked as he exited the car to assist her.
She sat up and pointed to the large beam of light shining down from the dark canopy of the night sky.
“Look, it’s the rapture. It’s Jesus!” she said.
He looked up towards the blinding light and chaotic thunderous sound that accompanied it. Loud, all-consuming and vibrating the ground beneath them.
“That’s not Jesus, love,” he told her, as he took her hand and helped her to her feet.
“Oh no, is it the aliens - don’t let them take me!” she said panicked, pulling herself into his chest for safety.
The stench of whiskey orbited the air around her mouth, and up close her eyes had skewed from regular alignment.
“I’ve gotta get out of here before they take me!” she said, pushing the helpful man away and breaking into a drunken attempt at running.
The man watched on as she took eight shaky steps before she crashed to the pavement again.
“It’s just a police helicopter you daft drunk!” he shouted.
April 2024
The lights flickered as the man sat at the table eating his evening meal and his dog howled....
One more day
by Kamran Connelly
The lights flickered as the man sat at the table eating his evening meal and his dog howled, a long sorrow filled note. He shouted through the door towards the porch. “Butch. Shut up! I told ya, I’m doing it.”
Butch howled again, shifting his eyes from his human at the table, to the noose hanging from the large wooden arch above him.
“I mean it, I’m doing it this time. You can’t talk me out of it.”
Butch woofed in rebuttal and harrumphed in a series of small grunts to himself as he walked over to the table with an adamant stride and sat at the leg of his human. As he scraped the last bite of his poorly cooked steak through the remnants of his under cooked egg. Butch placed his paw on his knee and held a tilted head towards him.
“Here,” he tut-ted, feeding butch the last bite.
“Ok,” he said, “I’ll give you one more day - but tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m gonna do it, I swear it,” he said for the seventy-second consecutive day in a row.
Butch circled on the spot, curling into a content ball at his human’s feet.
And the lights flickered again.
Lundup knew
by Leela Gautam
(An occurrence based in Kathmandu on April 25, 2015, the day the earthquake hit the city.)
The lights flickered as the man sat eating his evening meal and his dog howled.
"Shush Lundup," said the man, giving the dog a pat.
The howling stopped for a moment, then got louder. Lundup tugged at the leash from under his master’s foot. People at other tables turned to glower at them.
"Shouldn’t allow dogs in here," one muttered.
The man turned to apologise, dropped his spoon and rose.
"What is it Lundup? Do you want a wee? Come on then."
As he picked up his white stick and the leash the whole place trembled and shook. The lights went out. By the time they reached the exit, plates crashed to the floor, chairs tumbled. People screamed.
"Buechalo ahyo (earthquake has come)," shouted a waiter in Nepali.
There was bedlam. Everyone tried to rush out, some falling over chairs and tables dispersed around the room.
Meanwhile, Lundup had led his master safely out of the building.
The tremors worsened as people hurried to the open ground. A building collapsed nearby. People clung to each other crying. The man hugged his dog. Lundup had felt the earthquake before it hit. He had howled to save his partially sighted master.
Man's Best Friend
by Donna Turner
The lights flickered as the man sat at the table eating his evening meal and his dog howled.
“We’ll have to put twenty pence in the meter,” he joked to his companion.
The joke was he didn’t have twenty pence, not until payday at least. He laid his plate of unfinished food down in front of the dog, “Can’t have you going hungry now can we?”
The man got up from the table and, ignoring the steadily increasing pile of washing up, walked through to the living room. He headed for his favourite spot, the wingback armchair that once belonged to his mother, a bit lacklustre in colour and plumpness but still comfy nonetheless.
Now his best friend had a full belly and was once again snuggled by his feet, the man switched on the TV.
“Should be just enough time to watch the news before the electricity goes off,” he told the dozing dog.
They sat there together in perfect silence listening to the troubles from around the world, and just before the weather report had finished, the electricity went off.
“Nevermind old boy, at least we’ve got each other. That's more than some of those poor souls.”
by Mike Davis
The lights flickered as the man sat at the table eating his evening meal and his dog sat at his feet, howling, chops salivating, and eyeing the platter for a morsel. He’d found the stray on his previous trip to the cabin. In the valley where the Greyhound dropped him and his backpack, he’d spotted the dog muzzle-deep in a jettisoned fried chicken tub.
‘What you got there, Fella?’
The dog ignored him, which he considered entirely understandable since the tub was printed with Maisie’s Fried Chicken Ranch in red cursive. Wasn’t it obvious? The dog double-licked the tub pristine and trailed him across town, following along the track through the woods, keeping a polite four-foot gap until they reached the cabin.
Fella had been his companion ever since. That was until the bulb dangling above the table fizzed and popped. He ceased whining while the man felt his way out to the porch and lit up the storm lantern, stretching his arm out in front, illuminating the table.
Fella bolted through the open door into the darkness; the last rib clenched in his jaws. The man shrugged and refrained from yelling. A hungry dog without hope knows no loyalty.
By Tom Bowler
Skulking through the garden, the fox, with a leg hanging from its mouth, passed a man reading a book on the patio.... a man taking stock of events around him. The sight of a fox with half a rabbit in his mouth gave him a fleeting compulsion, then it passed. He wasn’t going to sink to the level of the animal, even in the midst of famine now upon the land. The old solitary man was asking the question all do in their moment of trial: what can I do but go on? He opened that book not for how to grow crops or set traps. It was about something more key to survival: holding out against the stalking fear of cracking up himself and the fear of that worse than the event itself: panic. It was a book of faith. No, he wouldn't kill for a loaf of bread. Instead, he’d share with his neighbors and rebuke the law of the jungle. Perhaps the encounter with the fox was prepared for him. His path was set now and God’s peace strangely on him as he took to the road with what he had to share.
A FOX'S SUNDAY ROAST
by Laura Sanders
Skulking through the garden, the fox, with a leg hanging from its mouth, passed a man reading a book on the patio. The man rubbed his tired eyes and had to peer hard into the distance.
"Oh golly, it's a fox!" he shouted.
At the same time, a fat bow-legged huntsman on a dappled grey gelding crashed through his privet hedge.
"Oh, I'm awfully sorry old chap, but have you seen a fox? We spotted him down at old farmer Ford's chicken farm, believe the b***** grabbed an 'en, made orf your way...?!!"
The man, Mr Grayson, by this time had coloured up red, with rage! Not only had his prize-winning roses being trampled, but the privet hedge had sustained an enormous hole where the rider and mount had barged on through. Not only that, but he could hear a pack of yelping foxhounds heading HIS WAY!!
Yikes he thought. "No no, I haven't seen a fox," he stuttered.
The yelping was coming nearer and nearer.
"Righteo mate, I'm orf!" said the huntsman. He turned his horse back through the hole into a nearby field, blew his horn three times and cantered off.
Mr Grayson breathed a sigh of relief. That was a close shave with death, he thought. However, he couldn't help but notice a brown pile near to his roses. Horse manure - that will do nicely he thought, and help resuscitate the trampled on Adam's charm cultivars!!
SUNDAY LUNCH
by Garry Davidson
Skulking through the garden, the fox, with a leg hanging from its mouth, passed a man reading a book on the patio. The man sensed movement and peered over his spectacles. The fox stopped and winked at him, then disappeared around the back of the house.
Commotion ensued. Mrs Scroggins the next door neighbour, a portly woman, was trying to squeeze through a tiny gap in the garden fence. She was waving a large wooden spoon.
“Come back ‘ere yer liitle sod,” she screamed, then noticed the man.
“Oh, sorry to disturb yah ducky,” she said. “That little bleeder stole me leg a lamb. I was just gonna put it in the oven. Last week he stole me chicken! That’s two Sunday dinners in a row ruined.”
“Oh, Mrs S I am so sorry about that. That little blighter has been around here before.”
“Too late nah, he’s probably well on his way,” said Mrs S.
She said goodbye to the man and squeezed back through the fence.
The man had roast leg of lamb for dinner and enjoyed it just as much as he had the roast chicken the Sunday before. The fox enjoyed his share too.
December 2024
Passing drivers slowed down as she fell off the kerb onto the road. One driver stopped to ask if she was okay.... (This opening was the result of my wife seeing a school girl engrossed in her smartphone and subsequently falling off a kerb into the path of a passing car. Frightening.)
The Kind Stranger?
by Donna Turner
Passing drivers slowed down as she fell off the kerb onto the road. One driver stopped to ask if she was okay. He stepped out of the car and helped her up. She flinched at his touch but he didn't notice.
“Let me drive you home, it’s late, you shouldn’t be out alone in the dark” he offered.
“No, I’ll be fine. Thank you.” She would have loved to get in the kind stranger’s car but she couldn’t trust him, could she?
“Please let me help you, I’d hate it if my daughter was out here all alone. She’s in the back, in her car seat asleep, actually.”
She peered into the back of the car and saw the rear facing car seat. Surely she could trust this man? His own baby was in the back seat.
“Okay, that would be great, thanks.”
“Hop in the back, the front seat belt is faulty, can’t be too careful!”
She climbed in the back and he closed the door. She couldn’t help a little peek at the sleeping baby but her stomach dropped when she saw it, her whole body ran cold.
There was no baby, it was just a doll.
78. Head over heels
by Garry Davidson
Passing drivers slowed down as she fell off the kerb onto the road. One driver stopped to ask if she was okay.
“Sodding shoes,” she shrieked. “Brand new, cost a bleedin' fortune and the first time I wear ‘em the ‘eel breaks off and I end up flat on me arse!”
“But are you okay?” the driver enquired.
“Do I look okay?” she bellowed. “Look at me dress, covered in muck, what a state. 'Ow can I go to the party narh?"
The dress barely concealed the parts of her body that needed to be concealed and true, it was rather soiled.
“Are you walking to the party?” the poor driver asked.
“Walking, in this owtfit” she screamed. “Do yer fink I’m bloody stupid? Me car run owt of petrol and I’m tryin' to find a petrol station.”
The driver knew there was one very close by but given the attitude decided not to say. He popped his head out of the car window, said, “Good luck” to the delightful young lady and drove on.
Mortified, she hobbled away, but (inevitably) the other heel soon snapped off and she ended up falling off the kerb onto the road again.
Rapture
by Kamran Connelly
Passing drivers slowed down as she fell off the kerb onto the road. One driver stopped to ask if she was okay.
“You alright love?” he asked as he exited the car to assist her.
She sat up and pointed to the large beam of light shining down from the dark canopy of the night sky.
“Look, it’s the rapture. It’s Jesus!” she said.
He looked up towards the blinding light and chaotic thunderous sound that accompanied it. Loud, all-consuming and vibrating the ground beneath them.
“That’s not Jesus, love,” he told her, as he took her hand and helped her to her feet.
“Oh no, is it the aliens - don’t let them take me!” she said panicked, pulling herself into his chest for safety.
The stench of whiskey orbited the air around her mouth, and up close her eyes had skewed from regular alignment.
“I’ve gotta get out of here before they take me!” she said, pushing the helpful man away and breaking into a drunken attempt at running.
The man watched on as she took eight shaky steps before she crashed to the pavement again.
“It’s just a police helicopter you daft drunk!” he shouted.
April 2024
The lights flickered as the man sat at the table eating his evening meal and his dog howled....
One more day
by Kamran Connelly
The lights flickered as the man sat at the table eating his evening meal and his dog howled, a long sorrow filled note. He shouted through the door towards the porch. “Butch. Shut up! I told ya, I’m doing it.”
Butch howled again, shifting his eyes from his human at the table, to the noose hanging from the large wooden arch above him.
“I mean it, I’m doing it this time. You can’t talk me out of it.”
Butch woofed in rebuttal and harrumphed in a series of small grunts to himself as he walked over to the table with an adamant stride and sat at the leg of his human. As he scraped the last bite of his poorly cooked steak through the remnants of his under cooked egg. Butch placed his paw on his knee and held a tilted head towards him.
“Here,” he tut-ted, feeding butch the last bite.
“Ok,” he said, “I’ll give you one more day - but tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m gonna do it, I swear it,” he said for the seventy-second consecutive day in a row.
Butch circled on the spot, curling into a content ball at his human’s feet.
And the lights flickered again.
Lundup knew
by Leela Gautam
(An occurrence based in Kathmandu on April 25, 2015, the day the earthquake hit the city.)
The lights flickered as the man sat eating his evening meal and his dog howled.
"Shush Lundup," said the man, giving the dog a pat.
The howling stopped for a moment, then got louder. Lundup tugged at the leash from under his master’s foot. People at other tables turned to glower at them.
"Shouldn’t allow dogs in here," one muttered.
The man turned to apologise, dropped his spoon and rose.
"What is it Lundup? Do you want a wee? Come on then."
As he picked up his white stick and the leash the whole place trembled and shook. The lights went out. By the time they reached the exit, plates crashed to the floor, chairs tumbled. People screamed.
"Buechalo ahyo (earthquake has come)," shouted a waiter in Nepali.
There was bedlam. Everyone tried to rush out, some falling over chairs and tables dispersed around the room.
Meanwhile, Lundup had led his master safely out of the building.
The tremors worsened as people hurried to the open ground. A building collapsed nearby. People clung to each other crying. The man hugged his dog. Lundup had felt the earthquake before it hit. He had howled to save his partially sighted master.
Man's Best Friend
by Donna Turner
The lights flickered as the man sat at the table eating his evening meal and his dog howled.
“We’ll have to put twenty pence in the meter,” he joked to his companion.
The joke was he didn’t have twenty pence, not until payday at least. He laid his plate of unfinished food down in front of the dog, “Can’t have you going hungry now can we?”
The man got up from the table and, ignoring the steadily increasing pile of washing up, walked through to the living room. He headed for his favourite spot, the wingback armchair that once belonged to his mother, a bit lacklustre in colour and plumpness but still comfy nonetheless.
Now his best friend had a full belly and was once again snuggled by his feet, the man switched on the TV.
“Should be just enough time to watch the news before the electricity goes off,” he told the dozing dog.
They sat there together in perfect silence listening to the troubles from around the world, and just before the weather report had finished, the electricity went off.
“Nevermind old boy, at least we’ve got each other. That's more than some of those poor souls.”
by Mike Davis
The lights flickered as the man sat at the table eating his evening meal and his dog sat at his feet, howling, chops salivating, and eyeing the platter for a morsel. He’d found the stray on his previous trip to the cabin. In the valley where the Greyhound dropped him and his backpack, he’d spotted the dog muzzle-deep in a jettisoned fried chicken tub.
‘What you got there, Fella?’
The dog ignored him, which he considered entirely understandable since the tub was printed with Maisie’s Fried Chicken Ranch in red cursive. Wasn’t it obvious? The dog double-licked the tub pristine and trailed him across town, following along the track through the woods, keeping a polite four-foot gap until they reached the cabin.
Fella had been his companion ever since. That was until the bulb dangling above the table fizzed and popped. He ceased whining while the man felt his way out to the porch and lit up the storm lantern, stretching his arm out in front, illuminating the table.
Fella bolted through the open door into the darkness; the last rib clenched in his jaws. The man shrugged and refrained from yelling. A hungry dog without hope knows no loyalty.
