This was where it began, I suppose. This was a story I told myself on a holiday in Wales and when I got back home I wrote it down and showed it to a friend.
This was the first ‘short story’, before this one I thought that you spelt ‘good’ with an L, an O and NG. But this one taught me to love those little captured moments, the whiff of an atmosphere and the hint of a big idea.
“The land for miles and miles around was criss-crossed with sheep tracks and the pathways of chubby little moorland ponies but the road was a man-track, just a single black vein threading across the hilltops. Blocked.
The blonde shook his head in what he obviously thought was a way that communicated his disbelief at the situation. ‘You just appeared, didn’t you? One second you weren’t there. Then the next…Wham! You were.’
The other looked sheepish.
‘It’s true, isn’t it? That’s what happened, eh? This thing just materialised, didn’t it?’ The dark haired guy frowned. The sheep frowned. The misty landscape held it’s breath. ‘Did it?’ asked the blonde. ‘Can it just materialise?’
‘Kind of,’ said the sheepish one.
‘Kind of!’ squeaked the other. ‘Fucking, kind of. What do you mean, kind of?’
‘Well, yeah. A bit. I guess it can.’”
From SILVERBACK, a collection of imaginative short fiction published by Climbing Tree Books. Available in paperback or as an eBook via Amazon and other booksellers.
