I am watching, surreptitiously. Who are you, wearing the wilted leaves? The Shamrock captures me first, as your eyes reflect the green clovers and sparkle as if in sync. With what? Diamonds? No, too rich. Crystals perhaps, etched into the three-lobed leaves, as you are now into my heart. Calmed by your eyes, reflecting the…
When Giuseppe first sang to Elisaveta, her enchanting hazel eyes beguiled him. His heart beat in triple time. Don’t fall in love with your co-star, he thought. Her singing shimmered with emotion, but off-stage Elisaveta froze him out. Other cast members shared champagne in her dressing room, bedecked with camellias delivered under her superdiva contract….
The magician was lost in thought as he shuffled his cards, his hands machines, natural to the motions and the flow. It was a habit, I realised, one that revealed something more complex whirring beneath the grin and the wink. He fascinated me, had done for weeks. Quick glimpses, hurried catching of the eye, never…
The man with no name stationed himself beneath the shadow of the giant cactus. The rim of his hat almost covered his steely blue eyes – an electronic cigarette dangled moodily from a sneer that seemed indelibly etched on his lips. Stony faced and silent he observed the folks who came and went along the…
As Geoff sat in the tearoom at Harrods waiting for Hilary to arrive he couldn’t stop thinking what his mother would have thought. She’d always taunted him that he would still be a virgin at 40. Yet here he was at 39 with a chance of converting the cyber passion he had already indulged in,…
“O Val!” “O Mel!” They sit on the big iron roller in the shadow of the stands, looking across the perfectly mown pitch. The day is dazzling. Mel’s a groundsman, responsible for the green velvety stripes. Val sells ice cream. They grew up together in the same shabby Stockwell Street. He’s just proposed. She thinks,…
This must be the most uncomfortable bed I have ever had. The pillow is so hard. I can’t get to sleep but I’m so tired. It’s so noisy. My cot was so cosy. I can still remember the first night in the big bed; it seemed so scary with no bars to peer through. The…
They kissed on the platform with absolute abandon as if the rest of the world did not exist. Commuters and tourists tutted, pushed and milled around, oblivious to the arrow that had pierced the lovers. Fate. Eros. Passionate love. Their souls and bodies now forever joined; the iron arrow connected them. It gave them both…
He saw her inside the Station, with a golden ribbon in her hair. He swept her a bow; she curtseyed in acknowledgment. Every day they passed one another in the same place. He bowed, she curtseyed, but they never spoke. They shared nothing but a smile. At an antique fair one day, he found a…
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Text & stories © Joanna Sterling
Stories © various authors
Editing by Joanna Sterling & Alyson Faye
Audio by Menna Bonsels
Brooch photography by Mark Colliton
Website by Brighton WEBtech