Thought-provoking

  • Home Time

    I’m waiting for the evening carer; it’s an agency these days.  I don’t know what time she’ll come. But you can be sure she’ll be in a rush, pulling on those disposable gloves making that smacking noise. Makes my teeth go on edge. I don’t like the rubber against my skin.  The one this morning…

  • Mastic Lady

    There was once a woman who lived alone.  She never went out. She lived in a small flat on the seventh floor where every seam and crack was sealed with mastic.  All the windows were blacked out with paper. Each morning she would check the seals and each night she would reapply mastic to the…

  • Chestnuts for my Sweet

    Ravenous, we split them open. They lie naked, exposed. They’ve already been ripped off the branch, then tortured by burning, finally brown bagged. Greedily we devour them. Pete and me, warming our hands first. We tongue test the heat of their crunchy guts. We’re laughing, together. Pete can’t resist, he chucks one at me. It…

  • Reclaiming Istanbul

    May, 2013 I’m out in a rooftop bar on the European side of Istanbul. I’m with two male friends, American and French, who I’ve no reason to think fancy me. It’s nearly midnight. My phone rings.  May, 2007 A rooftop bar on the European side of Istanbul.  Two male friends, American and French, who I’ve no reason to…

  • Visiting Time

    To be honest I regretted saying I’d go and see him. It was already ten and I’d things to do. Parking was the usual nightmare and I’d had to leave the car three streets away. I only had enough change for an hour and the walk would eat into that. There didn’t seem much point….

  • The Key

    I remember the day I found the little brass key. A nondescript thing. The box, on the other hand, was made of wood mellowed by time and hands. On the lid an inlaid mother of pearl oval with a circle of ebony at its centre. As a child I thought it was an eye guarding…

  • Three Portraits & Three Tales

    While visiting the BP Portrait Award 2012 exhibition Dawn Reeves and I were particularily drawn to three portraits.  They have inspired these three short tales –  to view the three portraits from exhibition click the links at the end of each tale. Dear Barbara by Joanna Sterling 5a Atlantic View Windy Villas The Lizard Cornwall  Dear Barbara What a…

  • Time Line

    I stand at the apex of the time. One foot in each hemisphere. This narrow piece of metal divides the world, East and West, rich and poor, the liberated and the repressed, the haves and have nots. Every time I visit Greenwich Park I stand on this spot. As a child I came with Dad….

  • Toothpaste Tubes

    I squeeze out the last bit, screw back the top and put the empty tube with the rest in the chest of drawers my parents bought us when we married. The first one I kept was from the hospital. You hadn’t finished it and nor did I. I tried a different brand once, but it…

  • Trust’s Lodger

    Doubt follows me around the flat. Humming like a faulty plug socket, always about to threaten a nasty shock. It’s clear we’ve become too close. The choice of cereal takes up the morning. Words run and hide whenever I pick up my pen. Umms and errs abound. Tension mounts when her boyfriend, Fear starts staying…