So pleased that my thousand-word-sentence / flash fiction piece ‘Mr Morden’s Tree’ has been published in Oblong Magazine, a flash fiction journal based in Brixton:

…this was what he did, plant trees, though there was no point, really: trees grew of their own accord, as they had done before the first bald, bickering apes descended from their branches, and they would do so long after the extinction of this interloping species, a thought that gave him some satisfaction in those moments when he accidentally read the headlines, or someone tried to speak to him, as the man next door almost did at that moment, catching a glimpse of Mr Morden’s hat dipping as he pushed and twisted at the ground, desiccating it and slicing through fat earthworms with the point of his shovel, which brought a comment to the lips of the neighbour, something about his own rose-beds and the intransigence of the earth giving him blisters, stillborn words turned to a cough, because he remembered in time that Mr Morden was not one for a chat, surly old bastard…

 

To read the whole story, and many others (including another one of mine, a tiny hundred-one that’s been used as the volume’s preface), you will have to get hold of a copy of Oblong volume two. It’s only three quid!

Given a scenario in which the equipment is operated at or near maximum intensity, while simultaneously maintaining a low electromagnetic differential in the thermic regulation unit, pressure in the hydraulic valves will build up gradually in such a way that the safety override will not be activated. This pressure would cause an explosion that might rupture the fuel tanks. Rupturing the fuel tanks on even the smallest of our units could be extremely hazardous to customers. It would compromise our commitment to excellence in providing safe, effective and robust solutions to our valued customers. The potential adverse effects to the market reputation of the product line are extremely severe!

[ read the whole story in Litro ]

It was possible, if you knew the nature of the Echo’s walls, and had enough patience, to hear old sounds return, and glimpse scraps of the past stitched like patchwork onto the present. After the glasses were cleared away and the tabletops wiped; once the jukebox had exhausted its hurry-up-and-go-home selection of thrash metal, country and Celine Dion; when the lights were dimmed, the door closed and the barman’s footsteps had faded away; there, in the gloom, the walls of the pub began to resonate.

Night after night’s jazz, blues, laughter, the clink and occasional crash of glass; every belch, every shouted argument, every phrase on the tenor sax had been absorbed into the old walls, along with cigarette smoke and the tang of beer. They emerged in any order, or none. A giggle and a whisper from the 1970s followed a sour diatribe about the new girl who’d started last week. If you were lucky you could hear whole songs, perhaps even entire sets from the early 40s, or the chirruping of the birds that had been the pub’s only inhabitants during its derelict years.

Sparks, this year’s edition of Sydney University’s anthology of new writing, was launched yesterday at the Coop Bookshop by eminent poet Mark Tredinnick. Among its prose and poetry is my story, ‘The Echo’, excerpted above. Sparks is published by Darlington / SUP and available now.