Purr
When shit happens, sometimes a purr can help a little. Continue reading Purr
Author: Suzanne Conboy-Hill
‘Control’ now on SoundCloud via MashStories
Control was a competition piece and reached the finals of its group. MashStories have voiced it and posted the audio on Soundcloud. I don’t know if the choice of voice artist was coincidental but she is appropriately British and does a jolly good job! Continue reading ‘Control’ now on SoundCloud via MashStories
‘When Gliese Met Glasgow – and Muira made a mint’
If you had to choose Earth’s representative for First Contact with aliens, it probably wouldn’t be a 3’6″ Black Glaswegian with no diplomatic experience, would it? ‘When Gliese* Met Glasgow (and Muira made a mint)’ reached the Finals of Pen2Paper, a competition run by the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities; goodness knows how! They’re all here, free to read: http://www.txdisabilities.org/pen-2-paper * Gliese exists. It was the first star system found to have at least one potentially habitable planet in its orbit. Continue reading ‘When Gliese Met Glasgow – and Muira made a mint’
‘Ye Gods!’
Trevor Baylis, the delightfully dotty inventor of the wind-up radio (by which I mean the radios you wind up to make work, not the ones that wind you up and stop you from working), lives on an island in the … Continue reading ‘Ye Gods!’
“Aliens on Your Sofa”
Today, we’re off to the Vet’s and it’s the turn of Ms Muppet and General Montgomery … Aiming for nonchalance, I set out the two carriers in a separate room. These are minutely explored, inspected and then inhabited by every cat except my two targets so that guerrilla tactics have finally to be employed. Nabbing Ms Muppet, who is essentially a two-cat-cat-in-a-one-cat-pack, I go for the cooperative approach, pointing her at the entrance to the carrier and shoving gently from behind. So she does what cats uniquely do under those circumstances and morphs into a star shape, grabs the sides … Continue reading “Aliens on Your Sofa”
“Lawn Dogs & Budgerigars in the Cress”
For us, High Tea was a Highly Mannered ritual to be performed for the purposes of demonstrating one’s capacity to set out the cutlery in the right order and on this one particular occasion we were being visited by some rather puffed up relatives who, at their own home, had a front room into which riff raff like us were never invited, but from whom my parents hoped to cop the odd bob or two when they passed on. When the time came we only got a pair of curtains from the rellies and I buried a cat in one of … Continue reading “Lawn Dogs & Budgerigars in the Cress”
‘Fundamentals’
Unattended men were never seen in the underwear department of Messrs Marks and Spencer unless in the company of formidable matrons whose capacity to wither a frisky thought at birth had been practised under their mother’s tutelage. In fact even a somewhat tottery thought asking vague questions about whether it was tea time yet would have been hard pressed to survive and would most likely have gone home for a sit down with an iced fancy instead. Extract from Fundamentals, one of the several ‘diary dramas’ recounted in Not Being First Fish by P. Spencer Beck. Find on Amazon UK & … Continue reading ‘Fundamentals’
‘Here the Magic Must Be’ – dedicated to Shoreham
This story was a finalist in Flash Fiction Chronicles’ 2014 String-o-Ten and, like many stories, it has a history. This meant very little at the time, beyond personal awe at the way the cosmic forces of gravity and the motion of the moon and planets become crystallised at the turning of a tide on a river. Finding a bunch of roses lodged in a shrub on the river bank where they would not be swept out to sea or blown away sparked the theme – a woman investing hope in those forces following a deep tragic loss. If magic exists … Continue reading ‘Here the Magic Must Be’ – dedicated to Shoreham
‘Not Being First Fish – and other diary dramas’
The truth, the half truth, or nothing like the truth? It depends, says the pseudonymous author, on whether you recognise yourself. But if you didn’t leave the gate open to cavorting cattle on a rural bridge, or become unsettlingly aroused at the sight of a Saab, you’re probably ok. You can find it on Amazon (UK and US) Barnes and Noble, and also eBay. Childishly grown up. Continue reading ‘Not Being First Fish – and other diary dramas’
Dragon Loyalty Award
I am a fraud because I don’t think I’ve actually written about dragons. Much of the time though, I’m not too far removed from the fantastically speculative sphere in which they might be found, and I do have several. They spend their observable time in static states – metal, ceramic and the like – transforming to wreak havoc at times only cats can see and who are mostly complicit in the resultant wreckage. Also, if it hadn’t been for the raining thread, I would have moved to Pern and got myself a flock of fire lizards. So I am accepting this award, … Continue reading Dragon Loyalty Award
Dr Suzanne Conboy-Hill 