Category: Black Cat Stories: hard to home and just as likely to honk in your shoe as purr in your face

Black Cat Stories: hard to home and just as likely to honk in your shoe as purr in your faceLeave a comment

Tick Tock

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Piers is standing alone in a hotel room with a clock in his head which is about to go off. He is waiting for Dylis because he needs a few moments of her sunshine, the way it used to be back in the day, before he gives her the envelope that he will make her promise not to open until she gets home. She will giggle and pretend to rip it apart to get at the contents and he will fix that image in his mind. The last time he saw her though, before the clock when ‘forever’ was another … Continue reading Tick Tock

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Three Kinds of Lost

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Re-purposed At the bottom of the shopping bag? No. Under the sofa? Nada. Down behind the cushions, then? Oh God, what is that stuff? Sloshed to papier mâché at 40C in a jeans pocket? Better not be. Chased down the garden by a freak wind? In the car, down in the footwell? Your footwell, then? No? Well where? Keep looking. You keep looking. The bird is looking; its beady eyes lasering a line through the branches at the scuttling humans below. It fluffs, pokes around with its beak, and nests its egg on the soft shreds of their wasted effort. _____ Conflicted … Continue reading Three Kinds of Lost

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Sequenced Heir, Nipped Rind

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

The ambient light is the colour of swamp fog; I am suspended from the ceiling in a net like a balloon at a solstice party; and there is a worm in my mouth. This has to be the mother of all hangovers. The worm is squeezed into the space between my upper and lower lips like toothpaste, sealing them shut as effectively as a dollop of glue. There is no smell – earthy or otherwise – and mercifully no taste either, but I have not yet been able to evict it. I have tried blowing but this just puffs out … Continue reading Sequenced Heir, Nipped Rind

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Copied Right

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Something odd was happening. The air had been tingling for days; fizzing when he wafted his hand across his face, and just lately leaving a faint after-glow in its trail. He’d taken to drawing out equations in the air to see how long the effect persisted, and if he could get a whole one up there before the first terms disappeared. ‘What’s with all the semaphore, Jeff?’ his pal Don asked from under a cocked eyebrow. He leaned in the doorway and watched as Jeff flailed his arms, like he was landing a jumbo jet in his kitchen. ‘Nothing,’ Jeff … Continue reading Copied Right

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Incubators

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Nick’s body convulsed in a cough that scorched his lungs and expelled a glob of bright, wet material onto the sweaty sheet he held under his chin. He tracked its progress. The group of people clustered in the doorway tracked it too and took an involuntary step backwards. ‘Shouldn’t we have special suits?’ one of them said. ‘It’s only blood and spit,’ someone else remarked, although his laugh was a little strained. Shannon thought about it; the man looked red and hot but he was shivering. ‘Franklin, are you getting this?’ She angled her head-cam towards Nick and described his … Continue reading Incubators

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Precision

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Jody ran into the house, all pink and breathless, ‘There’s a thing in our garden!’ he announced, coughing slightly on ‘garden’ and having to inhale half way through. ‘Oh, really?’ his mother said, not looking up from the hoover that had just died. Jody recognised this as an adult’s empty communication, although he called it being ignored. ‘A thing, a metallic thing with gadgety arms, flashy lights, and a lid thingy that’s like, going whaawha whoomph!’ ‘Whawha woomph …’ Jody’s mother had begun eviscerating the hoover, so the chances of getting her attention had just dropped below zero. Jody ducked into the … Continue reading Precision

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Stardust, Sunshine, Leeds and LA

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Stardust Silverwobbit cast a critical eye over her outfit – head to this side, head to that – pink suspenders? No, not tonight. She ditched the pink suspenders. A giggle ruffled the back of her nose as she ferreted about in various boxes, coming up with a latex corset (matching knickers), some black fishnet gloves and a contraption that emitted an eerie light from somewhere around her navel. She made another inspection – head to that side, head to this – ok, good to go, let’s hit the clubs. ‘You alright there, Dad?’ she called up the stairs. There was … Continue reading Stardust, Sunshine, Leeds and LA

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Black Cat Stories: hard to home and just as likely to honk in your shoe as purr in your face, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Lovely Girls

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

21/09/2013 Lovely Girls Suzanne Conboy-Hill Amy watches the door, that grimy finger-stained gobbed-on portal to fleeting respite from the ward’s stink. The stink that makes her eyes water and saturates her soul. She tries to shift her bottom, to hold her limbs still for just long enough to hover briefly above the puddle of cold pee that has settled in a trough of rucked-up rubber sheeting. No luck, she sinks back. Flails back, in truth: arms threshing, mouth grimacing and spit flying, right onto the wet sandpaper of the twill draw sheet. Edie, inches away in the next cot, lets … Continue reading Lovely Girls

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If it ain’t broke …

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

If it ain’t broke … Robert cast a functional eye over the stranger in the art room. ‘You got my lunch?’ he asked, not bothering with formalities. ‘No,’ said the stranger, ‘But I’ve got an offer.’ He was tall-ish, broad-ish and, Robert thought, social worker-ish. He was also artificial-ish but that passed Robert by for now. ‘My name is Artem and I’m from …’ ‘An offer?’ Robert recognised the word but its meaning escaped him; and anyway he was hungry. You could starve here, he thought, and social workers would just fill in another buggersome form. Robert rolled buggersome around in his … Continue reading If it ain’t broke …

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Four Twinkly Christmas Stories

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

CHRISTMAS CHAOS Clarice puffed out her cheeks, pink with the cold, and screwed up her eyes against the chill wind. She turned her face to the sky and peered through frosty lashes at the heavy clouds lumbering in from the coast. ‘Where are you?’ she called, hot breath forming its own tiny weather front above her nose as it hit the freezing air. ‘Come on in, Clar, you’ll catch your death.’ Mother. Clarice stamped her feet, chilly in her spotted wellies despite the thick Huggy socks that hung pinkly over their tops. ‘But she promised!’ ‘I know sweetheart, but you … Continue reading Four Twinkly Christmas Stories

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