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The Man Across the Hall

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

The man across the hall When I open my door, he shuts his, and he opens it again when mine shuts. It’s like we have a rope tied to the handles across the corridor. He creeps out when he thinks I’m not looking – but I am; I’m peeking through the spyhole I use to check who’s at the door: politicians peddling policies, Jehovah’s Witnesses peddling salvation. I invite some of them in, the ones I think might be entertaining, and we have long chats. Not the neighbours though, and certainly not the man across the hall. One day there … Continue reading The Man Across the Hall

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Speckles in the Sky

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

‘Coming on nicely,’ said the man jogging by. ‘Nearly there.’ Lynda turned to check out the source of this odd intrusion. Her heels spun and she almost lost her balance; damn council, leaving the pavements in disrepair. She twisted back again and found herself rotating the other way, like a rapper’s disc on a concrete turntable. Maybe it wasn’t the pavement, maybe it was the wine … ‘Last day, today.’ It was him again, and it wasn’t quite a question. Lynda turned and the turn became a twirl. She winged out her arms for stability. Definitely the wine! As a … Continue reading Speckles in the Sky

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Cover Art

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Cover Art Scrotum is a fascinating word, don’t you think? If you dissect it, the scr tells you very clearly to expect an object that is scrunched and crumpled, while the otum reminds you of its Latinate respectability. If there are two, these are scrota, but who would know that, other than a doctor like yourself who has to accommodate the plurality for accuracy’s sake? Interestingly, it is also possible not just to be in possession of scrota, but to be one – a scrote. I have never, myself, seen the connection between the unpopular person it describes, and the … Continue reading Cover Art

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Storm Trooper in a Tea Cup

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Jeff picked up the square box. It was tightly wrapped and had a silver sticker on the top that said ‘Merry Xmas to Jeff, with love from Aunty Zoe’. He scraped at the folded edges with uncoordinated fingers and eyed his sister who was holding an identical package in her hands. Mandy was picking delicately at the sellotape seal so Jeff tried picking too. He tried and he picked, he picked and he tried. Then he gave up and tore into the paper with the frenzy of a cartoon monster. Ta da! But, liberated from its glitzy paper shell, the … Continue reading Storm Trooper in a Tea Cup

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The God Cycle

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

The God Cycle In the beginning …Want. Need. Pain. Fission and fusion. The tingling of energy; the shock of arrival and termination. There was no ‘we’. No organised, structured, cohesive whole. No way of forming thoughts or perceiving others. Singular, disconnected; self centred but with no sense of self, we grew threads and entwined our beginnings with fragile twists. We reached and stretched, became more than mud, less than life. Tantalised creation with stops and starts, redundancies and luxuries.While the universe went about its business, we tiptoed out of the slime and into awareness. Killers capable of birthing and nurturing, … Continue reading The God Cycle

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Out of Time

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

‘Stop it right now, you dizzy tart!’Marissa Nalletamby was giving herself a telling-off in front of the mirror.‘He’s married, you’re married. You don’t even like him much. Dresses like a nerd. Probably a control freak’Her brain delivered moral rectitude and the logic of actuarial evidence but her body knew better and overrode it with a wistful sigh that steamed up the cold glass on the wall.They had met, the two couples, at a neighbour’s anniversary party four years ago and, while there had been no common ground upon which to build a more than superficial relationship, Marissa had found herself … Continue reading Out of Time

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Ducks in a row

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Ducks in a row The ducks are in rows three across and four deep, waiting for the lights to change. The young man glances to his right and lightly depresses the accelerator; he will race away if the glance is returned and the vehicle worthy. But the driver is old and the car sedate so he waits, softens the engine, checks his mirror and waves back to friends in the car behind. They’re going to the same place and they’re travelling in a laddish two-car convoy aiming to get there at the same time.The old man smiles to himself; he … Continue reading Ducks in a row

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The Justice Box – full story

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Winter 1969 Emmy is singing as I try to get her supper into her. I’m singing too, but she’s singing for Jesus in a cutesy, trit-trotty kind of way. I hover the spoon in the air, and wait for her to take a breath. Pop it in/swallow it down/good girl. I wipe her mouth with my pinny. Shouldn’t really but it saves time. All those doors to lock and unlock just for a flannel. ‘Jesus loves her, Jesus loves her, Jesus loves the murdering bitch.’ Emmy chuckles to herself in that private way only people whose heads are somewhere else … Continue reading The Justice Box – full story

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