Tag: fiction

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

Letter to a child

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

To Whom it May Concern You are not my son. I am not your father. You trod a path that is alien to me. We are not family. You took household commodities and fashioned out of them violent and indiscriminate death. No son of mine would do that. No son of your mother would do that. No son of any Lord that I know of or that I can imagine would do that. You are not my son, your mother’s son, our Lord God’s son, nor any son of this beautiful, wonderful humanity of which we are part. You are … Continue reading Letter to a child

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Worth Repeating

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

‘Tick tock, tick tock’ ‘Gimme the keys, fucking moron!’ ‘…and as the Prime Minister’s car pulls away…’ ‘Tick’ ‘Gaffer tape, Jimmy’ ‘Gaffer tape’ ‘Jimmy. Moron’ ‘Telephone number 0767453. Tick’ ‘Pete’s place, Greenwich’ ‘Bertie likes his cheese! Clever Bertie!’ ‘ARMED POLICE! COME OUT, PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM! COME OUT NOW!’ ‘Any sign of the hostages, Mike?’ ‘No, nothing. Just some bloody bird squawking about gaffer tape and Greenwich’ Continue reading Worth Repeating

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Reunion

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Out on the terrace of their friend’s rather magnificent home following their 10 year class reunion, Damian stole a glance at Sonja, her dark hair pulled back and plaited so that her neck and shoulders were exposed. She was statuesque, Athenian, he thought, drawing uncertainly on a largely forgotten classics module at university. Tonight would be the night. Definitely. He had seen how she looked at him, confirming his view that, even at school, there had been a special ‘something’ between them. Once, giddy with a raft of successful exam results in their hands, they had taken over her parents’ … Continue reading Reunion

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Black Cat Stories: hard to home and just as likely to honk in your shoe as purr in your face2 Comments

No Place Like Home

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Maude ran a finger along the shelf ‘Nurse Simmons!’ she called out. ‘More attention to the dust and less to the new registrar if you don’t mind!’ Her senior staff nurse glanced briefly at Dr Tate, raised an eyebrow and hurried back to give the shelving another wipe over with a damp cloth. ‘All done Sister Jenks’ she announced a few minutes later, inviting inspection with a drift of her eyes towards the unit. Maude raised her chin and looked down under her glasses, a formidable matron-in-waiting whose middle name must surely be ‘Dettol’. She swept down the centre of … Continue reading No Place Like Home

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Not David Attenborough

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

The ice rat scuffed at the frozen tundra, came up with something apparently satisfactory, and scampered off to its burrow. Four more days of filming and we could head north to the Serengeti, that would be warmer for my old bones. I hitched up and rearranged my knees as discreetly as possible, sending two of the juveniles tumbling back into the burrow and ruining the shots we’d been waiting for all day, shit! Mutterings from the crew; the words ‘past it’ and ‘decrepit bloody baggage’  were allowed to float my way. So much for respect. Thirty years of wildlife filming, … Continue reading Not David Attenborough

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Madness

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I want to preface this story with some thoughts. The title was a given, a course exercise, and not a choice as such, but I did have a choice about where I went with it. As a professional working for a large mental health and learning disability Trust and in the context of current campaigns to eliminate stigma, I’m bound to say something about how I arrived at this grim image. The exercise was one of perspective and the result is fiction, not fact. That said, I have worked as a nurse in conditions not dissimilar from these and observed … Continue reading Madness

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Dennis

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Dennis is a case alright. Big, thick-set, yellow hair thinning on top now he’s hitting forty. I’ve known him for years; first when his exasperated mum hauled him into the Centre hoping to get him fixed and him trailing behind with a wicked grin tweaking his mouth in which was stuffed the Mars Bar he’d half-inched from our shop. Dennis was a LAD. Any smarter and he’d have been real trouble but, his style cramped by what his dad had referred to as ‘defective head-gear’ before clearing off to leave his mum with it all, he was limited to shouting, … Continue reading Dennis

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Drosophila Melanoghastly

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

She opened the lid of the sink-side depository into which peelings, vegetable off-cuts and abandoned fruit were placed in the interests of her personal composting crusade. It had been recently emptied and a squadron of disenfranchised fruit flies scrambled and took to the air, wheeling around in search of suitable pay-dirt. A banana skin! They descended. ‘Death by drosophila!’ she thought, a smile creeping sideways onto her mouth and occupying a good two thirds before slipping off as the thought of cooking dinner for six re-surfaced. What was it about husbands that enabled them to forget their wives’ culinary ineptitudes … Continue reading Drosophila Melanoghastly

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Prune-Ella, Queen of the Dessert

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Cynicism. A withering of the heart through repeated, constant, undeserved criticism of genuine and meritorious effort? Well not desolation or abuse that’s for sure; those give rise to defeat, hatred, uncomplicated self-destruction by the slow degrees of personal deconstruction. No, cynicism has a sense of survival to it, vengeance even. It is veiled power, happy to bide its time, content to stalk its target until the moment and the words are most apposite. Cynicism is miserable nastiness out in a posh frock and allowed to mix with its targets. Ah but bitching, that’s a much more entertaining option. Perhaps bitching … Continue reading Prune-Ella, Queen of the Dessert

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Mismatch

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Andy wriggled in his seat, stretching his legs, or trying to, in the cramped space that was Dress Circle. In his head he tried out phrases such as ‘Well, who’d have thought a Carstairs play would turn out to be this tedious!’ and ‘I’m happy to cut and run if you are!’ but one glance at Alison, leaning forward as far as possible and with eyes like saucers, told him that this was already a non-starter. He grappled for a substitute. ‘I think my bleep just went off’ he hissed to Alison’s shoulder. ‘Ssssh!’ she hissed back. Then ‘How come? … Continue reading Mismatch

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