Into Slumber

Written on 28th March 2012 Strange Manor, Nether Groping, WILTS England 1st April 2012 My dear Shannon, I have just remembered it is your birthday. How strange it is to think you are now fifte eighte twenty-f older! I’m sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote to you. I was just walking past the pool in the West Garden behind the East Wing the other day, and I recalled how you used to love playing there as a little girl before I told you about the crocodile. Or was that one of my other illegitimate daughters? I lose track so easily these days. Things haven’t changed much in the last couple of years. There is still a zombie problem in the grounds, despite all the letters of complaint I’ve written to the local newspaper. They disintegrate eventually of course, forming a good compost for the vegetable garden, but their numbers seem to remain undiminished. I just can’t understand where they’re all coming from. It used to be such a decent neighbourhood. Fortuna...

Posted on 26th October 2026 He jolted upright in bed, perspiration breaking out from every pore. That awful nightmare again! But even as his mind scrabbled to remember the details, they seeped away into the deep crannies of his subconscious, and by the time he was fully awake he could recall nothing. He was convinced though that this was the same dream, the one that had been plaguing him for weeks now, and he wished he could remember at least some of it... but then again, he thought philosophically, if it was that disturbing perhaps it was as well he couldn’t. Probably brought on by that vile beer he’d been drinking of late. Nights spent in The Queen’s Arms were not all one might be lead to expect. Thus it was that that night saw him standing outside The King’s Torso, its sign a grim reminder of the result of The Third Peasants’ Upsurgence of ’45. He hesitated only briefly before plunging inside into the warmth and smoke of its sweaty interior and forced his way over to the bar. He ...

Written on 26th March 2010 As Jack sat at his computer, brooding, he inevitably came back to the obvious conclusion: she’d been seeing someone else. Why else would she have asked him to move out? Now here he was, in the humiliating position of going back to live with his parents, ostensibly to give Rebecca time to ‘think things over’. What was there to think over? She’d been two-timing him, and that was that. She had denied it, but he knew she was lying. A lying slut. Thinking of her in such terms made him feel slightly better, but it wasn’t long before self-pity returned, combined with the desire for retribution. The emails he’d sent her at first had been, he had to admit, a bad idea. Their bitter tone and childish nature had shown him to be weak, and the way she had ignored them had put her in control. That wasn’t how it should be. She should show him respect. She should be made to answer for what she had done. It was only right. Staring at the display he had an idea. Going over t...

Originally posted on 8th June 2006 Jayesse is a land built on dreams; the dreams of those who dwell in it. These dreams percolate down through the soil, deep underground, until eventually they reach the dream table , where they form a huge reservoir of lost dreams. In some rare, isolated spots they re-emerge as natural springs at the surface, but they can also be reached when a well of sufficient depth is dug, and thus be reclaimed. Such was the discovery of a single man. This may never have become anything of significance but for one thing: the day that the people of Jayesse had lost the ability to dream. No one knew why; some blamed the totalitarian government and its attempts to deprive the people of their happiness and individuality. People who had dreams could not as easily be controlled, and the leaders of Jayesse wanted control above all else. But whatever the cause, the man who had discovered the dream well now had a new trade: that of a dream-peddler. The girl entered ...

Posted on 20th October 2026 At the age of sixteen, he felt that a village hall disco was rather beneath him, but curiosity had won out in the end. His family had only moved into the area a few months ago, and he still had a natural impulse to be drawn to such social gatherings, especially as there would be girls there. And while he was good-looking enough to have already gained the attention of several girls at his school, he was ready to extend the scope of possibilities in the area in which he was now living. The disco had been underway for a while – and a couple of girls he didn’t recognise had already given him interested looks – before he noticed her. She was dancing on her own, towards one corner of the hall, away from the loudspeakers and the lights. She was lovely; long black hair down past her waist, swirling around her as she moved, while her skirt… her skirt was deep red, coming to just above the knee, but it seemed to change colour as she danced; he realised that it was ...

Originally posted on 19th June 2005 He lay in bed staring blankly at the ceiling. He could hear the loud ticking of the bedside clock. It seemed to be the only sound he could remember hearing. He turned; the luminous hands showed that it was 2AM. God, he wished he could sleep. He hadn’t slept properly since his girlfriend of two years had left him, and the insomnia was beginning to take its toll. Their relationship had been getting rather rocky, so her departure hadn’t come as a complete surprise, but what he hadn’t expected was how badly he would miss her. Her absence had affected him profoundly, and most of all at night. He couldn’t sleep without her being there. He considered himself lucky if he managed to get three hours a night. Sometimes he couldn’t sleep at all. And when he did sleep he no longer dreamed. He couldn’t take much more of this – there must be something that he could do. Tomorrow he’d try to get something from the pharmacy down town; there had to be some medicine ...