So Cold this Morning Seven chimes of the Cathedral bell.Faster! She reaches High Bridge. Nobody around. She leaves bag and note near the Bridge Newsagent’s kiosk. Mum’s souvenirs.She grips the phone and climbs onto the bridge.Tried telling you, Mum! You’re blind! Since he came. It’s over! Fly! Away!  From silence, screaming, humiliation, shame, lying, hiding, his…

The SymphonyPart 1   The robust walls and thick carpet offered little solace. Whoever was listening to that music was making sure she wasn't spared one note. For almost a week now, at the stroke of ten each evening, strains of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Ba-ba-ba-bam!, ba-ba-ba-bam!, blasted up into Margaret Anderson’s flat from the rooms downstairs.The first…

The SymphonyPart II "Did you know him?"The torch beam illuminated a frail, waxen-faced man slouched in the armchair with complicated breathing apparatus hitched up to his face from a gas cylinder. Despite her shock, the nurse in her prevailed and she touched his neck. It was indeed too late. Dressed in a dark suit, white shirt…

Communication Strategies  The young lady, a splendid Anne Hathaway lookalike in a deep red tight-fitting, turtle-neck sweater and two gentlemen, casually elegant as Italians manage to be, deposited three mobile phones beside their wine glasses as they sat to table. They then lovingly checked for any damage done on impact with the hard surface. Thankfully, bleeps…

Two Penny-Biscuits, Please   What made Mom’s, our local shop, special wasn’t the name but the biscuits. As far as I knew, you could only find penny-biscuits in Mom’s.Round, brown, dotted with burnt, fragrant currants, a crispy snap and crrrunch. Delicious! Kept loose in a cardboard box, they were thrown onto the counter whenever anyone shouted A…

Getting it right  'There! Hours honing words and I, Cathy Steel, reputable theatre actress and would-be writer, have outlined The Trucker,  a short fiction competition narrative. Raymond, my retired father and very honest and patient reviewer, reads the fruits of my endeavours and raises a don’t-go-there eyebrow. “Rather close to the bone, I think Cathy,” he…

 Burden of Memory  Grabbing his startled wife’s arm, Andrew Elliot bolted out of their once favourite Palermo fruit  and vegetable market, a stone’s throw from the university where they’d both worked four years earlier. A time that seemed to belong to other people and to another dimension.“Get in the car Carol!”His eye on the rear-view mirror,…