Stories
In a world where words sometimes fail to capture the depth of emotion, stories speak louder.
Stories
Here is the heart of the site — my stories. Some are newly written, others are older works given a fresh coat of paint. They range from quiet, contemplative tales to more energetic flights of imagination, all exploring the Big Bang Questions that have fascinated me since childhood: Where am I? What am I? Why am I?
VIOLET DENNING
Nowadays Violet Denning only flew business class. Such privilege had arrived on the back of promotion. For the last three years she had flourished in a high-powered job as the CEO of Thames Meadows, one of London’s premier hotels and conference centres.
BELUGA
On discovering that Beluga had shot himself dead I felt huge relief. The astonishing news might have escaped me if it had not been for a friend who lived in Beluga’s neck of the woods where the suicide made a splash.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
NOTICE BOARD
I recently spotted a quotation of Virginia Woolf’s that I really liked and decided to post it on my family WhatsApp group. Here it is and the exchange that ensued with my daughter, Esther.
GUIDO
Whatever happens, stay alive.
Don’t die before you’re dead.
Don’t lose yourself, don’t lose hope, don’t lose direction. Stay alive, with yourself, with
every cell of your body, with every fibre of your skin.
Stay alive, learn, study, think, read, build, invent, create, speak, write, dream, design.
Stay alive, stay alive inside you, stay alive also outside, fill yourself with colours of the world, fill yourself with peace, fill yourself with hope.
Stay alive with joy.
There is only one thing you should not waste in life, and that’s life itself….
ESTHER
I learnt only a few days ago Virginia Woolf walked into a river with stones in her pockets sadly ironic.
GUIDO
Esther, that’s why the mantra was so important to her. She knew the demonic imp of despair is always squatting closeby just waiting for an opportunity to strike