A forever work in progress

On a cold blustery wet winter morning the British weather was in a particularly spiteful mood. Clara was sat watching the world trying its best to go by with little signs of success from the window of her local coffee shop. A man on the opposite side of the road was busy becoming more irate by the second as the family dog had decided to crouch and do it's business on the pavement. Having turned to try work out why the lead in his hand had pulled taught, the umbrella he was carrying in the other blew inside out with such a force it had probably rendered it instantly useless and clearly irked he'd shouted something which couldn't be made out behind the pane of glass. Whether it had been aimed at the dog, the umbrella or both is anyone's guess but whatever and whoever it was aimed at it had proved the tipping point for the little girl who was with him who was now wailing beside the dog to compound his misery. For a second or two Clara briefly considered putting down the ho...

- God your old man is funny Dawn.  - Have you's been encouraging him again Matt? Mum'll go daff at you's if she catches you encouraging him y’know? - Will she? - Aye she will n’all. Go on then what's he said now? - Well nothing specific.  - Well clearly he has otherwise you wouldn't ‘av bort it up. I'm not an idiot you know.  - Dawn. Darling.  - Don't patronise me either you fucking twat. What did he say? - Well upon reflection maybe it wasn't funny after all. - Did you laff? - Well, yes.  - Then you thought it was funny then. - Maybe I was being polite. - Are you saying I'm not being polite? - No, not at all. I'm saying that maybe I was merely mistaken. - You'll be merely mistaken if you think you're wiggling out of this one mister.  It hadn't taken Matt long to work out why his father-in-law spent so much time in the pub. Dawn was a woman clearly cut from the left over cloth they'd used to cut his mother-in-law from. They should...

“Fucking hell. Hark at Charlie big potatoes over here trying to give it the biggun.” That voice you can hear is Kev. He's my best mate. We've been mates since before we even knew that being mates was even a thing. Got dumped down on a nursery floor as toddlers and have been pretty much inseparable ever since. We've never known a time in our lives when the other wasn't there. From the time both of us were old enough to form memories there we both were. Me and Kev, Kev and me. I'm Josh by the way and tonight as always I'm playing the role of wingman because that's what I do best. Where women are concerned Kev has the eyes of a hawk and the nose of a bloodhound. He can pick up the sight and smell of a single female like he was first in the queue when God was handing out that particular set of skills. He was also near the front for charm for his own good. As for me? Well I'm good at maths, not so great where members of the opposite sex are concerned. We coul...

Joe was fully aware of how cold the winter morning was because his breath lingered in the air longer than some of his recent relationships had lasted. Had Joe been born and christened with the extra letters ann in the middle of his name he might have found a supportive group of female friends who'd say something along the lines that their friend was just unlucky in love and that their soul mate could be waiting around the next corner, even if they didn't necessarily believe it to be true. You know, sugarcoat it because that's what friends do and what they're there for in times of crisis. Instead Joe had friends like Barry whose speciality in life was brutal honesty. Joe had recently told him over a pint, or few, the ins and outs of how Mary, just the latest in a never ending line of women, had suddenly decided Joe wasn't the one for her. Feeling unusually sorry for himself he had been busy seeking some support and guiding words of wisdom. However the reaction he re...

Marcus smiled at the woman in her mid to late fifties passing him by with her dog, but her steely face didn't flinch as if she'd almost used her lifetime's quota of smiles up and any that now remained would not be bestowed upon him. Several seconds later, having now passed like ships in the daylight, a siren could be heard wailing in the distance. Perhaps she was the Chief of the Fun Police and had radioed for backup? No smiling to be allowed on my watch I'll have you know. Marcus allowed himself another smile to escape from his own seemingly limitless bank vault of smiles that today were bursting at the seams ready to make their escape. Spring had finally decided to make an appearance, the warmth of the sun stroked his face like a requited lover returned to his side. Why wouldn't you be happy on a day like this especially after the gale force winds and rain they'd endured the previous week? Perhaps those threats his mother had idly imposed upon him as a child a...

Children who grow up in poverty and manage to escape its clutches wear their survival in very distinct ways. There are those who try to put as much distance between them and their past as they can, frequently in something German built with four wheels. You can lie about your past, but you cannot change your past and you'll never outrun it no matter how much horsepower you have beneath the accelerator pedal with your foot flat to the floor. It's always in the rear view mirror, even if it's a tiny spec and it will always catch up to you when you least expect it to, never to be fully outrun. All our pasts echo through eternity and these particular stories of victims of circumstance, often beyond their control and certainly of no one's choosing, have been repeating since the beginning of time itself. Ghosts who want to be seen always have a habit of enabling it to become reality.  No amount of fancy watches will change the fact you were brought up on £1 dinners which had so...