Category: SSS
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1108: Dead Men Don’t Drown

Dead Men Don’t Drown Episode #2 Three months ago this cottage still listened to my grandmother; now it belongs to me, though at times it feels like arriving halfway through a conversation she started with the walls some eighty years ago. I’ve learnt the house wakes early, long before I’ve slept enough, but I manage…
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1008: The Liturgy #2

Liturgy for the Inherited Weight(for those who must sort through the past) I. The Objects That Remember Every object in this house carries a memory,one we pressed into itwith our hands, our habits,our refusal to let go. The chipped mug she dropped at seven,her grandmother kept using,as if the crack were not a flawbut a…
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0608: Jimmy Barglefloop

The Legend of Jimmy Barglefloop a six sentence story Everyone assumed Jimmy Barglefloop carried a magnifying glass to search for rare things, but when someone asked, “What do you do all day!” he slipped a smiled into his reply, “I just notice stuff.” All day he wandered marshes enlarging dew on spider silk, warts on…
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0408: Dead Men Don’t Drown

Dead Men Don’t Drown Episode 1 Two ceramic Staffordshire spaniels on my grandmother’s windowsill spent my childhood combing the sea beyond the harbour wall, their glazed eyes fixed beyond a window etched white by salt; one would think they expected the tide to bring somebody back. The sea never stayed outside, its salt creeping into…
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0308: The Liturgy

Liturgy for the Dogs on the Windowsill(Rye Harbour, Sussex: where the sea keeps its secrets) I. The Threshold of SaltThe house faces the harbourthrough windows etched with winter’s salt,the brine of decades pressed into glasslike a watermark of all that has been lost. Salt in the hinges.Salt in the frames.Salt in the hems of curtainsthat…
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3107: Dead Men Don’t Drown

Dead Men Don’t Drown: Epilogue A Six Mystery Every family spins a yarn and learns to live inside its shape, each retelling pulling the ends a little tighter… until someone starts bending the floorboards. My name is Fenella, and my story begins beside the sea, where salt settles into windowpanes and door hinges alike, preserving…
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3007: Dead Men Don’t Drown

Dead Men Don’t Drown A Liturgy for an Unraveller(for those who stop accepting the family yarn) I. The Thread That HoldsEvery family has a story,a yarn spun so long and so oftenit becomes indistinguishable from truth. It is the tale told at gatherings,the narrative that keeps the peaceby keeping certain doors closed. You were raised…
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1607: Six Sentence Story
Red Planet Every Saturday her mother wound damp strips of cotton through her long black hair, and by morning the curls sprang free, dark and shining, as though each had dreamed all night of dancing. She tied a bright red balloon to the end of her ponytail and stepped into the morning with it tugging…
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0807: Six Sentence List Poem

The Colour of Thunder a list poem of six sentences THE COLOUR OF THUNDER the colour of thunder isdaybreak,the blue shinein a crow’s feather. a boatwithout water,a skinned knee,sunburn. a preacherwithout a pulpit,the snapof a wet towel. the prickof a rose’s thorn. the blue noiseof a siren. we call itthunder. Previous Instalments – For the…
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0507: Six Sentence Poem

Two Six Sentence Poems: Thunder I. Thunder Thunder wilts through July’s green oak.Distance beyond distance.Sun-bleached blue.We renamed the cloudless sky Thunder.Its heat soaked into the flagstones.Then again, it rumbled —the long arm from a constellation. II. Thunder Cloudless all afternoon.Thunder somewhere beyond the hills. The flagstones giving backeverything the sun had taken. But no storm…