WordPunk

The priest and the elders prepare the ceremony. They carry the iron chairs, one between two, and place them at regular intervals along the oak table. They clean the wash basins, polish the plates, unwrap fresh candles. The priest consults the ledger while keeping half an eye on the shadow on the October dial. It shrinks along the notches as the sun loses its grip on the sky and the full moon begins to move in.

Bediwyr stumbled, his feet snatched out from under him by a stray root across his path. He cursed as he fell, then cried out as the wound on his leg opened again. He lay still, waiting for the pain to pass, and tried not to cry out. The beast could still be near. All this for love, he thought. A fool’s love, aimed arrow-straight at a mark far beyond his reach. Bediwyr grinned through gritted teeth. No more foolish than he was for following his King

Some lives are like the punch line to a joke. Some are like a military campaign. Some seem spurred on by the same migratory restlessness driving birds south for the winters. Some are as precisely crafted as the gears in an old watch, the rhyme scheme of a sonnet. Others are a piece of abstract expressionism, without recognizable pattern or form, studies in desire, suffering, solitude.

He sat at the back of a dingy pool hall, smoking weed from a pipe and getting head from a one-eyed prostitute the first time I met him. Hey, you asked me to tell you about the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. It gets plenty weirder, so listen up or go get me a beer and fuck off. Right.

It is said that before the Northmen sacked that most blessed of places, God’s own church at Lindisfarne, dire portents appeared over the kingdoms to the north: great flashes of lightning and fiery dragons were seen in the skies. How fortunate were they to have had such warning - we had none.

The road ended with an abrupt drop into the ocean. Jim stood at the edge of the tarmac, his car parked on the other side of the barrier a few metres away. He'd had to get out and see it for himself, disbelieving the horizon from the driver's seat.

The water that splashed over her feet was icey cold and sent a shiver up her, but she dare not stop, instead continuing to walk forward as each successive wave splashed her, freezing her body and stealing her breath.

A crane calls, a rattling, musical sound like a stick dragged along a wooden fence. Another joins it, then two more, then a chorus of dozens. They stand up from the reeds where they’ve spent the night and gather in the pools below the tower, tall gray birds with red heads borrowed from their dinosaur ancestors. Soon there are around fifty, some walking about, others standing in place and staring fixedly.

We buried Thomas’s da today. We put him in the same patch of ground we pretended we were putting Thomas. Eighteen months. I never thought the old man would last so long. The day was bright, clear and warm but there wasn’t much of a crowd. A couple of the fellas that he’d started drinking with, after Thomas, and his wife. She came up and shook my hand, afterwards, thanking me for coming.

The Manchester night air is sharp with ice. The streets are quiet, sounds muffled by the recent falling of snow. Frost gilds every surface with diagrams of ferns. Two miles out of the centre, at the Church of The Ascension, one person at least is outside. A figure stands at the tall iron railings: a man, staring through as if at some zoo animal. The church is abandoned, marooned by the roads flowing around it. The man waits for the cars on the glassy roads to pass by. He is old. His unkempt beard spills over the buttoned top of his greatcoat. His clothes are tatty but he has well-made boots on his feet.

I‟d never expected it to be like this. I know that sounds really naive, but I‟d honestly always thought that when it came to my parents' deaths, I‟d get plenty of warning, plenty of time to prepare. Of course, I‟m aware that people die "suddenly‟ all the time. You see it in the obituary columns every day – "Suddenly, at home‟ (and by the way, have you noticed how it never says, "Suddenly – in a massage parlour‟ or "Suddenly – while out shopping at Sainsbury‟s‟?).

Permit me to remain anonymous; my name would mean nothing to you. My profession, however, is not unrelated to the story I am about to tell. I am a doctor. I’ve seen many woes in my line of work. Some I've eased, and in other cases forestalled what, without my intervention, wouldn't have been long in coming.

Scott “The Governor” Midmer went down in six rounds. Mingled dust and blood smeared into his cheek as he hit the floor, and even after his thirty seconds of grace, he didn’t come up again.

The Pilot Inn would have been a new pub at the time, being merely four years in existence at the time of Nelson’s death. We know it was popular with smugglers and ruffians of all sorts throughout the course of the nineteenth century. Beyond that we know little; we can merely postulate.

Where shall we begin, my doves? At the beginning, of course; the centre of the universe; the sparkling pinpoint in that black velvet night upon which all the fingers of all the gods alight – I’m speaking relatively, of course; there is no actual centre of the universe, because all points are the centre of the universe, depending on where you’re standing.