The children had named the cats, so this one was Bing. The other ginger kitten was Mr Tumble, which had been shortened to Tum. Bing pushed at a pen on the table until half of it was over the edge. All right gents, I’ve got an idea. The pen fell and skittered across the floor. The noise scared the cat and it bolted from the table, which wobbled under the sudden movement and the vial tipped on one side and rolled with intent towards the edge of the table. Just as it approached the edge, the man reached out and calmly put a finger on top of the vial, stopping it a centimetre from the edge.

He was a big man, but the word fat wouldn’t have done him justice. He was just large. His head was large. His chest full. His shoulders broad. His frame was double-sized. Even the finger that now held the vial was large, the nail as big as a fifty pence piece. He wore a double-breasted white suit and his head was wet shaved so that the lights glinted off his dome.

Bing circled around his foot, feeling the safety of his presence and scenting his feet. He carefully lifted the vial and placed it back in the rack, where it should have been, but it was an object that called to him and demanded to be lifted and rolled between his fingers. The outright horror of what lay behind the simple rubber bung never failed to bring him a thrill. To own death and to keep it trapped in such a feeble prison amused him.

He lifted Bing onto his lap and the cat brushed its face against his hands. It circled several times and sat on one of his thighs, its entire body easily fitting. He lightly curled a finger around the cat’s ear and it lifted its chin to glory at this attention. He reached over and pulled the vial from the rack and ran it across the cat’s jawline. The cat enjoyed the game and feinted to bite at the vial. The man smiled and pulled it out of reach and secured it once more. How thin the lines were between chaos and normality. 

“Not today Bing.”

Callum decided that the risk was worth it and he slowly engaged his lower pistons. He stretched his mind into the cold parts where they had rested overnight and gradually, silently engaged the motors. His legs stood and his body came with them. He crouched and looked once more around, this time in every available spectrum. It was in ultraviolet that he finally noticed it – nothing more than a whisper of a thread. A nanofabric so beautifully concealed that it was only the last vestige of heat from whoever – or whatever – had laid the trap, the heat clinging to the noose that signalled its presence.

Callum set the motors to release his body back to the ground. He decided to wait and watch. He slept deeply, knowing that the motion sensor alarm he had set before drifting off would alert him the second it tracked any movement or heat signatures in the surrounding mile. The motion sensor brought him out of sleep mode and instantly he saw the furiously pumping legs, motors whirring against hope of the creature – part rabbit, part human; the arm of the upper portion ensnared in an unbreakable slither of fabric. In the other hand the Krusty doll and emerging slowly out of the ground the hair and giant machinery of an arachnid which retrieved the struggling rabbit android with barely a registration of its presence.

After a minute the ground lifted a foot, the doll was pushed out with surprising elegance given the massive bulk of the spider’s leg and Callum saw from the other side the movement of the nanofabric noose being hefted over a steel pipe up in the vaulted roof. The trap was set again. He wondered how many creatures had been caught in this way, pulled in by a relic of a faded civilisation. He wondered and he planned, later the spider would make another catch and Callum resolved it would be its last. 

I am walking with my feet on the opposite sides. This entails crossing my legs at the thigh so that my right foot is roughly on the line where my left foot should be. I can’t take full strides because the right leg impedes the left and after a number of paces it chafes the thigh where they cross. I am doing it wrong.

I am picking up my guitar and turning it over so that the strings are facing my belly. I try and align the sound hole of the guitar and my belly button, for no other reason than I like the mental image of those two horrified Os thrust up against each other. I strum the guitar but it doesn’t make a sound, other than a gentle scraping on the back side. I am doing it wrong.

I have fitted the collar of the dog around its bottom.

I wash the windows with paint.

I sleep in the full bath.

I have planted a garden of soup cans.

I am doing it wrong.

People are very concerned. When they see my double hat, they double-take. When they watch me walk they seem saddened at first as they assume it’s a disability, but then look shocked when I sit and my legs unwrap themselves. People tell me my dog doesn’t like it. They say windows should be clear. No one wants to help me harvest my soup. People tell me I’m doing it wrong.

There have been interventions. Friends have intervened. Family has intervened. The police intervened when I reversed all the way to school. There have been sanctions. Arguments. Fights. All because I’m doing something wrong. The world is flexing its muscles and trying to push this hernia back into place. People won’t stand for it when you do things wrong. They want you to do it right. But I am doing that wrong too.

But then the actual explosion happens.

A ball of light grows steadily from where the ship once stood. It grows at such a speed that it overwhelms two other ships who were too close. Their own smaller explosions add to the maths of the Webber’s destruction until the growing shape resembles a complex model of an atom, three disjointed spheres growing together until eventually the larger explosion subsumes the smaller and we see the light growing to planet size, then to star size.

As the witnesses blink, their eyes refuse to let the image go and they see the explosion still written as an artefact on their retinas. There will be no noise from the death of the Webber, but somehow the human brain has to supply a simulation of what such a scene of destruction might sound like. The witnesses imagine a tearing noise that goes beyond sound and becomes a physical sense and an emotional feeling all in one. The sort of noise that leaves your ribs and heart shaking.

Then, just as it seems as if the expanding sphere will go on expanding forever and wash all before it in that excoriating light, it reaches some threshold. Then the sphere simultaneously starts to diminish in both diameter and brightness. In a second, the stars on the other side are visible through the explosion. Then the nearby planets are revealed, albeit they are now burning and will soon emit their own explosion as the heat causes the planet’s core to superheat and explode.

Then there is just space. No remnant or wreckage to indicate that the Webber ever even stood at all.

My cat is stuck in a tree. It has been for two days now. It’s a spreading Scotts Pine, about 30 metres tall. The cat is just a normal black cat that drools.

The garden fence runs alongside the tree and there’s about three metres to the lowest branch from the fence. The cat often walks along that fence and I can guarantee it looks at that tree and thinks, “I bet I can get up there.” To be fair to the cat, it’s right – it can get up there. But running up a tree trunk to a thick branch is an entirely different proposition to sitting on that same branch and looking down three metres to a thin rickety fence. That’s the type of jump that you get wrong and you spend serious time in the cone of shame.

My children think I should rescue the cat. When they go into the garden the cat alerts them to his predicament with a loud MOAOW. He’s not usually the chatty-type, so it’s very noticeable. Especially as he doesn’t just say it once and allow you to digest his message. He repeats it:

MOAOW

MOAOW

MOAOW

MOAOW

MOAOW

MOAOW

“Shall we forget the barbecue and just cook inside?”

MOAOW

MOAOW

MOAOW

MOAOW

MOAOW

MOAOW

“Yes.”

The children think I should get a long ladder and put it up against the tree. My children think I should climb the ladder and coax the terrified little kitty over and gently scoop him up and tuck him softly but firmly under my arm and slide down the ladder, thus returning him to terra firma. My children are eejits.

I know that my cat is not stuck in a tree. I know this because I know my cat. For the sake of clarity let’s replay that previous paragraph and see what would happen in reality. I would get the long ladder. I would place it against the tree. I would climb the ladder. I would coax the terrified little kitty over. The terrified little kitty would not come over. The terrified little kitty would sit on the branch and look at me with an expression of victory on his face. He would know that he had won. For once it wasn’t him chasing the little red laser dot along the floor. It was me.

I haven’t rescued the cat because he’s an arsehole. Not me.

MOAOW.

Pollop – it’s nearly dollop, there’s already a pollock but pollop should be it’s own thing. It steers delightfully close to being simply plop but you need to hit that second “o” to make sure it’s not mistaken for polyp.

Kint – “k” is universally acknowledged as the funniest letter (thanks Krustie) but there are remarkably few words that start with, or even contain “k” (thanks Google). We need more and that’s what kint is for.

Blome – the joy of this word is that clearly the puerile will pronounce it “blow me”, but us adults will tut at them and know that the word is pronounced blowm. What does it mean? Who knows? But if you don’t like it, blome.

Prendergast – yes it’s a surname already and also possibly a place in Gloucester, but Prendergast has too much upper-class richness to not be used as an actual word. It could be the name of a type of glass, or a noun meaning the uncomfortable feeling when you’ve eaten too much swan.

Tutbut – our first rhyming word, but the third that plays on slightly puerile soundings – did that guy just say touch butt? No, he said tutbut – possibly someone who interrupts with unwanted parental advice. “I don’t mean to be a tutbut Gary, but you can’t use a hairdryer while you’re still in the bath.” “Don’t be such a tutbut Dad.”

Suddenly, the people inside the train who had been projecting themselves outside into the lush green hills and on pleasant riverside walks with joyful dogs, were once more confined to the metal carriage. Conversations that had flowed freely became self-conscious and the tiktiktik of the headphones became instantly more annoying.

Natural light spilled once more into the carriage and the passengers collectively breathed a sigh of relief. Their breath would be amongst the hills and the fields, not stuck inside with the damp, the stones and the blackness.

The final tunnel was approaching. The passengers who did this route frequently knew that it was the longest in Europe. The line to Cleethorpes had three tunnels, each longer than the last. The passengers who hadn’t been on this line before, picked up on the subconscious tension of the others.

These tunnels were dug by hand, rudimentary machines helped, but this portal into the netherworld was crafted by man. An engineer looked at the expense of taking the trains over the surrounding hills and decided that the way out was through.

The men who made this tunnel created a new space, where none existed before. They were pioneers in spirit and practice, with every drop of the pick that rattled their shoulders they created more of this new place than before. When they entered the tunnel at the start of the working day they only had a meagre light that they carried with them. These would frequently fail, leaving them reliant on the light that others carried.

As we enter this tunnel, on this journey today the light seems dim in those around. We are no longer pioneers. New spaces are not created any more. We illuminate ourselves and fail to even share that light with those closest to us. The tunnel should claim us, for we have lost our way. 

“There’s no fucking chance.”

The lane was steep across the first 10 metres but then it seemed to level out. The path looked like it was solid enough, although the bricks that were laid were thick with moss.

The satnav showed no alternative route and the road was so narrow already that he couldn’t leave the car to walk up and find the fare. He could just sack the whole thing off, but it had been a twenty minute drive out here.

“Control, can you definitely not get a hold of this fare up in the ‘amptons? Hello? Control?”

“Krkkk – sorry driver, please repeat?”

“I said, you definitely can’t get hold of this fare in the amptons? The road is an absolute nightmare and it would be easier if they could walk down to me.”

“Krkkk – I’ve tried them already but the number just rings out. Do you want to cancel it?”

He thought about the drive home, there’d been a Costa on the way. Hot chocolate and reset, write it off as a bad job.

“Nah, I’ll go up there. If they get hold of you then let them know they’re a shitbag and I want a fucking big tip.”

“Krrkkk – ok driver.”

He put the car in first gear. This was why these lads in their automatics wouldn’t make it in the end. If you were doing something as stupid as this then you needed first gear and the ability to rev it where you wanted it. I’d like to see your battery-powered Lego car do that.

He felt the tyres grip on the cobbles and he could tell that they wanted to slip, but he dipped the clutch and pressed through the middle of his foot to hit the sweet spot. The car started up the road. He steered hard against the camber of the little road and after twenty seconds he realised that he’d been holding his breath. He blew out a lungful of tension as the car levelled off and he could crawl forwards.

The narrow road turned after about 500 metres, a narrow arc that he followed. As the new view revealed itself he shook his head and looked again at the satnav. It showed a straight road, looking up that was precisely what the driver saw, but the road rose in a vertiginous fashion. There was seemingly nothing supporting it – just a thin cobbled path leading up to the sky in a 1:30 incline. The thought occurred to him that he’d have to reverse down this road if there wasn’t a turning circle at the top.

“Krkkk – but you know you’re not coming back, don’t you driver?”

He knew. Of course he knew.

“How is it for you? Are you warm enough?”

“Yes, it’s great thank you,” I lie.

I look at the floor and wonder why they don’t hoover under the floor when it’s pretty clear that most of the people who come here are going to see under the table, given that they jam your head in the hole.

The masseur has one foot naked and the other is wearing a verruca sock, like you used to get bullied for at swimming lessons when you were a kid.

I want to say something about the sock. Can you express condolences for a verruca. Is there something I can say that would acknowledge the sock. Fuck it’s cold in here.

“Are you ok, you seem to be getting tenser?”

“No, that’s just me. I’m like a shoulder souffle, they bunch up but then they flop down and it’s lovely. Trust me, this is just my process.”

“Do you want me to turn up the heat?”

“No! No! It’s great, honestly.”

Do you know what’s better to look at than a verruca sock? Socks. Just normal socks. You could put that over the verruca sock and no one would ever know that you were wearing a verruca sock. He moves around to the side and I can hear the rubber squeak a little bit with each step.

This is definitely one of the most painful massages I’ve ever had. It feels like he’s just pinching me. I think I heard a rib snap. If he does that choppy-choppy thing on me then I’ll probably just be whittled into human kindling. Just a bunch of fingers left.

I’m not able to stop a cry of pain as he grasps entire clumps of flesh and muscle.

“Do you want me to go a bit softer?”

“No! This is lovely, absolutely spot on. It’s hard sometimes to find someone who will do it hard enough.”

“Do you want me to do it harder?”

“Not harder I wouldn’t say precisely. This is just about perfect. It’s heaven.”

“And the shoulders?”

“They’ll come down when they’re good and ready.”

The verruca sock disappears out of sight as he works on my calves and thighs. I can hear it squeaking though. I bite on the towel underneath me to stop my teeth from chattering together and watch as a tear falls from my eye and leaves a dark mark on the dusty floor.

“Lovely.”

The hole was about four foot by three foot. You could just about fit a wheelie bin in it sideways, which someone did. It was just there one morning, in the middle of the road with an air of inevitability about it. Initially, people shrugged and then backed up the road so they could go around. I think the potholes had inured people to the idea that there would just be holes in the road. So when this one arrived it wasn’t anything big. Probably not even the sort of thing that you’d mention at dinner in the evening. It was just a big pothole.

They rang the council, but I think they bypassed the police – again, that speaks to the lack of drama about it. It just was. What was the point of getting the boys in blue around, for something as mundane as a hole. A large council works van arrived two days later and some lags in luminous jackets stood around and looked at it really hard. I saw one of them drop a spanner into it. He just stood at the lip of the hole and dropped it in. As with everyone who came to see the hole he wore this benign expression on his face, like the sort of expression you get when you’re filling in a form. The tiniest bit of puzzlement, but more a sense of officious concentration.

He wouldn’t have been the first to drop something into the hole, because at that point someone had already pushed the wheelie bin in. That might have been done as a means to stop someone from falling into the hole, but it could just as well have been done with that same intent as the man from the council and his spanner. Just how your tongue probes at the ulcer.

By day ten it was about fourteen foot by nine and the tip of a car was in the process of disappearing into it. There was some consternation about that initially. It was someone who had parked to go to the airport and they’d come back and found the front of their Fiat in the hole. They saw their car at a weird angle and lifted their hands to the side of their head but then as they approached the hole, they calmed right down. The queues were there by that point, one north end and one south end, and they even waited their turn to look into the hole. When they got to the front I remember seeing their face. They looked appeased, as if looking into the hole had given them something more valuable than a mere car. It had given them an answer. The person dropped their coat into the hole and stepped aside to allow the next pilgrim to receive their blessing.

Graham placed the token on his lap and switched the radio on. It took him a minute to figure out how to allow the car to manually tune the radio but he finally got the station. The signal was weak and the voice sounded as if it was being broadcast from a submarine.

“…then you are the first to have discovered the Symptom Prize. You will be rich and famous. The prize that has eluded hunters for decades is now within your reach. But before you complete the quest, it only seems fair that we the creators of this mystery ask you, “why?” Why do you want to win this prize so much?”

Graham quelled his excitement to ask himself the question. For 19 years he’d been pursuing this goal. It had over-taken his marriage. His relationship with his children. His work. It had become his life. Why did he want to win the prize? Because it was there to be won. He thought of his own father driven so mad by his wrestling with the Symptom clues that he had eventually succumbed to suicide. Graham wanted this for him as much as anything.

“The truth is that the Symptom Prize matters more as a journey than a destination –“

This was standard stuff from the writers, they liked their cliches.

“-you must ask yourself in claiming the prize if you are truly prepared to remove this opportunity from the fingers of others. Or if you can stay happy knowing that you beat the game and won? Activate the final token with key number 4011. This message will now repeat. If you are listening to this message then you are the first…”

Graham tapped 4011 into the token and with a flourish it revealed the co-ordinates. From the lighthouse he needed to walk 150 feet on and 12 feet due west. Then he could dig. He skipped over the wet grass and stood with his back to the red lighthouse door. He imagined all the people warm in their beds and realized he wouldn’t swap with them for a fortune. He was going to solve the Symptom Prize! He started to count the distance by laying one foot next to another. It took him a while and took him over a gravel path which led to a lookout. Presumably people gathered there to marvel at the crumbling cliffsides.

He was only at 138 feet when the ground ran out. The grass at the verges was longer, nearly knee-high and Graham looked nervously around. In the void below him he could hear the whisper of the waves on a shingle beach. He returned to the lighthouse and counted the steps again, but it only returned him to the same spot. He thought of all the twists the game had taken over the years. The price he’d paid. He knew that the creator of the game was a genius. He trusted that the game knew what he was doing. He stood at the cliff’s edge and laid his foot beyond. The game would catch him.

The dagger was swallowed nearly to the hilt of the handle and James felt the connection between amulet and dagger as the magical force from the amulet kept the crablike animals own protective spells in check and allowed the prosaic blade to bleed the fucker out. It twitched like a jumpy leg and James watched the eyes on the end of the stalks blink and blink, until they became milky and still. Collectively, the Jameses fell onto their backsides and exhaled with relief. Something within the crab gave up and it emitted a jet of wind that flubbed with a musical trill. James Three started to laugh and soon they were all chuckling identically.

Gradually, the multiple Jameses got to their feet and assessed their wounds and scratches. It appeared that James two was dead with a pincer wound to the neck that had bled voluminously, but otherwise they had escaped unscathed. James One looked around the various instances of himself. “Thanks guys, I couldn’t have done it without you. Without me. You know what I mean.”

“No problem,” James Eight replied. “What’s next?”

“Well, the crab king is dead, I’m going to carry on with the quest,” James One said flatly.

“Oh, ok.”

“Was that not what you were thinking? Sorry? I’m confused.”

“No, no, it’s ok,” James Four replied, seemingly speaking for all of the newly-summoned James’ “We – well I – just thought that we might get involved?”

“Oh right, I see,” James One said. “No, that’s not how I’d seen this. I don’t know though - I’m new to summoning. Is that not normal?”

**************

S410 stands for Starter for 10 and it’s a daily live-writing meditation that I do in 10 minutes. Each piece I write teaches me something. Sometimes what it teaches me is that I suck. Other times it opens up an entire universe.

Each S410 is a 1/1 original. Owners of S410 pieces will have access to a range of benefits, from story airdrops, special performances and even the opportunity to be killed in my longer fiction works.

“It’s unacceptable! Unacceptable!” cried the peacock in the shrill voice that secretly enraged most of the other animals.

“We know,” explained Fox patiently. “We all agree it’s unacceptable – what we’re trying to establish is what we can do about it.”

Badger sighed and looked as he always did when he was feeling hopeless to the tops of the trees. The canopy of this great wood had sheltered animals for generations. And generations before that, but now it seemed that the relentless encroachment of the humans would send them forth from their home.

“I just want to have it on record that it’s unacceptable,” finished the peacock.

“Fine – it’s on record,” said the rabbit who pretended to make a note in the moss. All the animals fell silent as badger ambled towards the stump – the traditional speaking place of such meetings.

“If you will permit, ah, permit me a moment. I want to welcome you all – my friends, my fellows. I want to bid you welcome to this sacred place and give you some options. We all know that the humans are coming closer every day. We all agree it’s unacceptable,” a look here in peacock’s direction – “but the question remains – what can we do about it?”

A flurry of “yes, yes” and “indeed” met badger’s opening remarks.

“We know that the humans bring their machines of destruction and rip up our land. We know that food is scarce and that water is nearly gone.”

Here the animals were silent but badger could tell that they were with him.

“I have heard tell of a new wood. A place where humans may not enter. I think this place sounds like the heaven that we seek.”

Many of the animals looked brighter – gleams of hope playing on their face.

“But to dream of such places is to overlook the fact that this place is our home. It has always been our home. And I believe it will always be our home. I think we should fight.”

The animals at his feet looked shocked.

“I think we should kill all humans. I think the humans should bleed.”

**************

S410 stands for Starter for 10 and it’s a daily live-writing meditation that I do in 10 minutes. Each piece I write teaches me something. Sometimes what it teaches me is that I suck. Other times it opens up an entire universe.

Each S410 is a 1/1 original. Owners of S410 pieces will have access to a range of benefits, from story airdrops, special performances and even the opportunity to be killed in my longer fiction works.

The conductor’s excess and excessive As hung in the air like a full can of Lynx Africa body spray, making the orchestra’s collective noses twitch with distaste.

“This is a noise you are making. A noise!”

The second violins wondered why he pronounced noise like no-ice.

“Again, let’s take it from the fourth bar, this time be musicians, not noise-makers.”

The orchestra found their place and at a signal from the conductor the magic happened. Silence and no music was instantly replaced with the poise and climb of Elgar. It was like watching a sports car go from standing to 130mph.

It was good. Even the trombones knew that it was good and they were usually the more pessimistic of the musicians – everyone knew that. There was something about your musical output mostly being used to denote a comical downfall that got to a person after a while. The cellists vibrated with joy at getting to be musically centre-stage, although technically they were stage right, penned in only by a phalanx of double bass.

“Tut tut, staaaaahhp! Tut tut!”

The texture and art of Elgar vanished at a click of a baton on a music stand.

“Tut tut to you all! Only flutes escape the tutting. Flutes were perfect. This time just flutes.”

A rap on the stand and the flutes were piping out their melody once more.

“Actually no, flutes too, tut tut! Awful. We have so much work to do. I’m not even sure we want to do it. Do we? Can we? Should we? Will we? I cannot say. If we all follow the timpani then we will simply collapse under the weight of our own mediocrity.”

It was this rehearsal and the three others that followed that made the orchestra collectively decide that the conductor must die.

                                                          **************

S410 stands for Starter for 10 and it’s a daily live-writing meditation that I do in 10 minutes. Each piece I write teaches me something. Sometimes what it teaches me is that I suck. Other times it opens up an entire universe.

Each S410 is a 1/1 original. Owners of S410 pieces will have access to a range of benefits, from story airdrops, special performances and even the opportunity to be killed in my longer fiction works.

A cosy ninja. Furry slippers. Marshmallows on the points of his shuriken.

The Smiths on a camping holiday.

The 100 Acres Wood implies the existence of a 100 acres wouldn’t.

I bet The Fonz really struggled to buy batteries. What size would you like Mr Fonzarelli? Aaaaaaaaaaay.

Floating, floating, floating, floating, floating, then not floating

Tesla superchargers, Tesla superduperchargers, Tesla supercalifragilisticexpialidocious chargers.

Why are we making ourselves redundant?

Tell me what you want to do

Sitting pretty lying still

Etcetera is a pretty good band name

How would witches or wizards with speech impediments ever do any spells properly?

You’re a wizard, Harry.

I’d pay good money to see Harry Potter and the Malleus Malificarum

When I try not to think of things my mind often goes to the problematic character of Batman. Not just that he was a billionaire doing judo on the mentally ill, but because there are so many difficulties about his dual life of being a billionaire and being Batman. Poor Batman. I wonder if anyone else in the yoga class is thinking about Batman. Is it ok if I break the shivasana to ask.

“Hey guys, is anyone else thinking about Batman?”

First - find a mug in the cupboard. Any mug will do, but generally it helps if it is quite wide. Some people – primarily from an older demographic – will prefer a china mug. There’s something to do with the thinness of the ceramic that means it cools quicker. I don’t know. Anyway, find a mug and then place it on the kitchen counter. It’s very important that you place it upside down, so that the opening is facing the counter. You should just be able to see the bottom of the mug.

Once you’ve done that you can boil the kettle. Pour in water from the hot water tap and fill it right up to the brim of the kettle. You should be able to see the water slopping around in the spout if you’ve done it right. Now you need to start boiling it. Flick the switch and wait for the water to boil. Because it’s so full it will take a while and you’ll probably lose quite a lot of water as it bubbles out of the spout. Keep your arms out of the way!

Once it’s done boiling, the kettle will automatically switch off. What you want to do is to press the o switch again. Most kettles will try and click themselves off because they know that they’ve already boiled. Ignore than and just keep your finger on the switch. You are almost certainly going to get burned while you do this.

Just like making a flavoursome jus, the idea is that you will boil away the water until it’s at its most concentrated form. You want to make sure that there’s just enough water left to half-fill the cup. That’s very important.

Now it’s time for the all-important teabag! You’ll find that tea bags come automatically attached to another teabag, that’s its best friend. When you separate them don’t feel bad, they’re teabags and therefore not sentient in the slightest. As you tear along the perforations, it’s a good idea to allow the rip to go off course so that the dark, dried leaves of the tea spill over the counter somewhat.

Next, rest the ripped teabag on the underside of your mug. Pour over the concentrated water jus from the kettle and with a ladle really mash the water into the bag, this is the messy part so just have fun with it. Finally, you take some milk and add a dash to the top of the mulched paste you’ve created. Congratulations! You’ve made a cup of tea in an extremely poor way!

Without even looking he knew that the patella had shifted across the front of his leg and that he was in trouble. He looked up at the top of the fire escape and thought that he could see the beam of a torch playing across the roof. He whimpered quietly into his chest.

In the films the hero would simply hammer the knee back into place and then pull himself to his feet with grit and determination, but as he tested even the simplest flex of his leg, the pain that speared across the knee told him that this wasn’t going to be possible.

He scanned the alley ahead of him. There was a large bin that seemed to serve the restaurant that backed onto it. There were pieces of an old bike stacked against the side of the wall and there was a wet cardboard box next to the bin. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to get into the bin and he wasn’t sure what help the bike parts would be, but he felt a measure of confidence that he could get to the cardboard box.

The adrenaline of the drop had passed now and he was left only with the agonising reality of the injury. Somehow he arched his back and turned onto his side, keeping the injured leg off the ground. Above him he heard the noise of someone stepping onto the fire escape. He hunched himself up and pushed against the ground with his good leg. With his hands clawing at the ground and stones digging into his palms, he slowly inched his way sluglike towards the box.

He didn’t dare turn to look behind him as he reached the side of the alley and quickly pulled the box over him. He nearly wept out loud as he pushed his injured leg against the wall and somehow draped the box over him. He smelled the odour of whoever, or whatever had been using the box before him.

Then he heard the feet as they dropped nearly silently into the alleyway. He heard the scuff of the stones as the feet searched around. Looking up, he saw the beam of light as it cast around the alley way. He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.

We begin.

As you take a breath in, you close your eyes. You breathe out and your eyes want to open. Let them if it adds to your feeling of security. But as you breathe – in…out – you feel the need to open your eyes reduces.

Your eyes are closed. Gradually, like the emergence of dawn, you start to become aware of the world inside your mind. It is a place of great beauty and a serene, epic grandeur.

You are aware that you are sat comfortably on a small lawn of grass. Before you are a set of stone steps that lead down to a sunken garden of fountains and square hedges.

You take a moment to breathe. In. Out. You feel the warmth of this world’s sun on your shoulders and you feel the comfort that it brings to your chest and your heart. Your heart beats strongly, passing this warmth around your body. Your fingers and your knees are warm. Your hips and your shins are warm. Your body tells its warmth to each part, like a village sharing the story of a hero.

Slowly you rise to your knees and then placing one strong foot on the ground in front of you, you ease yourself to standing. Your spine lengthens and your mind releases as you breathe. In. Out. Your spine lengthens and your mind releases as you breathe. In. Out. Now warmth and serenity pass with your blood around your body. You feel the surge of it in your stomach and your neck. A whisper of warm sea air passes your nose and you know of all the good that this world has for you.

You breathe confidently now. In. Out. When you are ready, you take a step towards the stone steps. Your feet touch the warm, smooth concrete and you feel it charging your body. One at a time you take the steps down to the patio area.

In front of you is a small fountain that sends forth a cascade of water into a deep blue pool beneath. At the side of the fountain is a silver platter and on the platter are a selection of fruits. You move forward and admire the perfection of the fruits. The deep yellow of the banana and the full, rich green and purple grapes.

You take a grape and throw it in the air. You watch it arc through the air and catch a glimpse of the sun as it travels down and you catch it easily in your mouth. You cough as the grape catches in your throat. You breathe. In. In. You breathe. In. In. In. In.

                                                        **************

S410 stands for Starter for 10 and it’s a daily live-writing meditation that I do in 10 minutes. Each piece I write teaches me something. Sometimes what it teaches me is that I suck. Other times it opens up an entire universe.

Each S410 is a 1/1 original. Owners of S410 pieces will have access to a range of benefits, from story airdrops, special performances and even the opportunity to be killed in my longer fiction works.

But. But just to the right of the nail there was a tiny fleck of skin standing up ruining the picture. She took brushed it with her other thumb hoping that it was a crumb, or a piece of dust. The tiny flap of skin stayed resolutely in place.

She bent down and examined it closer. It was a tiny little triangle of skin, a little flap that had erupted from the thumb itself. She nudged it with her other thumb again and she could see how it was a little chunk of skin that had been knocked loose somehow.

Huh.

She turned her nails towards her again – perfect. She decided to get on with her day and ignore it.

She went into the kitchen and flicked the coffee machine into life. She took down mugs and went to the fridge for milk. The coffee machine slowly ground its way through the process and after twenty seconds or so a drip of coffee splashed down in the carafe.

Sasha turned her nails towards her. Four beautiful red visages. She held her thumb up towards her face. Perfect. If she could ignore the tiny little flap of imperfection. It was so small! So insignificant! It didn’t matter at all.

She brushed at it with her other thumb. Each pass nettled the flap and made saliva pool in her mouth. She brushed over it and over it until she picked the flap up a little more. Then it was proud enough that she could dig the fingernails of her other hand in behind it. The coffee dripped into the pot. Sasha gradually teased the flap up. She winced as it came up. Her face held in a rictus of pain as she teased the thread to her knuckle. In its wake the skin left a thin line of blood.

She continued to pull. The flap sped up her hand and across the contours of her wrist. With an expression of horror welded in place, she pulled the thread up her arm and

   **************

S410 stands for Starter for 10 and it’s a daily live-writing meditation that I do in 10 minutes. Each piece I write teaches me something. Sometimes what it teaches me is that I suck. Other times it opens up an entire universe.

Each S410 is a 1/1 original. Owners of S410 pieces will have access to a range of benefits, from story airdrops, special performances and even the opportunity to be killed in my longer fiction works.

How could something so important not be heavier? Surely, if it had the power to take away life it should weigh as much as a human? He shook his head to clear away the illogicality of his thought process. It weighed what it weighed and not an ounce more.

He tried to pull out the pin from the top of the grenade but it was stiff and it seemed misaligned from the holes that kept the lever pinned to the side of the grenade. By touch he felt his way towards the mechanical truth that the lever needed to be depressed slightly so that the holes became aligned and the pin could slide straight out.

The pin had a series of circles of metal on the end, such that you might find on a keyring. He thought briefly about the meaning of that. Were you supposed to clip these onto something? Who would want a live hand-grenade clipped to any part of themselves? He imagined the grenade dangling from a set of keys in the ignition of a car. He thought it was probably his uncle’s car – that would make a sort of sense. But his uncle wouldn’t have a hand grenade, would he? No! Of course not – get on.

He realised that he had brought both hands to shield the grenade and to pin the lever in place. With a force of will he managed to slide one hand off the lever, leaving just one to secure it. He was aware that he was breathing hard and that his head was sweating. A thin sheen of sweat covered his bald head and he used his free hand to swipe the sweat away.

He tucked his knees into his chest and casually let the grenade drop into his lap. He thought about all the thinking he’d done. He thought about all the dismal thinking he’d done. And then he exploded.

                                                       **************

S410 stands for Starter for 10 and it’s a daily live-writing meditation that I do in 10 minutes. Each piece I write teaches me something. Sometimes what it teaches me is that I suck. Other times it opens up an entire universe.

Each S410 is a 1/1 original. Owners of S410 pieces will have access to a range of benefits, from story airdrops, special performances and even the opportunity to be killed in my longer fiction works.