Subterranean Resonance
Short Stories and Doorways
Two kayakers discover a glacier cave and submit to its judgement…
‘Blue bleed through the glassy essence, wakelife into dreampivot: the glacier will examine you now.’
(1-minute read)
First published in The Ekphrastic Review, 2022
Experimental flash exploring the theory of relativity through found text.
‘Science triumphs, speed has a limit before and after, while clocks and lines are capricious.’
(1-minute read)
First publihsed in Streetcake Magazine’s prize anthology 2022
Experimental flash that plays with our assumptions about how we believe language should behave.
‘Dark liked on we lake; were home morning as. Inner beneath tour. It river, the lurked into dreamed how tongues on us too felt tentacles had.’
(1-minute read)
The sea-whisper of new leaves, bubbles in a rock pool, lichen on a twig…
‘I’m ancient and though this is my first visit to these uplands, I’ve walked this path many times. But I’ve forgotten how long always is and so I believe myself to be very young, unencumbered by memory.’
(10-minute read)
Selected for ‘Words to Change the World’
Mischief in magical things, the path to the submerged, the lake where rainbows grow and birds drag arrowheads…
‘In the dreamtime the ancestors are alive with you, weaving the pictures in discontinuous weft, tamping down the threads so only the images are visible. But when you are a threadweaver you see the secret warp.’
(5-minute read)
Becoming and Dissolving
Extract from the novel
In 1850s tsarist Odesa, disgraced countess Katerina pursues freedom from the oppressive regime, while police chief Orlov, son of a traitor, seeks security within the chaotic establishment.
‘Stranded halfway down the last flight of stairs, she had a vision of herself in a house without servants. Could she have left this life whenever she wanted, if only she could remember how to operate doors and choices for herself? Small freedoms had been hers all along, but she’d forgotten how to link them together, like the elementary movements of a dance she’d learnt as a child but hadn’t danced since.’
Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams
A misguided exile battles the creatures of his abandoned dreams…
‘I no longer sleep at night. I hear them digging beneath the great hall; their sonic excavations dictate the rhythm of my thought.’
(5-minute read)
Written in response to the painting of the same name by Ibrahim El-Salahi
A daughter, a wife and a mother draw a lost man down to their level…
‘Filled to the gills with these fruiting hybrid creatures, he hoovered the stairs before he confessed that blackbirds had eaten his job.’
(1-minute read)
A three-way ritualistic battle between moon, silver birch and rabbits…
‘Lone rabbit on the far blue slope, tuned to the vast darkening. Tilt-shy, unlike the others who leap upon their shadows.’
(1-minute read)
An interview with the spectral gallerist, who collects responses from the visitors in a mysterious process…
‘Once sheared off from the passing thoughts, the shimmers become their own entities, capable of fantastic transformations and distortions.’
(5-minute read)
A short story in response to paintings by Pippa Darbyshire.
A woman succumbs to the allure of the forest…
‘Other scents emerge. There’s a whole orchestra playing. What you thought simply pine and decay were always composites, harmonised by plants and creatures into this symphony of soul.’
(1-minute read)
Written in response to Tay Forest, Scotland
A circle of birch bark twisted in its drying, a guillemot skull and fin-feathered feet…
‘On her chest: a segment of weathered bone with a smooth channel that fits a forefinger in place of the decayed tissue. The outer bone-faces are rough with miniature caves and tunnels, catacombs in which grains of sand nest – citrine, bronze, topaz. Seeds of stone in their hatchery.’
(1-minute read)
‘We are flying above the clouds. I do not feel well. Bring me some barley-sugar. A glass of water, please. Bring me some coffee (brandy). What is that river? We shall land very soon. Put out your cigarettes.’
(1-minute read)