Love and loss

September 12, 2017 Barbara Clinton

Jervis Ding Gratisography

Sitting in a hospital room is always a ghastly experience; everything right down to the smell seems designed to cause as much discomfort as possible. Today though, it seems so much more nauseating. I would get sick but it would take more effort than I could ever hope to muster.
I suppose for you to understand why I hate hospitals so much we have to go back to my childhood. I know that’s a cliché but clichés exist for a reason, there is always a certain truth to them. I had two loving parents and a younger sister. Like most Irish kids of the 1980s I was raised in a “Catholic” household, although mass was reserved for Christmas and funerals only. Today the Christmases seem to all merge together but it’s the funerals I’ll never forget.

Dead end

August 30, 2017 Barbara Clinton

Photo by Andy Beales on Unsplash

Joe Bannon fucking hated getting up for work in the mornings. His ma would shout and shake him for twenty minutes some days before he’d get out of bed. “You’ve to start earnin’ some money for your keep,” she had said to him. He had been given an ultimatum – get out there and make a living or go back to school. And none of his mates were still in school so he wasn’t doing that. He pulled on his socks and jocks, and buttoned up his shirt. His ma wasn’t great at ironing and the shirt was creased. There was hardly any starch in his collar, so it collapsed lamely at the base of his neck. He rubbed some grease into his scalp and combed back his dark hair. He hoped he’d see Denise on her way to school this morning. Denise was a bit thick, and more often than not had a face like a slapped arse, but she’d massive tits and a soft spot for him, so it didn’t matter much.

The ringmaster

August 28, 2017 Barbara Clinton

Photo by Alan Emery on Unsplash

I am a collector, a jeweller by trade, my shop sits in the shadows of Ireland’s holy mountain, on the shores of The Wild Atlantic Way. I make and sell semi-precious jewellery set in exquisite designs. Moonstone necklaces which dance in the light, flawless amber rings surrounded by glistening sliver, earrings created from the most delicate of aquamarine.

Chaos theory

August 25, 2017 Barbara Clinton

Photo by Linda Xu on Unsplash

He had always known what to do. His mind had been tailored over many years to seek the truth, to find the cause for the effect, to procure over-whelming evidence from rigorous analysis. Everything was orderly, everything comprehensible. Stories never satisfied the man. Stories were the inventions of the lazy, simple lies conflated to appease the masses. Stories were chaos. Yet somehow he could never find order in this situation, a situation in which he was bound and trapped by familial duty.

Blue & Green

March 29, 2017 Barbara Clinton

Red by Daria Tumblr

Green
The ported fingers of glass hang downwards. The light slides down the glass, and drops a pool of green. All day long the ten fingers of the lustre drop green upon the marble.

The visitation

March 18, 2017 Barbara Clinton

Carved horses Pritiranjan-Maharana Unsplash

Rhonda, the branch librarian was extremely agitated. The reason for her disquiet had nothing to do with the fact that a serial borrower was threatening violence on her incompetent young assistant, Candice. Rhonda had little interest in threats of this kind which were commonly made when the subject of fines for overdue books was brought up. Her thoughts were occupied with the horse that lay dead in one of the aisles; the travel section to be precise.