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Last Updated: 24/11/2008 13:15:04
Every time Roger fell out with Trudy, he took it out on Selina.
Saturday nights were the worst. Roger and Trudy would go out pubbing, Selina would of course stay at home, dreading the unhappy couple returning at 12.30 - 1am.
It was always the same. Selina would hear them coming up the lane.
"Don't you fuckin deny it! I saw the way you looked at her!"
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"Oh, stop being so fucking stupid! You're paranoid! Stupid bitch!"
"Yes I am paranoid! This has happened to me before I met you!"
"Fuck me Trudy. If I shag her or even worse kiss her, hang me, but I'm innocent. She's nothing to me! I love YOU!"
Selina meanwhile listened in stress and fear, it would be her turn soon.
The argument went into the house, and Selina heard a few plates smash. She wasn't sure if it ever got to fists. But, if it ever did, Trudy was a big girl and would surely give Roger a good kicking.
Then, Selina's fears were realised. The voices got louder, and Roger shouted "Fuck you! I'm going for some fresh air!"
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"Yeah! Take your bottle of whisky with you, you cunt! You're on the settee!"
"Ah fuck you! You stupid jealous cow!"
Slam!
Selina shook with fear in her stable. She did that nervous horse grunt thing, and watched the door on the next stable, which was conveniently empty. In fact, she was the only horse in the six horse stable. How 'unfortunate' for her.
She heard Roger's footsteps get closer, and then saw his shadow in the moonlight which lit the 2 inch space at the bottom of the door.
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He entered the building and clicked on the bulb above her 'space'. He smiled a beer and vodka smile at her. She grunted, and shuffled.
Things had been different a while back. He had been a successful, self employed graphic designer, married to a lovely woman, Julianne, and had, with her, a beautiful little year old girl, Nancy. She was five at the time of the 'incident'.
Julianne and Roger got on most of the time, as long as he didn't even look in the direction of another woman; him 'business lunching' with them was a real problem for her, especially when she wasn't invited.
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However, Roger believed in trust, and he never did anything untoward. Julianne though, had a vivid imagination, and this caused jealousy arguments. Hell, after Julianne had 'moved on' with Jim, a steady office type, he, after a few months, picked another woman, Trudy, with the same 'insecure' character flow ... and now he was suffering again.
One of the other contributory factors that led to the split with Julianne (as if he had needed any), was Julianne's allergy and phobic fear of horses.
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Roger had bought Nancy (after some Nancypersuasion) what he considered to be a beautiful, brown, gentle mare; Selina. Selina was beautiful and gentle, but this didn't do anything to alter the hatred Julianne had for her: she hated being scared, and harmed with an allergy ... which 'could' kill her, and she didn't like horses anyway.
One day, Roger put Nancy on Selina. Selina was cool with this, and she, with Roger leading her, walked gently to the sheer delight of the child. Selina loved Nancy. She actually loved kids in general. Roger had even talked of bringing disabled kids to ride her at the weekends; now that, Selina really looked forward to; it was her dream.
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It was an angry wasp that ruined everything. Quite why it was angry would have been anyone's guess (and wasps don't need much to piss them off) , but no one saw it anyway. Certainly not Julianne, as she was worriedly watching her daughter from a distance.
The wasp stung Selina's soft upper lip, and she uncharacteristically went wild for a minute or so, throwing Nancy in the process, breaking the child's back, nearly killing her, and leaving her in traction for some months.
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Julianne, seeing this coming, left Roger; who wouldn't get rid of the horse, saying it was uncharacteristic and was a wasp. Julianne would hear nothing of it, and of course took Nancy away. Roger's life went speedily downhill; although he did manage to keep his business ... 'necessity'.
He, in the end of course blamed Selina for taking his lie away, and, his rotten relationship with Trudy certainly didn't help matters. Selina, two years later, was now a tattered and depressed, abused horse, heading quickly towards skeletal, never groomed, and certainly never exercised.
He leaned on the wooden barrier, and yelled:
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"Fuck my life up would you, you brown maned cunt bitch!"
"Hurt my daughter would you, you fucking useless nag!"
"I should have you turned to glue and dog meat you four legged fucked up shit heap!"
Did she understand?
Absolutely!
And here, I spare you, the reader (especially you females), the torture with the horsewhip, and the penknife on the end of a brush stick; which in fact re-opened some week old wounds...
When he had finished, she was on her knees in a faint, making a horrible whimpering noises, not normally heard from horses.
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Before he left for the house, and hopefully a fucked up shag; he gave her some feed and a bucket of water. After all, he needed to keep his punchbag alive to satisfy his cruel streak...
He got a shag by the way, a load emptier.
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Sundog By Amanda Lowe
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I have my yellow boots on to walk the dog who is scratting at the door, he knows it's time to go. Outside, he's running ahead like a mad thing as my yellow boots squelch flat fields, left foot, right foot.
Striding along the bank, lost in thoughts, I stop and gawp at a sundog, reflection of the sun in the sky. The sun and its doppelganger side by side, striving to outshine each other.
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Fiction - The Lie of the Land By Steve Rudd
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So I ran.
I ran, and I ran, and I ran.
Nothing means anything when eagerly anticipated phone calls never come.
All those wasted Sundays slumped beside the phone add up.
Ah, heartbreak. You've got to hate it. But you've also got to take it.
The hardest thing of all is resisting the urge to break the ice, to ring first,
to put words into your mouth
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Fiction - Too Late To Call By Sarah Ann Watts
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The bus pulls out of the station. I check my watch - I am not too late. I close my eyes, pretend to sleep.
The witching hour is yet to come. I told you I would be home by midnight. You like to know where I am. I tell you I can protect myself and you shake your head in doubt. 'Be careful. It isn't the same world.'
I laugh at your fears and paint my lips and smile.
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Fiction - The Day By Danny Swain
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Ray turns the CD player off as he answers the phone. The sound of waves crashing against a beach fills his ear. Jenny wipes the plate and puts it on the draining board. A man appears at the kitchen window. Benjamin pulls the car into the drive and gets out. He hears a noise in the garage.
Mary locks her front door and buttons up her coat. Read more...
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Fiction - Blood in the Bath By Leah Scarpati
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It was Halloween night and the weather suitably matched the mood of the evening. Like a parody of a horror film, the wind howled at forty miles per hour, blowing the dried up autumn leaves up into mini tornadoes down the deserted and dimly lit street. The odd raindrop fell from the sky, threatening to pour down but unable to carry out the threat to its full potential.
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A Scene In Suburban Hell By Laura Fry
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Nothing unusual ever happens in Sandwalsh. People don't tend to move away to pastures new. They know their neighbours, even if they are not exactly friends.
Perhaps they cry into their IKEA pillows every night, out of boredom, depression or sheer frustration, but if they do, they most definitely hide the unfortunate fact from public view. What people think is
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Fiction - Career Opportunities A Joe Geraghty story
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I was sat on an amplifier in the band's rehearsal room on Wincolmlee, secreted away on Bankside, a decaying industrial area of Hull. In front of me was the city's hottest band, Witham, presumably named after the area on the edge of the city centre.
Talk about a lack of imagination. From the way they were lounging around the room, I assumed I
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Hand that Rocked the Cradle By Lin Whitehouse
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Hearing his mother's footsteps, the boy climbed out his bedroom window. They were both angry. He wanted to run away but it was a long drop and he might hurt himself.
She shouted when she saw him, sitting on the tiled roof, suddenly scared and remembering a time she had climbed out of a similar window.
He hugged his knees not wanting to look at her; she could not look away
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Resurrection By Leah Scarpati
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Conscious again.
The rhythmical drip-drip of condensation echoed around the cave. Kate couldn't see her hand in front of her face, were her eyes even open? The fall had shattered her torch as well as her ankle; as the pain continued to bite, panic rose. She couldn't feel her toes.
Hours of calling for help had been swallowed by the chasm of darkness,
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Latter-Day Luddite Saves the Day By Laura Fry
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The police were on a coffee break, at a loss. Despite all the technology, the wanted man had got the better of them. They didn't notice the young woman at the opposite table with an old-fashioned tape recorder, on her way to teach a friend's child German.
She had found the man who had just left the café somewhat suspicious and pressed record.
This latter-day Luddite was able to tell
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Lost Property By Manuro
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My dreadful husband died at an elephant hospice. To this day, whenever I see a sick elephant I feel a rush of overwhelming joy! I changed my name in 1979 and never foresaw the problems this would entail - car insurance, washing machine hire purchase agreements.
Women are named through male lineage: we disappear over time, our identity the property of others.
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Fiction - Two Sides of the Same Tattoo Needle. By Leah Scarpati
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Well I can certainly say I've learned my lesson! Mummy had always warned me about expressing myself through body art, tattoos, piercings and such like; but the more she told me not to, the more determined I became to disobey her.
"It's just not what people like us do dahhling," she purred in-between a long drag of a cigarette and a sip of her dry martini. "Just because
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Beginnings and Endings By Lin Whitehouse
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It's a hypothetical question, what if - my father hadn't died in June - I hadn't known about my husband's girlfriend - I hadn't looked up when I did?
I was caught in a web and struggled to avoid his gaze, felt myself flush. I drowned in his smiling eyes. Could he see my outer sorrow, sense the inner excitement I concealed?
It's funny, funerals signify an end, but I felt something was
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Fiction - Hangover By Leah Scarpati
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The day ended as it had begun - disastrously. From the minute she opened one sticky mascara eye, then the other and the hangover woodpecker began to tap-tap-tap at her head; she knew the day was a right off. Her head hurt so much she could she feel her hair growing, her tongue was dry like an arid river bed and was fixed to the top of her mouth;
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Say No More By Joe Hakim
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I'm on my way to the shops. I don't see him until I nearly step on his head.
I look down at the man on the floor, and notice he's on a bike - crotch on seat, feet on pedals, hands on handlebar. Like he's been zapped by a super-villain's freeze ray and toppled over.
I look around to make sure it isn't some kind of prank.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he replies.
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A Depressive and a Botched Suicide By Laura Fry
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And once again boats sail down the Danube, but you; don't worry about me any more, I'm like leaves, the wind blows me away, wolves die alone...
The mourners read the translation of the deceased's beloved Croatian song. The male voice booms from the CD through Hull Crematorium, bringing additional shivers to the late autumn Yorkshire morning. The European flag
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Fun and Games By Shep
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It was easier than he thought. Several swings of the bat and his problem had disappeared like the last drag of his cigarette. He looked at the windows adjacent to where he stood; half expecting to see the neighbours looking on with horror and disgust, but there was not a face in sight.
He smiled to himself and walked down the garden path back to his front door. Read more...
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Conversation In A Small Room By Manuro
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'I went to the shops
And bought a new toffee
Hammer. The old one got
Damaged during the 'incident'
With those burglars.
You remember, waking up with
Some Burberry-capped thug in
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Fiction - Beyond An Accidental Shoreline By Christopher Skolik
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Dennison had covered some disturbing assignments in his time;
Neo-psychopathology and its preoccupations concerning future psychological abnormality.
Contagious mental illness and media psychosis, the way suicide or spree killing spread thru lines of communication.
Mutant-criminology and the adaptation of deviancy in our strange new psychological landscape.
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Pain in Vain no Gain By Joan Moffat.
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Sweat trickled down my face, droplets formed on my nose. Sharp pains tore at my back muscles.
Leaning over, as I struggled, constricted my breathing and squeezed my stomach into cramp.
Red flashes floated before my eyes. I was about to faint. I began to weep.
Why had I got myself into such a stupid situation? I was the victim of my own vanity.
I struggled more.
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Fiction - Faster Than the Speed of Silence By Leah Scarpati
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The phone's ringing again - the second time today. Its shrill chime echoes around the house, reverberating through the hall and into my warm little cocoon of a living room. It makes me nervous. It's like a foreign body, stealthily making its way through the house, looking for me- preparing to bump me off, to throw something at me when I least expect it.
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A is not only for Apple By Lin Whitehouse
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Is this what it feels like to sit on death row, morbidly freefalling through the past? I keep averting my eyes from the clock face but the minute magnet holds me hostage.
Had I done enough to be reprieved?
Another hour swallows my resolve not to panic, in God's name how long does it take to open an envelope?
Perhaps the results aren't what we predicted.
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Fiction - Everyone Loves The Big Girl By Leah Scarpati
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The lights go back on and there are cheers, claps and wolf whistles as I
take my final bow. That plank of a DJ ruined the end of my performance
by cutting Shania off short instead of fading her out like I told him to.
Thankfully I don't think anyone noticed.
I'm sweating like a pack horse, but at least I've given it my all.
Large Lady Kiss-a-grams are getting a good reputation and I reckon
it's all down to me.
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