The Prodigal Son (1/5) By Joe Hakim

(1/5), (2/5), (3/5), (4/5), (5/5).

stuck in my room again/ looking up at the blinds/ gaffa-taped shut, keep out the light/ single beam escapes through a gap/ one piece of light concentrating on the wall/ imagine it to be hot like a laser/ imagine the smoke rising up like a spirit/ but it's not there, not there at all/ it's only in my head/ only in my head

switch the television on/ switch the video on/ switch the dvd on/ switch the games console on/ analyse the meta-narrative structure/ the divided fiction functions/ flick between the channels to find the truth/ assemble the different pieces in new and interesting ways to glimpse the truth/ grab the remote and press the buttons, see what happens/ and first the news/ dead Lebanese children and shattered buildings/ click/ antiques being discussed by shrivelled up old women/ click/ docu-soap about fat people and plastic surgery/ click/ kung-fu flick, young man makes his way across china to learn the secrets of wing-chun/ click/ the hulk jumps around the desert smashing everyone and everything in his path/ click/ crushed dead children in the ruins again/ click/ click/ click

notice the faces contained within the static/ stretched and grey and fierce/ mouths opening without making a sound/ like reflections in a pond/ the outline men are back/ once again/ trying to communicate/ their twisted agenda/ my foes/ my nightmares/ the final confrontation will take place soon/ possibly today make my way downstairs/ new day, must move, must be active/ mother's there at the table/ waiting for me, face drawn tight like the skin of a snare-drum have you taken your pills?// she asks/ no greeting, no 'how are you?'

don't want the pills// i say// they taste like chalk they make me feel like chalk/ turn my insides into a blackboard with 'SCHIZO' written on it/ and then she hands them over/ to keep me sane/ to keep me docile/ and i'm looking at them in my palm/ small and white like baby teeth/ they catch in my throat/ need water to wash them down/ mouth tastes of steel/ as i sip my coffee and force down a slice of toast

what you doin' today?// she asks lookin' for a job I guess// i reply anything to take me away from this place/ the place where i wait for the chemicals to circulate within my brain/ to take away the pain and the whispers/ the claws of something monstrous/ scratching away at the surface of who i am/ need to get rid of them before they blur everything/ and disrupt the transmissions got to leave before my dad gets home/ the thinly concealed flashes of contempt darting across the room/ how did we produce this fool?

/ i can hear him think as he drinks beer to forget/ but i come from somewhere else, dad/ a black-hole spewed me out into the universe/ an anti-body designed to protect this reality/ and soon i'll return to the collapsed star where i was born/ can hear my kin calling me from across space/ receiving signals from them as we speak/ take the medicine to help me ignore them/ but they're always there/ always waiting

Continued...Next Page (2/5)

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Surfers on the Sofa By Gemma Durham

	How hot is Hull? With it's seductive, cosmopolitan avenues, the chip spice, the late taxi's always on the way. Ask someone from down south to sit on your sofa and you'd think they would have a date in the ocean with a surfer. Awards for the friendliest university, and a special up and coming indie rock scene that has hottened hull to the top. Learning to speak Hull has Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Walking Into Doors By Nick Boldock

	She squinted into the mirror and looked at the bruise around her eye. Already it was turning a sickening shade of purple. It throbbed when she prodded away at it. The thick laceration in her bottom lip was stinging as well, as she dabbed at it with a wedge of TCP-soaked cotton wool. She knew she ought to be more careful. Less clumsy, less thoughtless. He'd say he was sorry, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Graveyard Shift By Rich Mills

	The taxi office is beige with nicotine and age. Battling with the Sandman, my weapons of choice, cigarettes and coffee, dispensed from the whirring-gurgling coffee machine. Of things I've done for money this is the lowest. Six calls all night, only TV to numb the brain. Cups, and corners filled with cigarette butts. I wait for the dawn. Then my replacement comes on, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Big Slaughter By Kate Askin

	As Big Slaughter housemate 'Little Wee' Jim gave a final tug on the garrotte round the neck of the only other remaining contestant, he knew he had won...he knew... He knew by the sound of that last gurgle...It came from the throat of six-feet-six Thai hermaphrodite Om Lui (whose height was enhanced by foot-long calf extensions, no less). He knew, by the last desperate, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Debit Column By Patrick Henry

	Raymond, abrasively-witty, biography-reviewing journalist, worked during endless pub-going; volumes under arm; notes mental or beer-mat-jottings; from Five AM. around Smithfield Market, through mid-day Fleet Street, Soho; to evening Chelsea, exhausting his trail home. Early hours meant snatched sleep and eating; columns grittily-written: cold turkey! Five A.M. his taxi Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The 1st One Hundred Words Are The Hardest By Rich Mills

	He'd started that first sentence many times, deleting it and starting over again. The cursor blinked in the corner of the screen, taunting him, daring him to write something. He stared at, became hypnotized by it. Time ticked by, blink, blink, blink. His mind was just blank, blank, blank. Then in a sudden rush to fill the white expanse with black he started banging away at Read more...

Fiction - End Of The Line By Nick Quantrill
	This is how it happened... I was driving down Lowgate. There's got to be a better way than this, I thought to myself. But then I saw her, clinging to a lamppost, holding her hand out as her friend tried to stop her from falling over. I indicated and pulled over; she would do nicely. Her friend bundled her into my car. No respect for anything, least of all herself, I thought Read more...

Fiction - Another Brick In The Wall, Another Man In The Crowd By Steve Rudd
	'It doesn't look any different on this side,' the disembodied voice yelled over the void. 'I never said that it would look any different. But I bet it feels different,' ventured an old man's voice on the Eastern side of the wall. 'Not really,' the disembodied voice declared. 'At least not from where I'm standing.' To some people, the momentous fall of the Berlin Wall signified freedom Read more...

Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 2 Chapter 2 By Frank Beill
	It was too late in the day to visit Tweed Street school - the children and their teachers would be long gone by now. This left only the address I'd been given for George. Hessle Road was not a long walk from Princes Avenue but a tram ride was quicker or to be precise two tram rides were: one into the city centre and one back out again to get me to my destination. All the old reactions Read more...

Fiction - The Service By Joe Hakim
	I'm a professional. I get the job done. It's already getting dark as I arrive at the station. I make my way past the perimeter fence and park my car in the shelter. So begins the process of shedding everything that makes me who I am, in order to become somebody else. You can never tell what kind of night it's going to be, so even now after all this time the anticipatory adrenalin Read more...

Fiction - The Emporium of Illusions By Andy Bilton
	I cannot decide which foam bath to put in to the tub. Mood, I feel, is an important player in a first date situation and I do not want to fold at the first hand by getting in to the wrong one before tonight's encounter. So do I pour in some of the Marks & Spencers 'Tranquility' that has an unnerving resemblance to Rowntree's Lime Jelly and 'treat myself to an indulgent bathing Read more...

Fiction - The Horrible Death of Tony Clare: Retribution and Revolt By Sean Davey
	Tony Clare, British Premier, bringer of war, pestilence, famine and social impotence, died today. Killed by an unknown man. A man driven not by his hatred for the Prime Minister, but by his own need to right the wrongs that Tony Clare's society was responsible for. A society which neglected its own people, raped the land, taxed the workers and killed the innocent. Read more...

Fiction - Dig Your Own Hole By Joe Hakim
	Things were going well. We were on schedule and under budget, Chris Chambers, so my boss was chuffed to bits. "It's going to be a good year," he said slapping me on the back, a huge shit-eating grin plastered across his face. As he looked around the building site, he tipped back his hard-hat and his chest expanded like a proud father watching at his children running around. Read more...

Fiction - Load the Cards By Sean Davey
	Loading up the cards and I start thinking. I think about casino's, and all that is. Imagine a building dear reader, where degenerate, and often eccentric behaviour is not only the norm. its positively encouraged. Heavy drinking and gambling is as much a part of the punters mind as work, or going for a meal. Its just what they do to get their kicks. Read more...