From a Spirited Beginning By Martin Dale

My earliest memory? Isolation. Being small, vulnerable, completely alone. I was surrounded by seemingly alien life, one with the life, but at the same time different, distinct. I came from this being, but I was no longer completely a part of it. I had a separate consciousness. No. Not yet. That was to come.

At that time it was only an instinct. A faint awareness of being. No ideation of self was in it then, I only existed. With time I grew, taking strength from what was around me, all the time becoming more aware, less afraid. In those early days it was a kind of utopia for me. An existence of warmth, comfort and protection, almost symbiotic, I grew, nurtured by my mother, well on the way to fulfilling my destiny, to become what I was meant to be.

Of course, at this time my mother was unaware of my presence, not consciously, although I had already formed a bond with her body. She fed me, but did not know me, did not know I existed. Still she gave of herself to me. It was beautiful in so many ways, she gave me strength because I was part of her and in giving me the strength I could develop and begin the slow agonising process of flowering as an individual.

She didn't know me, but she gave me everything that I was or could be. All the time I grew stronger, but still I could not live independently. I needed her. I loved her. But then, wouldn't I always need and love her? As I developed she began to become more aware of me on a conscious level. I was starting to bring about those biological changes in her that seem so cruel a twist of nature for the beauty of what we had between us. Now I know that it couldn't be any other way, she had given me life and in doing so she had changed her body, changed herself.

Then my presence began to show, even in her appearance and it all seemed to go wrong. I thought she'd be happy, after all she had given me life. Hadn't she? What we had between us was special. Wasn't it?

No! She knew I was there and she wanted me dead! How could she? Bringing me into being had taken so much out of her? She had fed me and nurtured me, my bond with her was so strong I felt that we were almost one. I wanted to be one with her! She was my mother. Now it's all over. She's preparing to kill me. There's nothing I can do. I'm helpless. She's rushing upstairs, with me (still so very much a part of her). She carries a bottle and some tablets. These are the tools she'll use. Use to make sure. Sure I'm dead!

Into the bathroom she hurries, she pours a warm bath to clean up afterwards. After she's killed me. Within seconds it's all over. I'm no longer a part of her. She wipes the mess of the mirror, swabs all that's left of me with TCP from the bottle, pops a vitamin E tablet and says "Just my luck, I always get a spot on a Saturday night!"

Copyright ©2004  Martin Dale

Fiction - Old Tired & Completely Rucked By Martin Dale
	Of course, I used to be big league me. Right up there with the bigwigs I was. Every game I'd be out there, working my socks off for the club. I'd be at the bottom of every ruck, in the thick of every maul, I'd cover more of the pitch than anyone else on the team. Pretty good really, now that I come to think about it, Read more...

Fiction - A Man with Two Horses By Lazyswede
	I met a man today that had two horses, but he could not get the horses to go the way he wanted them to. The gray mare wanted to take the footpath to the left and the old chestnut mare wanted to take the footpath to the right, while the man wanted to go back the way he came because he knew he would be late for his dinner if he took either of the other two paths. Read more...

Fiction - Halloween - One For The Road

	by Nicholas Boldock Jason Travis tip-tapped the steering wheel in time to the music blaring from the car's speakers. He glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard - 16:53. The sky was darkening, even at this early summer hour, not as a result of the setting sun but brought about by the lumbering grey rain clouds overhead. Read more...

Fiction - Telling Lies by Nicholas Boldock
	At half past five Harry arranged all the papers on his desk into neat piles, as he always did before going home. He shoved his pens into the blue plastic desk tidy and shut down his PC. He performed this same ritual every evening, did it automatically, even unconsciously. He felt overjoyed to be finally going home - the days seemed to be getting longer and longer and longer - even though home, to Harry, was only marginally more bearable than work. Read more...

Fiction - C(P)U On The Other Side
	by Rich Mills Roy carelessly tossed the apple core in the bin next to his computer. Constructed in a moment of sheer mindless boredom the waste-paper bin was an amalgam of newspaper strips and PVA glue, coated in a thick yellowing layer of varnish. Read more...

Fiction - ICU@ABC By Rich Mills
	by Rich Mills During those pre-teen days of dramatic sexual awakenings, Roy always strived and usually achieved, a brief respite of self-indulgent escapism. By scraping together un-spent bus fares and school dinner money he'd often have enough to visit the local cinema most weeks. Read more...

Fiction - The Newland Chemistry Set
	by Rich Mills "But it's raining... (dum   dum   dub-ba..!   dum   dum) Raining in my heart..." A distant wave of dash-white-line hugging radio being transmitted from the 'WHO THE HELL HAS BEEN MESSING WITH MY TUNER???' morning-show drifted through the rows of tree lined avenues and terraces. Read more...

Fiction - Chants From The Graveside By Rich Mills
	by Rich Mills There is some old saying about 'idle hands' and doing the Devils work, or some such thing. The assumption then could be that 'idle words' spoken must be those of the Devil also. If in no more a way than an un-reasoned babble is nothing but a distracting noise. A siren song designed to send us off course. Read more...

Fiction - It's Like The Bloody Inquisition! By Rich Mills
	by Rich Mills He couldn't understand why someone would do such a thing! It definitely seemed however, that somewhere someone must have told someone else something about him. Something that wasn't really anyone else's concern. Then again interfering in the lives of others was a deeply annoying trait we were all guilt of. Read more...