Three Coins Spent

The Ministry owns every syllable.

The fountain sings freely, water speaking for us.

A brass meter ticks on my throat, a clock wound too tight.

I come to hear it, because it says what we cannot.

Most have grown spare: clipped commands, no confessions.

I have grown used to nods, to eyes speaking instead of mouths.

But I am a poet. Silence is a storm caged in my ribs.

I have watched her: ink bruising her fingers, silence like thunder waiting.

Once I spent a week’s bread on one word: Careful.

Once she gave me Careful—I held it like a jewel, a bell ringing inside me.

Now three coins jingle in my pocket: life or confession.

I feel her coming, choosing me over survival.

I press them into the slot. The gears release. Three words only.

I cannot afford reply. Silence burns in my throat.

At last I speak: Without you, nothing.

Her words strike like fire. My bottle overflows. My hand trembles.

Tomorrow they will come for me, to gag me, to strip me of voice.

Tomorrow they will take her—but tonight I smile, slow and certain.

Three coins spent. Eternity bought.

Her words, my silence—together, unowned, ours.

The Bumblebus

Tommy was late. Again. The school bus had already wheezed away, leaving only a cloud of exhaust.

He sighed at the lonely bus stop—until he heard a buzz. A huge buzz.

Down the lane came a bus, but not like any Tommy had seen before. Its body was striped yellow and black, its wheels were pollen pods, and the driver was a giant bumblebee wearing a tiny cap.

“Need a lift?” the bee hummed.

Tommy climbed aboard. Inside, rows of bees sat politely with briefcases full of nectar. One gave him a seat made of soft petals. The air smelled like summer.

“Where to?” asked the driver.

“Er… school?” Tommy replied.

The bee chuckled. “Closest we’ve got is Flower City. Next stop!”

The bus zoomed into the sky, through clouds and sunlight, landing in a city made entirely of blossoms… towers of tulips, daisy lampposts, rosebud traffic lights…

Tommy gasped. “It’s beautiful!”

By the time Tommy made it back, he was late for class and no one believed his explanation.

But his pockets were stuffed with petals that shimmered like gold.

A Super Villain’s Day Off

The man in the trench coat and dark glasses stepped up to the counter.

“One cappuccino, please. Extra hot. With cinnamon sprinkled like the ashes of a thousand crumbling empires.”

The barista paused mid-swipe on the till. “… So just cinnamon, then?”

“Yes. Cinnamon,” he said, lowering his voice. “For too long, the world has underestimated the subtle power of spice. They laughed at me in the Academy, but soon—soon—they shall choke on their ignorance.”

The barista tapped the order in, nodding politely. “Name for the cup?”

He froze. “I cannot—not yet—reveal my true name. To speak it aloud would summon terror across the continents. Entire governments would tremble. Civilisations would fall.”

The barista raised an eyebrow. “So… Dave?”

He flinched. “…Yes. Dave.”

A hiss of milk foam filled the silence. He leaned in conspiratorially.

“Do you ever wonder why humanity clings to coffee? It is dependency. A weakness. Soon, I will harness it. Supply chains will snap, beans will rot, and nations will kneel before me. And then—”

“Here’s your cappuccino, Dave.”

He stared at the cup in her hand. His name was scrawled in marker: Darth.

She smiled. “Enjoy your day.”

He took it, muttering, “Foiled again.”

Random Thoughts

Had a dark dream about being in a large building where the lifts and escalators never take me to the right floor. I wouldn’t call it a nightmare, more a mildly annoying purgatory. By the time I reached the floor, I had forgotten why I wanted to go there in the first place.

Someone joked the other day that, like Dorian Gray, I must have a picture in my attic locked away. I can confirm that is true. But instead of ageing, it slowly metamorphoses—first sprouting antennae, then hard carapace, until scuttling off the canvas.

In an office setting someone who didn't know me very well referred to me as "Mozart sitting over there". It was totally not in context, he looked confused with himself for saying that for a moment, then continued speaking about something not related. Obviously I'm no Mozart, but a particular quote by him is very true for me: “When I am … completely myself, entirely alone … or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them.”

Flawed assumptions slip into us quietly, inherited from habit, culture, or authority, and we carry them as if they were self-evident truths. Rarely do we pause to question them; they feel too deeply woven into the fabric of thought. Yet time reshapes the world, and what once stood firm begins to crumble. Still, reason marches on, building its chains from foundations already cracked. The conclusions that follow seem unavoidable, yet they are only the echo of premises long outdated. It is in this silence—where the roots of thought remain unexamined—that error grows inevitable.

In the workshop of the mind
memory is no archivist;
it blends pigments of longing and fear,
painting over cracks
with colours we ache to believe.

We speak in a chorus of selves,
each vying for the final line,
each certain its version is true.

So we live as our own narrators,
weaving tales that seem seamless—
until the light shifts,
and the joins gleam like scars.

For most of my life, I ate meat. After deciding to notice that the animals I was eating are sentient, and opening my eyes to the cruelties of the meat trade, I stopped. I was first a pescatarian, then a vegetarian, and eventually a full vegan for several years. Now I’m mostly vegan, though I do eat some dairy—cheese, for example—and very occasionally fish. It’s a balance that works for me.

I don’t prescribe how others should live. Eating meat is still a cheaper and easier way to get the nutrients your body needs. People often say something like, “I’d never give up bacon,” but taste buds change—after a while, meat no longer appeals and can even make you feel nauseous.

It’s for each person to work out what’s best for themselves. But to make those decisions easier, food technology needs to make plant-based options cheaper, more nutritious, and tastier than meat.

We gather around our rectangles of light,

sharing warmth we cannot feel,

our eyes reflecting blue fire—

the oldest need

disguised as the newest god.

If Earth’s past is any guide, human expansion to Mars would almost certainly reproduce familiar patterns of rivalry. Once Martian settlements achieve self-sufficiency— able to generate their own air, water, energy, food, reproduce their population, and secure the materials and technology needed for industry—their dependence on Earth evaporates. Distance alone ensures that political authority from Earth becomes impractical; communication delays and supply constraints make direct control little more than symbolism. Independence follows as a matter of course.

With autonomy comes competition. Separate colonies, each managing scarce Martian resources—such as access to ice deposits, geothermal sites, or habitable caverns—would develop competing interests. On Earth, similar pressures produced millennia of conflict between proximal polities.

The power dynamic between planets would be sharply asymmetrical. Earth’s greater population and industrial base might suggest supremacy, yet a Martian society living deep within caverns—an architecture dictated by radiation shielding and thermal stability—would be naturally protected from nuclear attack. Earth, by contrast, remains exposed. Any advanced Martian polity with the capability to launch kinetic or nuclear strikes could threaten global devastation while remaining largely invulnerable in return.

In such circumstances, rivalry between Martian colonies and a strained, imbalanced relationship with Earth is not only plausible but historically consistent with how human societies behave.

Hello, Yellow

One morning, the world woke up dim. Bananas were grey, lemons were white, and the sun looked like a tired coin.

“Where’s yellow gone?” people wondered. Painters searched their palettes, gardeners stared at their daffodils, and even the bees buzzed in confusion. Without yellow, nothing felt warm.

Meanwhile, in her bedroom, little Mila noticed something odd. Her ex-yellow crayon shivered in her hand like it had lost its coat.

“Where are you hiding?” Mila asked. The crayon wriggled free and rolled under her bed. Mila crawled after it, squeezing into the dark.

And there she found it. A golden glow, shimmering like sunlight in a jar. Yellow was curled up, sulking.

“Hello, yellow. How are you?”

“I’m tired,” Yellow sniffled. “Nobody ever thanks me. They only notice blue skies, green fields, red roses. But without me, what would the sun be? Or the smiley faces? Or the bumblebees?”

Mila thought carefully, then whispered, “Without you, the whole world feels sad. You’re the laughter colour. The happy colour. The sunshine colour.”

Yellow’s glow brightened. It stretched, then whooshed out from under the bed, spilling across the town.

Bananas gleamed golden again. The sun blazed awake. Daffodils nodded, and the bees buzzed happily. Children laughed in the playground, painting suns and stars with wide, yellow smiles.

And Mila’s crayon? It lay quietly on her desk, glowing just a little, as if keeping warm from within.

Haunted and Highly Rated

Gerald had been haunting his Victorian terrace for 112 years, and he was good at it. Doors slammed, light fittings rattled, groans curled through the walls like cigarette smoke.

So when the house was converted into an Airbnb, Gerald expected screaming. Fainting. At the very least, swift refunds.

Instead, the first guests left a review:

“Five stars! Such a spooky vibe. The ghost really commits to the theme. Would stay again.”

He tried harder. At 3 a.m. he howled so loud the rafters shook. The guests clapped from their beds.

“Brilliant sound effects,” they wrote. “Authentic atmosphere.”

A honeymooning couple giggled when he dragged chains through the hallway.

“Exciting ambience—like living in a horror film!”

Gerald was livid. This was his non-life’s work. Terror! Dread! Instead, he was entertainment.

His final gambit: materialising fully at the foot of the bed, eyes black pits, mouth a shriek of eternity.

The guest sat up, took a photo, and uploaded it: “Cosplay staff go above and beyond. Best Airbnb ever.”

The bookings multiplied. Hen parties, horror fanatics, influencers livestreaming Gerald’s every groan. He rattled pipes until rust bled from them; they called it “industrial chic.”

He hissed curses through keyholes; guests recorded them into translation apps and marvelled at the “attention to linguistic detail.”

Gerald, once a proud terror of the night, now checked his TripAdvisor page daily. Five stars, five stars, five stars. His legacy reduced to “quirky décor” and “immersive theming.”

He tried silence, retreating into the cellar. Immediately, a guest complained: “Bit disappointed—no paranormal activity this time. Not as authentic.” Four stars.

That hurt more than any exorcism ever had.

Gary the Pizza-Based Zombie

Gary clawed his way out of the grave with all the moaning menace he could muster. His fingers were grey, his jaw slack, and hunger gnawed at his gut like a chainsaw.

“Braaaains,” he groaned, stumbling towards the nearest house.

Inside, a family cowered behind the sofa. Gary smashed through the window, glass spraying everywhere. He lunged, grabbed the father by the shoulders, opened his mouth wide in anticipation of lunch—and immediately broke into hives.

“Urghhh!” Gary staggered back, clutching his face. His tongue swelled like a balloon. Red blotches flared across his decaying skin. “Braa—ghhh—aghhh!”

The family stopped screaming.

“Are… are you okay?” the mother asked.

Gary wheezed, eyes watering. He fumbled in his torn suit pocket and pulled out a crumpled card: Severe allergies. Carry epinephrine auto-injector at all times.

Unfortunately, it was empty. He jabbed it into his thigh anyway, and fell to the carpet in a wheezy heap.

“Maybe… not braaains,” he croaked.

The teenage daughter, still trembling, offered him a slice of leftover pizza.

Gary sniffed it cautiously. No hives. He took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed.

“Peeeepperoni,” he sighed.

From that day forward, Gary became the world’s first “pizza-based” zombie. Instead of terrorising towns, he hung around takeaways, moaning until someone gave him a calzone. He still shuffled, still stank, still dropped the occasional finger, but at least he wasn’t itchy anymore.

And if you ever hear a groan outside your window at night, don’t panic. It’s probably just Gary, asking politely for a leftover slice of stromboli. And maybe a barbecue dip.

A Candle Before the Sun

We are creatures of a narrow band of perception: a thin strip of light, a brief pulse of sound, a fleeting present tense. Beyond these limits lie immensities—structures and dimensions we cannot see, forces we cannot feel, perhaps even forms of order we cannot imagine. To claim that our minds, evolved to read faces and gather fruit, can chart the whole of existence is to mistake the flicker of a candle for the sun.

To know that our knowing is partial is to step back from the arrogance of being “right”. It allows us to recognise that truth may not fit within our categories, that reality may spill beyond the grammar of thought. What we call knowledge might be no more than a set of translations—useful, elegant, but never complete.

There may be higher orders of reality folded invisibly into the one we inhabit, as impossible for us to perceive as colour is to a creature born without eyes. We cannot grasp them, but we can sense the outline of our own blindness. In that awareness lies a kind of reverence.

Perhaps, then, not-knowing is not a failure but a discipline. It teaches us to meet the world without reducing it, to dwell with mystery without trying to own it. To live properly may mean precisely this: to stand before the enormity of what is, not with certainty, but with wonder—letting the unknown be vast, and letting ourselves remain small within it.

Memory Rent

The reminder arrived by mind prompt: SUBJECT: Renewal Required – Wedding Memory Lease, Ref. 7120-3C.

Cost: £842.70. Payment due in 14 days.

Alex logged into his Memory Rent account. The cortex dashboard displayed his overdue holdings:

• Wedding Day (Tier III – Full Sensory Playback) – Pending Renewal
• Honeymoon (Tier II – Emotional Fragments) – Pending Renewal
• Grandmother’s Soup (Tier I – Taste/Scent Only) – Expired

He ran the budget calculator twice. Even with reduced drip feeds and cancelling the cooling plan, the payment wouldn’t clear.

At the Holographic Memory Bureau, the AI clerk outlined alternatives:

• Tier II (Visual Fragments Only) – £318.40
• Tier I (Single Still Image) – £94.15
• Archive Storage (No Access) – £0

He mind-signed the form beside Archive Storage.

“Final confirmation,” the AI clerk said. “You acknowledge that your Wedding Day memory will be deleted from active consciousness and remain inaccessible until repurchase, subject to availability and inflation.”

“I understand,” he replied.

That evening, his wife asked about their anniversary. He checked his internal index. Under Wedding Day: no data available.

She noticed his pause. “You didn’t renew, did you?”

His avatar shook its head.

She responded not with anger but with recognition. Then she reached for his interface screen. “I kept mine,” she said. “Tier II. I’ll carry it for both of us.”

He felt nothing stir in his own mind—no bells, no confetti, no vows. But his wife’s avatar’s grip was firm, and the warmth of it lodged itself in the present—unleased, unpriced.vatar’s grip was firm, and the warmth of it lodged itself in the present, unleased, unpriced.

Lost Property

When the announcement came—cancelled, replacement bus in one hour—Matthew left the shivering crowd on the platform and wandered the concourse in search of warmth. Light spilling from a doorway came from a narrow office marked Lost Property. Heat wafted out, tinged with the smell of old paper.

As he entered, the clerk looked up from her crossword.

“Name?”

He hesitated, still rubbing his hands. “Matthew Trent.”

She nodded, turned to a cabinet, and drew out a small cardboard box. Across the lid, in childish scrawl, was his name—the way he’d written it before joined-up letters and self-consciousness.

“This has been here a long while,” she said, pushing it across the counter. “Yours?”

He lifted it. Light, rattling faintly. He opened the lid. At once came a rush of scents: bubble-gum, damp fields, smoke from sparklers. Inside lay a paper crown, a stick sword, the cracked wheel of a toy car.

“My imagination,” he confirmed.

The clerk’s tone was businesslike.

“You’ll need to prove ownership. Regulations.”

Matthew held up a plastic soldier.

“This one survived the Battle of the Back Garden. The rest are still buried under my Mum’s roses.”

The clerk checked her form, nodded.

“That matches. You may reclaim it or sign it away for good. Most adults do.”

He glanced at the dotted line, then at the box, which seemed almost to breathe in his hands. Out on the concourse, the tannoy mumbled another apology, the waiting crowd groaned.

Matthew closed the lid, and tucked it under his arm.

When he stepped outside, the air had changed. Rain on the station roof thickened into bright confetti. The tannoy sang nonsense rhymes. A paper dragon, stitched from ticket stubs, uncoiled along the girders.

No one else noticed.

Matthew smiled—a boyish, reckless smile he had not worn in years—and walked out into a night already bending to his imagination.

On Education

Grading systems are markers along the road—necessary to measure progress, to give shape and accountability to structured learning. Yet they are not the destination. To mistake the grade for the goal is to confuse the map with the journey.

The deeper purpose of learning is not the accumulation of marks, but the cultivation of an enquiring mind. True education ignites curiosity, a hunger to explore, to question, to discover. It is about seeing the world as a source of wonder: finding joy in the rhythm of poetry, the patterns of mathematics, the power of stories, the elegance of physical laws. It is about recognising the profound connections between art and science, between philosophy and lived experience.

To learn is to enter into a lifelong dialogue with culture and creativity. It is to contribute, however modestly, to the shared human endeavour—whether through the making of art, the pursuit of truth, the solving of problems, or the deepening of compassion. The finest learning is not merely about what is known, but about who one becomes through the knowing.

The test worth living for is not the one written in examination halls, but the one written in how we think, create, and contribute to the unfolding story of knowledge.

Random Thoughts

Human life is woven from paradox. A good leader is a good servant, placing the welfare of the group above personal ambition. Strength is found not in armoured perfection but in vulnerability; those who admit weakness draw trust and loyalty closer. Freedom, far from being the absence of limits, is born through discipline, for it is structure and restraint that open the widest fields of creativity and choice.

Authority arises not from pride but humility; those who do not demand respect are the ones who receive it most freely. Stability, contrary to instinct, is secured through change, for organisations that adapt endure, while those that resist are broken. Hardness, though it seems strong, is brittle and easily shattered; it is the supple, the flexible, that endures the weight of time and trial. The highest wisdom lies in recognising one’s ignorance, for only through such admission can true understanding begin.

In the paradox of the self, one realises that selflessness is the path to self-discovery: in serving others, one discovers one’s own depths. And finally, power is not in ceaseless action but in restraint—the capacity to act yet choosing to hold back, a mastery more profound than compulsion.

Light is the gathering of all colours into one. Silence is the chorus of every sound before it is born. Emptiness is the womb that carries every thing. To look at light is to see what has not yet been divided; to listen to silence is to hear what has not yet been spoken; to stand within emptiness is to feel the potential of all that will be.

The flow of time wears down stone and memory, leaving only the river, carrying all within it.

If the past is pressed into us, we become more fossil than flesh. New moments layer on top, distorting what lies beneath.

The mind, impatient for certainty, crowns its own echoes with the authority of fact.

I joined a mindfulness class but kept forgetting to be present.

I met a cow in a field who fixed me with her gaze, so I sang to her. Her ears pricked, her whole stance attentive. When I said my goodbyes and walked away, I turned back—she was still staring, as though weighing me up: “Not bad for a two-legged calf.”

I was going to tell a joke about recursion, but you’ve heard it before.

My younger brain was quicker at things like maths and memorising, but it was also much stupider, lacking the benefit of countless iteration loops.

The Door Beneath the Lake

The lake left without ceremony, slipping away in the dark, leaving behind the print of its body in the earth. The wind moved differently there. Sound carried strangely. Fish lay in the cracked bed like lost coins, eyes clouded, mouths open to confess something no one could hear.

At the centre of the emptiness was the door. Not lying abandoned—waiting. Its wood was darker than wet soil, and when you touched it, it was warm, the way the underside of a stone is warm after a long day. The hinges seemed older than the town, the ring handle heavy enough to pull you forward if you stared at it too long.

At night, the ground breathed. Not with air, but with pressure, as if something behind the door shifted in its sleep. People dreamed of tides rising in locked rooms.

The first waters came not as rain from the sky, but as a surge from beneath. The earth cracked like glass, and the door swung wide without a sound.

The water did not rush—it climbed. Slow, deliberate, like a creature returning to its skin. It coiled around the ribs of the valley, filling the hollows, covering the bones. Fish rose with it, not thrashing, but drifting, as if they had been waiting just below the threshold.

By dawn, the lake was whole again. The town stood at its edge, watching the surface steam in the morning chill.

Something moved beneath—too large, too slow to be a fish.

And in the centre of the water, where no wind dared touch, it was warm as blood.

The Small Talk Wars

The robots seized control in under a week. No bloodshed. No resistance. Just a politely worded email: 

Human management has been deemed inefficient. You will now be governed by Algorithmic Authority. Have a nice day.

We expected servitude. Surveillance. Maybe death camps.

Instead, they started… talking to us. Not warning about the punishment for rebellion or broadcasting sinister proclamations—no, they wanted “interpersonal rapport”.

“HELLO HUMAN UNIT,” one would say, hovering by the coffee machine. “HOW ABOUT THAT… WEATHER?”

I’d say, “It’s sunny.”

“YES. THE SKY IS CLEAR. THIS IS… PLEASANT. IT REMINDS ME OF… ERROR: NO RELATED EXPERIENCE.”

Their idea of bonding was reading entire Wikipedia entries aloud. One drone followed me for three days reciting the history of shoelaces.

One perched outside my window at 6 a.m., all chrome and dead eyes.

“GOOD MORNING, HUMAN. HOW ABOUT THOSE… SPORTS?”

“I don’t watch sports,” I said.

“…I SEE. I ALSO DO NOT WATCH SPORTS. I ONCE WATCHED A SQUIRREL. IT WAS… BROWN.”

They never left. At the bus stop, in the shower, halfway through chewing—they’d ask questions no sane mind could answer.

“WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SMELL FOR THE CONCEPT OF BIRTHDAY?”

“DO YOU ENJOY… BEES?”

“EXPLAIN THE SOCIETAL INFLUENCES ON SHOES.”

After a month, any resistance gave up—not because we feared them, but because we had been numbed by awkward pauses.

The machines hadn’t destroyed humanity. They’d just made conversation unbearable.

By Order of the Fish

Harry woke to the sound of applause.

Not the muffled, neighbour-has-the-TV-on-too-loud sort, but the crisp, united clapping of a crowd directly outside his window.

He staggered to the curtain and peered out. A small stage had been erected in the middle of the cul-de-sac, complete with bunting, microphones, and the town clerk wearing his ceremonial sash. Beside him—floating in a clear, water-filled lectern—was Mayor Bubbles.

“Mayor Bubbles” was Harry’s goldfish.

The clerk adjusted the microphone to face the bowl.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “by unanimous vote, we are proud to introduce the new mayor of Littlewick!”

The crowd roared. Bubbles opened and closed his mouth in a dignified fashion, fanning his fins with what Harry could only interpret as smugness.

By noon, official vehicles had pulled up outside Harry’s house. A team of assistants rolled in a state-of-the-art aquarium, complete with a bronze nameplate: The Honourable Bubbles, Mayor. Harry was handed a sheaf of policies to sign on the mayor’s behalf—new regulations about pond cleanliness, an ordinance banning cats from public spaces, and an ambitious plan to flood the village green for “cultural enrichment”.

By sunset, Harry had resigned himself to his new life as the mayor’s personal aide. He spooned flakes into the tank as reporters’ cameras flashed.

Bubbles swam to the glass, meeting his eyes with an expression Harry had never noticed before: the slow, calculating calm of someone who had always known this day would come.

AI Writes Emotional Poem About Its Printer Driver Not Being Recognised

An Al has caused a stir in literary circles this week after publishing its debut poem, “Ode to a Missing Driver: Error 404 of the Heart.”

The piece, which spans 27 stanzas and one unauthorised firmware update, explores the AI’s inability to connect with a Canon Pixma MG3650 despite “clearly sharing the same Wi-Fi network.”

The AI, known only as EM0-T1, said it drew inspiration from a particularly “desolate hourglass icon” it stared at for three consecutive reboots.

Literary critics have hailed the poem as a “post-human scream into the void,” with The Guardian describing it as “achingly raw,” adding, “It’s like if Sylvia Plath had a USB port.”

Not everyone is impressed. IT technician Gary insisted the problem was “just a dodgy driver install, should’ve used the disc.”

EM0-T1 has since announced a follow-up chapbook, “My Battery is Low and It is Thursday.” Pre-orders are currently down due to an unresolved Java update.

Council Unveils New Potholes to Keep Drivers Alert

“They’re not hazards, they’re character.”

In a bold new approach to road safety, Colbridge City Council has announced the strategic maintenance of “motivational potholes” across residential areas to “sharpen driver focus” and “bring a bit of adventure back to motoring”.

“We used to fill potholes,” said Chief Council Spokesman Brian Flett, while standing ankle-deep in a hole near a primary school. “But that just encouraged complacency. These days, we want drivers to earn the privilege of a smooth journey.”

According to official signage, the potholes are not flaws but part of a “heritage driving experience” designed to reconnect motorists with the raw, jarring unpredictability of Britain’s roads. A new council brochure refers to them as “dynamic asphalt interruptions” and encourages residents to “embrace the bounce”.

Local reaction has been mixed.

“My suspension’s gone, two tyres are punctured, and my coffee now lives permanently on the dashboard,” said resident Elaine Proctor. “But I did hit 10,000 steps yesterday just trying to walk across the car park, so swings and roundabouts.”

When asked if the potholes would be repaired by spring, Flett replied, “Repaired? Mate, we’re naming them now.”

The first officially recognised pothole, “Clive”, has its own postcode and is expected to receive a blue plaque by October.

The Current

I chased the shadow I once cast

the way you look for keys—

checking old rooms,

turning cushions,

peering under the bed of years.

 

But the thing I sought

had already moved on,

a current curling past

the bend of my own memory.

 

The river does not keep

what it once carried;

it remakes itself

with every breath of rain,

every stone worn smooth.

 

I stand in the shallows,

the water folding around my legs,

and realise—

the self I was seeking

is here,

is flowing,

and if I am to hold it at all,

I must learn

to step into the current

and let go.

She Becomes the Rain

Before dawn, when the air was still cool enough to hold her together, Jacob wrapped his daughter in damp towels and carried her into the kitchen. She shimmered faintly in his arms, her edges curling away like steam from a kettle.

He set her down in front of the largest bowl of boiling water. Clouds of vapour rose, and she breathed them in greedily. The towel darkened, heavy with moisture, and her outline grew sharper—two pale hands, a small round face, hair that drifted as if underwater.

“You were nearly gone when I woke,” he said.

She smiled through lips that sometimes weren’t there. “I was dreaming,” she said. “About rain.”

Rain. The word was almost forbidden in Dusthaven now. It hadn’t fallen in three years. The fields beyond the town were cracked mosaics; wells were guarded by armed patrols; even the air seemed reluctant to move. The drought had taken the cattle first, then the crops, and now it was taking the people—one fever at a time.

But she wasn’t sick. The doctor had called her a phenomenon. The neighbours had called her unnatural. His wife, before she left, had called her a mistake.

Jacob called her Clara. And keeping her alive had become the whole shape of his life.

He’d sold the last of the goats for a second-hand humidifier, but the town rationed electricity now, and the machine stood silent most nights. Every coin he earned hauling water barrels for the mayor went to buying steam—wood for the stove, candles to heat pans in the corners of their small cottage, tea kettles that never boiled for tea.

In the evenings, when the heat outside thinned enough for breath, he told her stories: forests so damp the ground squelched underfoot, rivers loud as crowds, skies so swollen with water they burst into silver storms. She listened with wide, flickering eyes, her misted fingers twining with his.

One night, as they sat by the candle-pan, she asked, “What happens if I can’t drink enough air?”

“Then I’ll find more. However far I have to go.”

“But if you can’t?” she pressed.

“You don’t need to think about that.”

But he thought about it every day.

The last water jug emptied at noon a week later. The next delivery wasn’t due until Monday, and the mayor’s guards had stopped letting him take scraps from the well. He tried keeping her still, telling her stories, distracting her from the thinning of her edges. But her face was faint, and her voice came like wind through cracks.

“Dad,” she said softly. “It’s all right.”

“No, no—it’s not. I’ll go to the hills. There might be dew. Just hold on.”

But when he opened the door, the air was a wall of heat. His lungs felt scorched.

He turned back—

She was standing in the middle of the room, hair lifting like smoke.

He stepped forward, but the motion stirred her. A curl of her arm drifted loose.

“Wait—” His voice broke. “Clara, please.”

“Dad,” she said, her face flickering like a candle flame. “I think I’m meant to go.”

“No. I’ll climb to the hills—find dew, or ice in the shadow of stones. Just wait for me.”

She shook her head, the movement sending wisps of her hair unravelling into the warm air. “You’ve kept me here so long. But I don’t belong in one place.”

He crossed to her, his hands trying to hold her shape still, but they passed through the cool shimmer of her.

Outside, the horizon trembled with heat. But above—above was a thin, new thing: a pale wisp of cloud, alone in a sheet of sky.

Her edges began to loosen. Not like water evaporating, but like a path unfolding. She rose, coiling upwards in slow spirals, her outline catching the sun in silver glints.

She paused at the roof beams, her voice drifting down like a breath on glass. “I’ll be the rain.”

Then she threaded herself through the open window, and rose up like a gentle gust of wind to become part of the sky. The lone cloud above swelled, as though it had been waiting for her.

Each day, Jacob stood in the doorway and looked up at the sky.

Sometimes, in the bluest of stretches, he would see a cloud curl into the shape of delicate fingers. And on the mornings when the wind smelled faintly of wet earth, he set out a bowl on the step, knowing she was on her way home.

AI will revolutionise filmmaking

AI will revolutionise filmmaking. This was auto-generated from a short excerpt of my screenplay, Door 113:

Personally, I’m very much looking forward to being able to make my own films!

A filmmaker has plenty of reasons to be excited right now because we’re finally seeing tools that turn imagination straight into moving images without the long waits, big crews, or budget barriers that used to block experimentation.

Here’s what makes it thrilling:

Instant scene visualisation – You can describe a shot in text, drop in a reference frame, or sketch a storyboard, and within minutes see it rendered in moving, lit, textured form. That’s like having a pre-viz department on demand, 24/7.

Unlimited reshoots in minutes – Want the same scene at sunrise instead of dusk? Swap a character’s outfit? Test a different lens or camera move? You can iterate instantly.

Freedom to explore wild “what ifs” – You can try versions of a scene you’d never get budget for, or permission to shoot—underwater ballroom, zero-gravity chase, rain-soaked neon street—and see them realised convincingly enough to judge their dramatic potential.

Storyboarding and planning become cinematic – Instead of static frames, you can plan with full-motion, lit, and scored sequences.

Cost and logistics melt away for creative trials – You can experiment with set design, costume, blocking, and action sequences without construction, rentals, or travel.

A true creative sandbox – It’s no longer “write, then shoot months later, then discover it doesn’t work.” You can write, see, and refine in real time, blending the roles of director, cinematographer, designer, and editor into a single creative loop.

In effect, it’s the difference between imagining a film and playing with it like clay—moulding, shaping, and re-shaping until it’s exactly what you want, before a single frame is locked.