Postcards from Kronk - the second collection of daily stories. (2025)

Approaching a scary Altostratus Ahmed reached into his bag to consult Orville Wrights head but just a handful of thick unkempt hair was enough for the amateur pilot to realise he'd packed Stephen Kings head once again. Don't let me down this time Master of Horror, he thought, nervously.

When Columbia returned from his tour of duty aboard the International Space Center his first thought was of home. But as his hometown had never existed, a fact explained to him on numerous occasions during the subsequent six months of hospital treatment he has learned to stop talking of it. Although silent Columbia has been refining his theory, one based upon the principle that the physical world is created by our minds and that something must have caused everyone to forget his town at the same moment. Now, he waits for an email from a cosmonaut with whom he'd shared 14 months in orbit.  Columbia is ready to shake the world, to change the history of mankind forever.

Today I read a man was shot in the leg during a burglary in my home town Inverness, where my mother and sister still live. It made me feel guilty as I don't call often enough. Later, the radio reported another incident, a man shot in the stomach described as being in a stable but critical situation; this man lived near Great Yarmouth, the seaside town my father had scuttled off to when he met the woman with the hips. This time it brought back memories of saurday afternoons watching wrestling together; Giant Haystacks and Rollerball Rocco. She looked like Big Daddy, the woman he'd ran off with.

It was his masterpiece, 14 inches high, snakeskin buckle and memory foam sole and if she was stupid enough to break her leg walking to the opera it was her own fault. Go tell Esther Rantzen that and see how far you get.

"From tomorrow any Brazilian woman taller than 6 foot will no longer have to suffer the indignity of being classed 'Amazonian' " The words echoed through São Paulo, the latest of a series of progressive reforms by the new regime.  Spontaneous applause broke out but dampened almost immediately as the President leant towards the camera, his face filling the outdoor video screens set up to cover the announcement and continued: " For tomorrow there will be no women taller than 6 foot ".

After a while it didn't even make a difference if he was there or not : she'd slow down, maybe stop for a few minutes and then set off again, back to Galashiels promising that this would be the last time. Her heart broke in two on each journey till eventually it hardened and one time became her last time. And then he found himself missing her more than he'd thought but Hamilton was too far for his Raleigh Grifter so she never knew of his change of heart.

If we accept and most scientists now agree the evidence is conclusive; that the 'Egyptian' Pyramids are the top sections of giant stone sentinels hibernating inside the earth then the recent disappearance of two of these 'pyramids' and their subsequent sightings in Morocco and Corsica as documented by recent NASA photographs begs the question : Are they waking up or merely restless sleepers ?