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

Frank stood there and took it all. So much guff.  I told him it wasn't good enough, the steps we would have to put in place, the changes he'd need to make if he wanted to keep his job and he just nodded and agreed with me. The aching doesn't go away, no matter many mornings you wake up alone. Finally, he left and I stood up, the disease is getting worse day by day, I took out my knife and hacked at the roots to free my legs. It's only a matter of time, that's what they tell me.

On my fifteenth birthday I joined the queue in our school election dressed as Alex from Clockwork Orange,it was to be the third and final time I put myself forward as Celebrity Year Rep. Dr Congo aka Carl Holmes and his grotty sidekick Kid Congo aka Philip Jameson were ahead of me, threatening the year 7's and whooping like angry apes. " WHOYAGUNNAVOTEFORGIRLYFACE " Carl spoke without punctuation or obvious signs of breathing, I wondered once more how long I could hold his head under water and again decided the answer most would come to is not long enough. " Me, Carl, I'm standing for election too " "WELLHOWSABOUTHATTHENYOUBESTVOTEFORYOUTHENASITLLBETHEONLYUNYOUGET" I let this go without comment, been around the school long enough to know when to remain silent. " Come on come on Mr Gadd, take a slip and pop it into the box over there" Mr Harris growled at me without looking up from his desk, a knack he'd perfected long before I'd ...

Abi ignores her phone, screws up the sheet of paper and tosses it towards the bin, the daily rewrites have become the norm but are still annoying, especially tonight as Pete is waiting in the Polar Bear. Ever since they'd taken on the New Challenge Funding work has been mental. She licks her pencil, back to basics, need to perform a side step, send the audience one way whilst building a logical foundation for the climax. The aim of NCF is laudable enough: to produce innovative and challenging theatrical experiences but the methodology of monitoring is laughable, stifling. After each performance if more than 25% of the audience claim the plot to be predicable she, as head writer would be docked part of her wage. This focus on originality had led to some interesting final acts in recent months not least a robotic aphid with the head of John Prescott, the art department had never been so happy but Abi is a writer not an artist. She reaches for her phone to te...

I gave the driver my address and leant back, closing my eyes, it was late and all I wanted was to get home. "You want me to go motorway or the A52 ?" "Don't mind mate, whichever quicker" That sorted I decided to drop off for a few minutes, it'd take us a good half hour at least to cross the city. I can't say for sure how long I was asleep but as I hit the grill separating the driver from his customers I woke very quickly. "Wha ? Look at him, idiot, look at him"  In front of the taxi a young man, probably yet to reach 20 slowly swaggered down the road, purposely stepping from one white stripe to the next in exaggerated strides. "Get out the way you bugger " What you doing ? I think but before I say anything the car inches forwards, scooping up the surprised youth. "What'd I tell ya eh ? Like that do ya ?".  I wanted to get out, do something to help but I didn't. "See ?", Said the driver as we drove ...

Let me tell you how it is here, our middle management congratulate themselves on weighing the pig so frequently it forgets how to walk. So today, when they unveiled Clive Hargreaves as their new Nuncio, despite not checking his credentials, their joy at this conspicuous efficiency, ever more self self-congratulatory was to be expected. Later however, us worker ants, we came together to laugh at their ineptitude and feed Arno, the real future Nuncio, the one we've rescued from the waste lands, the one that will lead us to our destiny. And that is how it will be.

When I kill people I do it quickly, their last words are never like in the movies, more odes than soliloquys. Often prosaic, frequently profane, most usually merely sounds so it came as quite a surprise this morning as Bent Louie, fatally wounded from three neat shots to the chest sung the first verse of ' Halfway Down the Stairs ' from the Muppet Show as he made his journey to the afterlife. Halfway down the stairs is a stair where i sit. there isn't any other stair quite like it. i'm not at the bottom, i'm not at the top; so this is the stair where I always stop. Quite a shock but strangely moving.

There was the way he leant to the right when using a microscope or the habit he had of spelling words out with his fingers when anxious. The way I'd felt him watch me that night; by the time I'd made the short distance from the taxi to the porch I must have looked like Alice Cooper and that was the last time he saw me, as I waved him off. Maybe he couldn't see much through the foggy windscreen by then. So maybe that was what caused the accident, not the rain. He always had a knack of knowing when I was uncomfortable and popping up with coffee or a hand on my shoulder, or no hand on my shoulder, whatever was needed. He clicked his fingers when he listened to the radio, like James Dean. I hope it was the rain.