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

 The elderly pair who worked in service to the mayor of Les Gets were apparently caught stealing the family silver, when the unfortunate accident happened. You'll never put a better bit of butler on your knife, a giggling gendarme quipped.

There are no birds here. As rescue party becomes recovery becomes a wake, we walk, and trudge, our backs aching from the extra weight, the earth hungry to hold onto our feet for longer each step. A gun metal sky shoots rain like nails pricking any sliver of skin not covered up, contrails misdirect us back to the beginning, and voices sink in the slosh and squelch of boot and mud. Less now than before, we mark the moment in grunts and breaths, the path leads us through a drum of circular sound, washing us clear of feeling, of registering what we knew, to allow us to continue. There are no accidents here, no meanings nor wisdom to be gained, it’s just ugly and inevitable and waiting to pull you down. We who know how to forget will survive, those that can’t, will stay here. Who will break the news, lower the noose, choose to lose, and will anyone come to find them when the day is done? We stop

  Whether the discovery of a hyper intelligent evolution of the common Mole species will lead to the downfall of western democracy or is the first step towards solving the seemingly imminent extinction of humanity comes down to who manages to roll the highest score on a D20. Downstairs my mum and dad are watching the last episode of Vera unaware of the drama happening right above their heads (literally), this tells you all you need to know about their parenting skills and our super dedication to the campaign. We are shaking the dice together, on a count on 1, 2, 3. Roll.

  Swathes of pale men swarm the once empty shopping centre, briefly breathing life into a past way of life before shutting down, Some stuck halfway into walls, others glitched in md air, legs akimbo. This would not have happened if we’d paid attention to people who didn’t speak well on telly. Victorian novelist would have a found an overly verbose metaphor to point us towards salvation, but we press ctl alt del and hope for the best.

  It was smaller than he remembered but still hollow inside; as a child he and friends had used to sit inside it, plan adventures and tell stories. Now, slightly drunk, it was smaller than his memory, and he was squ ashed in , knees bunched up to his chin. Looking out t hrough the leaves he still had a good view of the biscuit factory, the s un was coming up, his arms full of Jammie Dodgers and Garibaldis' .     Simon Slot had executed the plan exactly as planned, right down to the pho ne call distraction and crushed can door jam. His lips were sugary, but  a feeling deep down began to twist into nausea , the cramped conditions not helping his now delicate stomach. To avoid being sick into his lap he  threw himself sideways out of the bush landing  with a thud onto the gravel drive behind a grey BMW. Checking he was still unobserved and gathering up the last of the treasure haul, Slot raised himself to his feet and set off in the direction of ...

 Testing Testing Ruk the disco detective kicked up a swirl of ash and wondered why the pathologist had asked him to meet in the Old Dog and Patridge they were already seeing more than enough of each other, working together on the case, they hardly needed to arrange a play date. Ruk called the pathologist PM, but couldn’t remember what the M stood for, Micheal seemed the most likely, but too much time had passed now to ask.   Another incident, this time in an old school, he felt no closer to understanding why. The case had brought seven bodies now, cinders that never got to the ball, all on Friday 1 st , the significance of which was still unknown. Each body had been captioned, ‘C’mon baby light my fire’ being the first and best so far. The killer might have a flair for presentation but lacked breadth of references. PM had pulled the Lego blocks from the throat of the first two victims, with the later blocks simply being in the mouth, like obscene hungry hippos, perhaps t...

 Back in the first few months after the stars had begun to fall from the sky, as the initial panic and apocalyptic doom mongering had started to subside, life had to go on, and aside from a darkening nighttime sky, the scientists had reassured everyone things would be ok. It remains a fact however, that faced with the actual possibility of the end of the world, the usual apocalyptic cultists were few on the ground, As you remember summoning the spirit of the blitz and the notion of a stiff upper lip people up and down the country focussed on the parts that could be fixed, leaving those in power to find solutions to our imminent cataclysmic ending. The crater at the end of Curzon Street had been one of the things that could be fixed locally and the local council worked long into the night to find suitable solutions that they would consult on. It was vital in times like these that people felt part of the solution, someone had said. Unfortunately the man in charge sharing this inf...