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

 I have friends in Utah, Australia and Greece and countries I don’t even know exist. Right now I’m travelling down the River Danube  whilst watching a scandi-drama, time shifted and sped up. The Future is not as bright as it used to be, Bagpuss no longer sleeps, and neither do his mice, and what we looked forward to is nowhere to be seen but we will find it, we will bind it, we will stick with glue glue glue.

 She stands up and makes a toast. “To getting through this.”    They drain their glasses together. Sophie pushes the metal to the side, “Do you want to play cards?” Paul shakes his head, “Let me see that postcard again.”   She points to the sideboard against the back wall, “Top left.” “Why’d you keep it?”   Paul cradles it like a priceless museum artefact. “It’s just stuff, I didn’t decide to keep it, I just didn’t get rid of it.” Sophie answers. He balances the postcard on the lump of metal. “That could have caught me on the head, and then it’d be my funeral.” “Why d’you say things like that?” Sophie snatches the postcard and stuffs it back in the draw.   Paul sees himself behind the wheel and hears the squeal of the tyres, the thud, and the smeared windscreen, if anyone deserved to be shot down from above it would be him.   In cartoons it’s an anvil that falls from the heavens, not a fragment of unidentified machinery sh...

 “I reckon it’ll sort itself out, most likely”, said someone from the window of a medium sized hybrid car to a local reporter looking to make a name for herself. In the background, as officially declared unfit for human habitation, the Malcom McDowell Building can be seen being transported on a series of enormous caterpillar like low bed trucks, that have taken 2 parliaments to manufacture. It is headed to the West Coast where it will become a curio of sorts, and home for dangerous animals, ones that we fear, don’t want to go extinct, but ultimately disposable if the concrete degrades further. A deal that was agreed for the sum of £1 between a shifty minister and a man who never forgot watching people shake soil from a growing escape tunnel down their trouser leg. Chances are it’ll come apart before it gets to where it’s going, but at least we’re only a quid down.

  Can you feel it?   You shouldn't a’ but you did and now they gather to dance on your sod, wet mud spring ing high, no tears to mix with , just a maypole of joy ous reveng ing , new dawn and Sunday best. Each untruth heavier and sharpened, stab stab   stabbing in your side , taste savoury walnut justice whips.   You jumped in , a fter the fire , and w e, the avenge seven eight nine times it takes to speak the truth are there on the hill watching you unfold, s kidding zigzagging to the desk and the court and the beak.   W e face each other , nod to silver machine as you are wheeled past, down the chute. Past Truth and the whole hole, you f all , after the rabbit, after Alice, after all this, still falling H elter S keltering down b ottom to top .   Feelings let us down, down , what we thought was seen through   fairground mirrors .   Chute Shoot blows condensation messages on the windows we peer through.   W hen you have n...

  By then it should have been all over, the thin man had let everyone down. No more presents for the boys and girls. No more animal skins, no more stolen touches. If this was year Zero, then Cambodia looked day glo. Gordon cursed again as he stumbled over the exact same spot on the pavement that had eluded his spider sense each and every time he was forced to make this journey. At least the winklepickers didn’t scuff. Today was a good day to meet a ghost. He checked the piece of paper once more before shoving it deep into his jeans.

 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