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

 I’ve booked but I’m not bothered about seeing the film I just had to get out of the house before I fucking killed my neighbour. She’s got a sinkhole in her garden. Well I’m sure you’ll enjoy the film, it’s very cool in there, everyone tends to get a bit fractious in this heat, don’t they? Not my neighbour she’s a fucking witch.

 Steve puffed on a cigar and tried not to cough before handing it to me. “Put that on, don't sit there, because I say so, be quiet. In the fifties I went to work aged 6, in a tie and a dress as me ma wanted a girl and it never did me no harm, so I know from experience. One day you’ll thank me. You’re what? A teenager? don’t try to confuse me, you’re a kid, a sprog and then you’re a man, all that time in between isn't real, and it’s about time someone had the balls to say so” We were hiding in the shed at a cousin’s birthday party, he was 14, I was 12. “That’s what they mean really, what they don’t say is more important than what they do.” My Mum caught us and made us smoke the whole pack of cigars; arms crossed; stern faced. “Don't you ever trust grownups,” Steve said later on, spitting tobacco on the grass, “they get spoilt somehow as they get older.” Steve only got a year older, and I miss my Mum.

A skinny adolescent smears himself through the town centre, a, sent ahead by older members of the group. It seems the most angry and impulsive are already gone, detained and made to make public statements, leaving the more cautious, the thinkers and those like Dale, the canary in an anorak who stoops down at the junction of Town Street and Jubilee Villas to draw a rat on the floor in chalk, unweighted down by ideology or context, who just likes causing mischief. On the other side, people with more power are trying to keep the peace, maintain what already exists, guarding against change. There are those who have lofty ambitions and those that like to win. There are rats and rat catchers everywhere across the country, across the world. The revolution won’t be streamed, but you can watch a trailer for it in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 seconds. 

 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...