Jane Jago's Blog, page 470

You are young

You are young so you shouldn’t be that
All pasty, complaisant and fat
With your mouth-ends turned down
And a grumpy-arse frown
From under your middle-aged hat

© jane jago 2017

Wednesday Writer – from ‘The Engineer’

From ‘The Engineer’ by Darran Handshaw.

“Destroy them, Engineer. I give you my command.”

“Aye aye, and so we will. Remove the aperture.”

One of the attendants pulled free another blackened hide with a circular aperture in it that limited the amount of light that entered the array. There was a bright flash of light in the image of the encampment and Actaeon could see that the tent had ignited instantaneously.

“Excellent! It is alight! Rotate element one to right by one degree. Yes, now up by o...

A Bite of… Darran Handshaw

Q1: Your main character Actaeon is something of an inventor as well as an engineer, how much of you is in him – or is there another who was your main inspiration when writing him?

Great question.  There’s definitely a bit of me in Actaeon.  Before he was a character in the novel, he was a character that I played in a game, so it is useful to stick to what you know for certain aspects.  I’m an engineer and inventor in real life, but I work in a very specific field.  Imagining what someone with...

Coffee Break Read – Autumn 1642

Autumn 1642

“This is witchcraft!”

The man they called ‘Dutch’, which was strange as the furthest east he had ever been was Whitby, picked up the gruesome object and studied it. The dead eyes of a ginger cat stared back at him from its severed head.

“You are certain, Master Fanthorpe? There can be no mistake?”

“No mistake.”

Dutch looked from the cat’s head to his dead sheep and sighed.

“So we have feared, Master Fanthorpe, though we have prayed it was not so – I mean to think that in our comm...

Catch the Wind

We tried to catch the wind today
My fickle friend and me
But as the zephyr flew this way
My friend deserted me
We tried to catch a friend today
The winter wind and I
But as my friend came out to play
The breeze did wave goodbye
Oh you may have the wind he sighed
Should that be as you choose
Or you may have me at your side
You win one, one you lose
We tried to catch the wind today
A wind to sail us home
But fickle fate gangs aft agley
And now I cry alone

© jane jago 2017

Monday Meme – The Tooth Fairy

 

Sunday lunch, and Caroline carefully masticated her roast lamb and over-cooked vegetables whilst attempting to tune out the carefully genteel tones of her mother-in-law, Marjorie, as she treated them to her own version of the Sunday sermon. Today it was immigrants. And the EU, of course. But that was a blessed relief from child care ‘hints’ and open criticism of the way she and her sister-in-law dressed, spoke, and, one very memorable Sunday indeed, even how they smelled.

‘Yaddah, Yaddah’ s...

Heavenly Host

I wondered, lonely and so proud
My thoughts so high, oe’r window sills
When all at once I was endowed
With views through neighbours curtain frills.

I glimpsed the barest hint of skin
As through my bedroom blinds I’d peek.
To speculate who was within
The electoral roll didst seek.

I glimpsed again and flesh did see
That lofted oe’r sleek curves and tan
But then Mama did answer me:
“Moons? That new neighbour? It’s a man.”

So yet I peer the blinds between
And linger on the vision there
The secr...

Sunday Stars Jayden Hunter – Eyes in the Sky

A flash fiction written especially for us by Jayden Hunter.

Two giant eyes appeared in the sky last Tuesday.  The bright globes seemed alive, and their movements gave me the impression they were watching humanity.

Like a disembodied God.

Or a scientist observing the behavior of ants.

One eye was a dark chocolate brown.

The other green, which was unusual enough, considering it’s not normal for two giant eyes to appear in the sky.  The mismatched eyes only made the whole situation stranger—alth...

A Bite of… Jayden Hunter

Q1: Would you prefer to spend the evening playing poker, having a gourmet meal or with a vampire and why? I would prefer to play poker against a vampire.  The ultimate choice of the dinner entree would be what was at stake.  I like having everything on the line.  I like my ships and bridges burnt to the ground.  Playing the greatest psychological social game ever invented, with my lifeblood at risk…  Wow, what could be more life affirming than that?
“A beautiful woman?” someone suggests.
“O...

Weekend Wind Down – A Garden without Flowers

A Garden without Flowers

Jonas got to the Hiring Fair just after dawn and headed straight for the place where soldiers’ widows could be found.

He saw her immediately, with the early morning sun setting her hair aflame. She was sitting on her trunk with a small girl child playing some complex game in the dust around her skirts. He strode over, and she came to her feet, albeit somewhat uncertainly. The child hid behind her, becoming all but invisible among the folds of shabby cloth.

“I’m lookin...