David Hadley's Blog, page 11

Each Hand Holds a Secret

‘Each hand holds a secret,’ I said, holding them both out to her, clasped tight. ‘Which one do you choose?’ Hemma cocked her head to one side as she faced me. ‘Do I have to choose?’ ‘Everybody has to choose, all the time. It is the choices we make that, in turn, make us whos

A Hand to Hold

I remember the first time. She needed a hand to hold. It was one of those dark dreams where she was alone in a strange and dangerous place of shadows and ominous darkness. She dreamt of walking there, not knowing what lurked around the next hidden corner, or what hid in the shadows that haunteds

Sporting Outrage

These days being offended is fast becoming the most popular competitive international sport. It takes years of effort and dedication to get to the top in what has become a very challenging sport. These days it is not enough to be outraged, you have to be outraged to an international standard. Of course, it iss

She was the Story I Told Myself

‘Tell me a story,’ she said, resting her head on my chest. I looked up at the stars in the sky above us. ‘I’ve told far too many stories already.’ ‘Not to me.’ That was true. I wondered what she would say when I told her that she was the last story I’d told myselfs

The Ritual

Jane hadn’t wanted me to come with her to the cottage at first. But I had always liked her mother. Now the old woman had died I would miss coming to see her. I came to help her clear the cottage of her mother’s belongings, so it wasn’t the happiest of times for Jane ors

The Away Strip

On the whole, it is probably not advisable. After all, she does tend towards having a bit of a temper, especially when the football overruns and she is denied her weekly dosage of televisual hirsute scything. So, any attempt to discuss the disallowed goal in the dying seconds of the second half of extra times

The Shadow and the Prey

It was a shadow that moved with its own life force, for its own purposes. It hung around in the dark places, waiting. It was a creature of the dark places, but it did not belong to the dark. It used the dark as other predators do, to satisfy its urges, to satiate its needs.s

Songs of Loss

‘Why do you only ever sing songs of loss,’ I asked her once. Shelda looked at me through half-closed eyes. ‘Because that is all there is.’ She raised a weary hand from under the thin sheet covering us. She waved towards the window. ‘Look around.’ I nodded. I didn’t need to look around. The citys

Opening with the Weather

It was one of those opening scenes that begin with a description of the weather. Well, it would have done if the writer had decided what it was he was going to write. He hadn’t had a decent idea for weeks… months. The blank pages had stared back at him each morning, daring him tos

Fashionable Sexual Perversions

Nowadays we are – or have to pretend to be – rather blasé about sexual perversions. In days gone by, such outrageously obscene perversions such as naked string-length comparison, donkey-basting or even full-frontal accountancy would only be spoken of by consenting adults, and then only in a whisper during the darkest  hours of the televisions