Author Archives: mdhirst

‘Like a drum, my heart was beating, and your kiss was sweet as wine. But the joys of love are fleeting, for Pierrot and Columbine…’ Music is a wonderful thing, Pete thought to himself, as Judith Durham’s beautiful tones coursed their way through his head. Wonderful, but also strange, when you thought about it. ForContinue reading “Beans on Toast”

‘Same again, Paul?’ The warm, Brummie twang of Mike’s voice brought me back into the room. The homely, carpeted ambiance of the King’s Head; a fire crackling merrily away in the ornate stone fireplace to our left. I’d been lost in the strange beauty of my empty pint glass; twirling it around in my hands;Continue reading “Guilt”

7.37AM. I’m already there. Taking first watch; protected from the artillery fire of early morning sunlight by this ridiculous excuse for a curtain. Vibrant, once upon a time. Some might have called it stylish. Or ‘chic’. Or anything else they say in those vapid magazines. Now it just hung limply, and served its purpose. 7.38AM.Continue reading “The Muse”

Fear like he’d never known before enveloped Steven Jones as he sat on the hard-backed plastic chair outside the foreboding wooden door. Steven was a good kid really; the class clown with a cheeky grin and a cheekier turn of phrase. His teenage wit didn’t come without its risks, and on many occasions he’d foundContinue reading “The Mortician”

She’d completed life by her 30th birthday. As she sat here now, glancing at her reflection in the rear view mirror of her latest Chelsea tractor as she sat at yet another red light on this interminable stage of the A452, she thought back to the young woman she was on that day, 25 years ago. A quarterContinue reading “Pearls”