simon collis

I’m sick today. Not life-threateningly sick, just bad enough that I didn’t even want to get out of bed. So here is the story I wrote for the Story Guide podcast. If you want the “behind the scenes” on this one, you’ll just have to listen to the original episode, I’m afraid…

It’s a hot day, the sun’s beating down on me.

Exams are coming and the day has been long. Revision, revision, revision, going over again and again subjects I already feel I know. Either bored at the regurgitated knowledge, or despairing at the lack of knowledge.

And then the bus home.

For five years the bus has been a particular lowlight of the day. The screamers at the back, always play fighting. Remember the glass ornament on the school trip, I ask myself? I nod. After half an hour of throwing my bag around, it was powder.

Continue reading “Walking Home”

“What are these big fishes daddy?”

The man followed the girl’s finger and looked at the board next to the tank.

“They’re a kind of shark, darling, I think.”

“What kind of shark?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “This one only tells us about rays – those big fishes that look like kites.”

“Oh,” the girl pouted.

“Maybe the next one will tell us about the sharks.”

She grumbled and shifted a little on his shoulder.

“What’s that man doing?”

Continue reading “Chum”

The nurse at the emergency room reception heard a woman grunt at her and looked up from the keyboard.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Helen Styles,” the woman said. “I believe you brought in my husband, Tom Styles?”

“Let me look,” the nurse replied, and searched on the computer.

Helen tutted, shifting her bag on one shoulder.

“Bed twelve,” the nurse pointed to one corner.

Helen pursed her lips, nodded, and strode off to the cubicle. She opened the curtain and saw Tom lying in the bed, electrodes strapped to his chest.

Continue reading “Our World”

You know how you’re walking down the street one day, and you spot something. Not something big, like a road accident, or a bank robbery, but just something small. Just one of those niggles that, while it doesn’t make things better, it doesn’t really make things that much worse. A broken piece of pavement you nearly trip over, for example, or a dog mess you step in because someone was too lazy to pick it up. It happened to me like this one night when I’m out walking the dog.

We go past this apartment block, near the school, and there’s a piece of grass as you round the corner. Ginger takes a good sniff at the garden and circles trying to find that exact, perfect spot. Eventually he squats down like he’s in training to become a contortionist and makes that “don’t look at me” face. I have to look away, of course, because otherwise, nothing’s going to happen. He’s just going to keep staring at me, realise I’m not going to stop looking, and give up. So I turn away.

The apartment block is a kind of grim grey affair, punctuated by outdoor lights here and there. There’s four in a line between the second and third floors, and the end one is flickering.

Continue reading “Ginger”

Ben parked the van outside the apartment block and looked at his watch.

“Two hours and a half,” he said. “Not too bad for packing your entire life into a van.”

Nicola adjusted her woolly hat and shook her head. “Can’t believe I’ve left that old place though.”

“Well, at least you own this one.”

“Or I will,” she grinned. “In twenty-five years.”

She pulled the handle, turned and jumped out of the van. Opening the front door with her key, she bound up the stairs, two at a time, to the first floor.

In the fading afternoon light, the flat somehow looked a little empty and forlorn. Waiting for someone to give it life, she thought. Trying to find a way to make itself live again. And now, it was home. Her home.

She spent a moment looking round, imagining where the furniture was going to go. The only room that was smaller than her old flat was the windowless kitchen. At least it was newly refitted, and so was the bathroom, although she suspected she’d paid far more than the renovations cost for the privilege.

Continue reading “Nicola’s Neighbour”