20th Century
Postcard From Kanchanaburi
In the now forgotten days when human beings were still allowed to show their faces and set foot out of the house rather than get fat on furlough, soon to become Universal Basic Income followed [more…]
Doxie
Communism
Mrs. Ida Noodle, Dissident Cleaner
Ida pushed the cottage door open, walked in and started looking around. The acrid smell inside was so overpowering that she hurried, nearly gagging, to open all the windows wide. Ida felt nervous: she had [more…]
Fiction
The Tortures of the Quarantined
Simon Marmeladov was in Greece learning Greek. Because Santorini tends to be rather hot in June, the lessons started at seven in the morning and finished at eleven. This arrangement suited Simon who had become [more…]
Fiction
Galta’s Sculptor’s Studio
Galta was about to pour her first glass of wine of the day -it was one o’clock and, these days, her lunch tended to come in liquid form- when she noticed a young man peering [more…]
Literature
Rodion and Sonya’s Garret: A Tale of Redemption
We will kill desire: we will foster drunkenness, gossip, denunciation; we will foster unheard-of depravity; we will stifle every genius in its infancy. Everything reduced to a common denominator, complete equality. Dostoyevsky Rodion opened [more…]
Authoritarianism
The Great Confinement
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. C.S. Lewis Greetings [more…]
Animals
Pepita’s Cuddly Toy Massacre
I adopted Pepita five years ago. She was five at the time. The local vet, who is yet another ghey ultra conservative, told me that a woman he knew had just got divorced and wanted [more…]
Fiction
A Going Postal Christmas Carol: Miriam’s Shack
If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Then may also my covenant be broken with [more…]
Fiction
Ex-Liberals: Rosie and Gideon’s Caravan
Before embarking on this new story, I want to thank all Puffins for awarding me a prize in the June Competition. It is too much honour to bestow on an old bat like me holed [more…]