Barry Walsh

Headline (397 words excluding heading)

I’ve spent the last 17 months recovering from a particularly horrific Halloween party and I’m reluctant to accept this invitation to another one.
Still, if you have to face your fears, where better to do it than with a group of thrill seekers who think nothing of taking ‘daring’ to its limit?
Yes, I know it…[Read more]

Woohoo, Sandra! Congratulations! ☺️

And well done, Knicky. Thanks for a challenging (for me, anyway) comp 👍

Fabulous stories and especially well done, @Sandra. Thanks for a great comp @knickylaurelle

Another pieced-together piece, and only 245 words, but best I can manage.

Bourbon dreaming

A bottle of Makers Mark from my husband for Christmas and a wine-free tea (Köstritzer Schwarzbier instead) so I took a glass of bourbon to bed with me, along with John Rebus.

And I dreamt, more vividly and memorably than usual, with more logic than usual…[Read more]

Couldn’t make more than a patchwork quilt of the remnants of my dreams so was forced to resort to the daydreaming option. (Can you tell I’ve been watching Supernatural? 😊)

SACRIFICE

Awareness filters into my consciousness like oil seeps into unleavened bread, slowly and without fanfare. The darkness in my mind begins to withdraw.

I feel not…[Read more]

Jay

Jay says he loves me. He says ‘I love you, man’. He tells me he’s killed his mother, or maybe I just think that he did. He says he crushed her like Plasticine, but I can remember that it was really me who crushed my mother. She was made of red plastic and her feet were set on a little tab so she could be stood up. I crushed her with my thumb…[Read more]

In the place and time I found myself, I had done something wrong.

My punishment? A chain of large metal links, secured around my throat, pressing against my flesh, reminding me of its presence every time I swallowed or turned my head.

A man, with whom I had a connection – were we related? Was he the reason for my wrongdoing? – received the sam…[Read more]

What a beautiful bird and how evil to kill it. But then, I probably don’t understand “country ways”. Actually, my mother was born and bred in a tiny farming community in the heart of Somerset and my father was born into a tiger-murdering family in Kanpur (Cawnpore as was) Northern India. I’m quite familiar with country ways. Generally, country…[Read more]

Lucky? Yes, and I didn’t even mention the boat trip out of Mallaig, again in beautiful weather, where we got close up to a school of dolphins. Magic.

Actually, I feel quite privileged every time a kite comes over our house, even though they they are about the biggest conservation success story of the past century. It’s simply because they are so…[Read more]

Oh my days…I’m going to be spoilt for choice, the state of my dreams! I’ll avoid the teeth-dropping out ones and see what else weird and wonderful I recorded in my dream diary.