Welcome to my world of short stories.
These brief tales offer an escape from the daily grind, capturing the quiet beauty in everyday moments and relationships. Perfect for a quick read with your morning coffee, on your commute or just when you need a ten-minute break from it all.
Dive in and enjoy!
Yellow taxis weave up and down the
Avenue of the Americas,
horns honking like it’s a language.
Learn how to drive, one cabbie rages,
Fuck you, auto-responds the other.
The city’s beat brash and unapologetic –
until the sounds soften
in Strawberry Fields.
A busker is singing Imagine, and
Lennon’s lyrics drift through the trees.
We sit on a park bench,
sharing thick cookies
from a sugary pink box,
remarking how pharmacies here
sell sweets
next to diabetes pills.
And how smoke shops
are popping up like Starbucks,
cannabis curling in the air
between the joggers in the park.
New York contradictions,
casual as breathing.
Westward
to the Empire State Building,
we ride its Art Deco elevator
into the sky.
We kiss there,
like every romcom
promised we would.
Below, the streets lie flat-ironed
into a neat, numbered grid,
like a blueprint for dreams
for the city that never sleeps.
Down and out again, all the way
to the Statue of Liberty.
She holds her tablet
like a laptop
logged in with Independence_04July.
Later, on the subway,
a man with hollow eyes
and stale breath
swigs from his paper bag;
freedom looks very different
when you’re just getting by.
Back above ground,
Wall Street towers,
and there’s Fearless Girl
facing down the Stock Exchange,
like she’s got more to say.
I pause
to stand by her side,
listening for it –
while elsewhere,
girls hang off Brooklyn Bridge
for the perfect Insta shot.
The city posing behind them,
pre-filtered for mood, vibrancy, drama,
but mostly,
the capture of being alive.
On the morning of a long‑awaited job interview, Rose steps out of the familiar rhythms of home and family, and into a moment that asks her to show up fully. As she prepares to account for herself in a world that measures worth narrowly, she carries more than a CV: she brings memories of meaning, quiet resilience and a readiness to be seen for the first time in a long time.
Pressed for Meaning is a tender story about work, motherhood, selfhood and the quiet courage of showing up.
Published by Fairlight Books, click here to read the story.
The garden chair sat unfolded in the eye of the mid-morning sun.
It longed to bear someone’s weight. The youngest, cross-legged, driving toy cars round its frame. Or the older one, sprawling, giggling, impossible to contain. Or the dad, slowly settling with the weekend paper. Or the mum, back curved gently, coffee in hand. Decaf. She was expecting again.
But they were all still inside.
The chair was forgotten — for now.
A small robin landed on its arm and tilted its head, as if to say, I know how you feel.
Inside, more coffee brewed. The mum and dad stood side by side, peering at the family wall planner for a blank square. The months ahead looked full and yet also unreadable. Their penned notes stacked across it like scaffolding: scans, school trips, playdates, swimming lessons. Life loaded by shorthand squiggles and smudges.
She moved to make toast. It was a wonder there was any space left — on the calendar, in the house, in herself — for another baby.
The toast scent drifted out the open patio door with the breeze. The chair held it close. It had learned to hold many things — laughter, comfort, crumbs of celebration and the imprint of a lost presence. A gift once given, now a memory that had settled deep in its cushions. True to form. Ready to hold whatever needed holding next.
‘Have some time. Have some space.’ Mark, her boss, had instructed on that initial dreadful day – without her husband, with grief – when she sat sobbing uncontrollably on the kitchen floor, phone pressed steady to one ear whilst the rest of her body shook.
That same week her doctor had said something similar as she processed Jenny’s first sick note.
How much to have of each though? Time and space were infinite.
Grief consumes Jenny as she struggles with a sudden death, causing her world to become increasingly surreal, where time and space seem to distort around her.
Published by Every Day Fiction, click here to read full story.
“Move along, Sally instructed silently, teeth clenched. Her drenched maternity trousers stuck to her like clingfilm, her huge belly tightening and expanding over the elasticated waistband. Her hair starting to mat itself to her perspiring forehead. She pictured herself as the enormous turnip from the children’s tale, needing to be heaved by medical staff to move her from this spot, and wished she could hide behind the well until this was all over.”
Sally is heavily pregnant and overdue when her daily walk by an ancient well, storied to have healing waters, takes an unexpected twist.
Published by Every Day Fiction, click here to read.
“Shall we go outside, Max? I need some air. I could have killed someone just now. I was so angry I wasn’t paying attention. This is a nightmare. Sometimes I think I’m going to drown in my own grief.”
Ex-pro swimmer, Leah, helps a young girl overcome her fear of water and learn to swim. In doing so, Leah moves away from swimming in her own grief at being newly bereaved.
First published by Fairlight Books, click here to read.
“The January joggers were still out in force in March this year, collectively escaping the monotony of lockdown which had itself been described as a marathon and not a sprint.”
Chloe is addicted to buying shoes, whilst inadvertently making colleagues redundant. Jon, now redundant, is increasingly escaping into alcoholism. Their stories start to overlap as they tackle their lockdown demons.
First published by Fairlight Books, click here to read.
Becky Jones 