Fruits I Have Known Only In Fiction

Persimmons
Tamarinds
Jujubes
Quinces
Watermelons
Huckleberries
Greengages
Ripe pears
Edible grapefruits
Forbidden anything

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Notes:

1. Written on October 29th, 2020

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Thirty Famous Views Of Essex

1. An image of a man eating a raw egg, a sidelong glance and a half suppresed smile at the camera as raw albumen runs down his chin.

2. Bin bag sliced open like a belly, an intestinal trail of even more bin bags unwinding out from within.

3. Close up shot of an NHS rainbow aped to a window, all the colours running together after three solid months of rain.

4. Four women in a car with no wheels in the middle of a playing field, all drinking cider straight from the biggest bottle in the supermarket

5. A child wearing a Manchester United kit with the name of a player who left at least three years ago on the back.

6. Seventeen men bellowing into the night, each one convinced all the others are wrong.

7. Poignantly discarded face mask in oil streaked puddle.

8. Boarded up boarding school.

9. Fenced off boarded up boarding school.

10. Several closed roads.

11. High street horse trough filled with leaves, vomit, crisp packets, hint of piss.

12. Inexplicably angry letter in the local paper about a pothole and/or potholes.

13. Inexplicably angry letter in the local paper about the prospect of tax rises.

14. Inexplicably sanguine letter in the local paper about the unneccesary deaths of 60,000 people.

15. Someone on their phone moaning about how everyone else is on their phone.

16. Someone not on their phone wishing they had a phone so they could moan to someone somewhere about everyone else here being on their phones.

17. A row of park benches all too uncomfortable for anyone to sit on.

18. Inexplicably angry letter in the local paper about someone sitting on a park bench for too long or too loudly or with too many friends or maybe all three at once.

19. Town map affixed to high street wall, where every single advertised business has been closed for at least a year.

20. Pub with racist graffiti in the toilets.

21. Pub with racist joke on the chalk board out the front.

22. Pub that’s now being turned into flats.

23. Pub that’s burnt down.

24. Pub with faded plastic children’s slide that’s been blown over in the mud since at least April or maybe even March.

25. Miniature pub that used to be a hairdressers.

26. Florist of dead flowers.

27. Graveyard with new field opening soon.

28. River full of choking tears.

29. Lifetime of self-silenced screams.

30. END

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Notes:

1. Written on September 2nd, 2020
2. Title taken from One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo by Hiroshige

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a list of things

a bathtub full of dust
a cracked and speckled egg
cobwebs on a cats whiskers
an old coat that no longer fits
but which is much nicer than any that still do
a single old streetlight that no ones got round to updating to something newer and brighter and less evocatively orange
old cigarette packet in dried up ditch
a picture of my mother from before i was born
old list found in drawer with nothing ticked off
a box full of obsolete technology
suddenly remembered old shame that feels like new again
pens with no lids
pens with wrong lids
pens
remembering the existence of tipp ex
but not the spelling
itchiness
vague unease
slight twinge in neck
forgotten promise
a strange desire to disown myself
bedraggled cat wrapped in towel
the use of actual money in an actual shop in the actual world in actual life
someone saying something and then you saying something and then someone else saying something and then you saying something and then you saying something else then you both saying something then someone saying something then a long lingering silence then you saying something then
a market stall filled with bags of unmarked meat
looking out of the window only to notice someone else looking in the window
contrails forming noughts and crosses board
dreams of the moon
an overabundance of sweat despite total inactivity
bloodied gums
distant fox screams
the same song on repeat for over half an hour
bed time
death
end of list

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Notes:

1. Written on June 12th, 2020

__________

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Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

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A full accounting of the one hundred and three tales of the thousand and one tales published so far

A Thousand And One Tales is A Hundred And One Tales old (plus a few more now), so here’s a nice convenient big list of them all in a row.

Tale #1: The Unhappy Bride
Tale #2: Wun, Mun and Undun
Tale #3: The Cat Wife
Tale #4: To Follow A Cat
Tale #5: Lonely Isobel

Tale #6: The Farmer’s Daughters
Tale #7: The Woman Who Was Granted Her Wish
Tale #8: The Three Wishes
Tale #9: The Saddest King of All
Tale #10: The Old Lady And The Three Brothers

Tale #11: The Old Lady And The Thief
Tale #12: The Old Woman Who Lived In The Woods
Tale #13: God, The Devil, And The Man Upon The Road
Tale #14: The Jealous Lord
Tale #15: (fragment)

Tale #16: The Man Who Made Himself A Wife
Tale #17: The Woman Who Lived Alone In The Woods
Tale #18: The King And His Weeping Wife
Tale #19: The Three Doors And The Fourth
Tale #20: (fragment)

Tale #21: The Wolves In The Woods
Tale #22: A Long Winter’s Night
Tale #23: Old Tales Are Made New In The Telling
Tale #24: The Lunar Queen
Tale #25: The King And The Light

Tale #26: The Seven Sisters
Tale #27: The Three Sorrowful Sisters
Tale #28: The Wolf In The Woods
Tale #29: The Wolf In The Woods
Tale #30: The King’s Daughter And The King’s Son

Tale #31: The castle was a prison in a sea of untouched snow
Tale #32: The Grief Stricken King
Tale #33: The Offered Daughter And The Promised Sons
Tale #34: The Lonely Heart
Tale #35: The Lonely Man’s Tale

Tale #36: The Old Woman’s Tale
Tale #37: To Lose Your Faith
Tale #38: The Idle Wish
Tale #39: The town, the forest, the past
Tale #40: Methods Of Torture, Methods Of Death (extract)

Tale #41: (fragment)
Tale #42: The Bear In The Cage
Tale #43: The Girl In The Bear
Tale #44: The Falling
Tale #45: The Floating

Tale #46: (fragment)
Tale #47: The Old Lady And The Woodcutter
Tale #48: The Old Lady And The Crows
Tale #49: The Innkeeper And The Woman
Tale #50: The Stolen Child (A Tale Told In Tales)

Tale #51: The Cat In The Graveyard
Tale #52: The Silk Gloves
Tale #53: A Finger For A Favour
Tale #54: The Search For Lost Things
Tale #55: The Forgetful Prince And The Regretful Bride

Tale #56: In The Woods In The Winter
Tale #57: The Thaw
Tale #58: The Tree
Tale #59: (fragment)
Tale #60: The Lure

Tale #61: (fragment)
Tale #62: Lessons For My Children
Tale #63: And We Went To War
Tale #64: Memorial For The Executed Generals Of The Siege Of Colchester
Tale #65: And In Their Ships They Sailed Out Across The Sea

Tale #66: The Silver Ship
Tale #67: The Fountain
Tale #68: The Drunken Sailor
Tale #69: The Swift
Tale #70: The Crow

Tale #71: The Crow Tree
Tale #72: Our paths trace out behind us
Tale #73: (fragment)
Tale #74: The Woman In The Woods
Tale #75: The Woods In The Woman

Tale #76: Of Wolves And Women
Tale #77: The Wolf And The Girl
Tale #78: On Hansel And Gretel, And Horror
Tale #79: Trail Of Breadcrumbs
Tale #80: A Labyrinth of Streets

Tale #81: How to escape from every maze in the world
Tale #82: Ariadne’s Web
Tale #83: Above the clouds, beneath the sun
Tale #84: The Fairy Tale Heart
Tale #85: Married Hearts

Tale #86: (blue plaque on ruined wall)
Tale #87: To Follow A Child
Tale #88: To Ponder Infinity
Tale #89: The Poor Woman
Tale #90: The Woman Who Lived In The Woods

Tale #91: The King’s Wives
Tale #92: The Morning Birds Free The Soul, The Night Ones Take Them
Tale #93: A circle, whispering time
Tale #94: Beneath the weeping willow she sat down and wept
Tale #95: In The Garden Between

Tale #96: On her shoulders, ravens (a dream of judgement)
Tale #97: The Lord And His Angel
Tale #98: The Woman Of Small Miracles
Tale #99: The Protection of Bees
Tale #100: Old Hope

Tale #101: A Story In The Afternoon
Tale #102: You Don’t Have To Read This, But I Hope You Do
Tale #103: Lavenham Ghost Story

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Notes:

1. The tales can mostly be read in any order, but a couple come in pairs – Tales #28 and #29 are two versions of the same story, and Tale #43 follows on directly from Tale #42.
2. There will be more to come
3. So many more

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Tale #57: The Thaw

Every March, after the thaw, the river that runs through the valley bursts its banks.

And in the fields to the north the dead bodies emerge from beneath the snow: rodents, rabbits, hares; pigeons, sparrows, starlings, crows; a fox, a cat, a dog; a drunk, a suicide; an unidentified child.

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Notes:

1. Written on February 15th, 2018
2. I should have timed this better so it was published in March rather than in June
3. But I did not
4. And it’s too late now

__________

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Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!