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Angel Lust

My short story is a semi-finalist in the 25th Writemovies writing contest. Suitable material for a low budget B movie.

Adam is besotted with Angel. All goes well until she takes to wearing a pink knitted top very similar to the one that Adam’s grandmother had on the day she died…

UPDATE: The story is now into the finals.

UPDATE: But it didn’t win. Oh well, never mind.

Custard Heroes

She lived on Highgate Hill, no less, right opposite the church. She was built like a mahogany wardrobe and she smelt like one, too. She boomed rather than spoke in a disturbingly deep smoker’s voice which had flecks of phlegm around the edges and she had a curious habit of addressing the wall instead of the person to whom she was talking. She was known as Mrs. W., although saying it out loud took longer than using her full name. She looked down her nose at Uncle.

MOVING PARTS présente PAPY PAYNE

MOVING  PARTS

présente

la lecture d’un scénario de film de

Jeff  Taylor

PAPY  PAYNE

“Papy Payne” (feature film script)

My script (in French) reached the finals of the 23rd WriteMovies.com contest. It will receive a public reading on June 20, 2010 in a performance given at Carr’s in Paris by members of the “Moving Parts” script reading workshop.

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Payne, un sexagénaire anglais, est arrêté pour tentative de rapt d’un enfant.

Relâché, faute de preuves, il devient l’ami de Lola et son petit garçon Benny.

Un inconnu les observe, et s’insinue dans la vie de Lola.

Un jour, lorsque Payne cherche Benny a l’école, ce dernier demeure introuvable…

Angel Lust in Lewisham

How could someone have changed so completely?

Adam pondered this question as he waited for Angel outside the gaunt, three-story terrace of large Victorian houses in which they lived. Built in Brockley of fading yellow brick, the dwellings stood a few paces back from the road, as if to preserve a semblance of their former elegance, in much the same way that Adam did.

Here she comes.

Adam’s gaze took in her high-heels, her abundant blond locks and the tight-fitting trench-coat. As it hugged her figure, the black gabardine of the coat contrasted to good effect with a shower of stray pink petals floating in the late April air. The latter was the work of the wind, rustling its admiration of Angel by tugging at the giant blooms with which were laden the cherry trees that bordered Breakspears Road. Adam frowned.

When was it he had first begun to be afraid of her? [Read more]

The Wind Waif of Weald Hall

“You’re not having a bike so don’t keep on about it!” “But Mum…” “Did you hear what I said?”

Celtic Legends Fell Feline

Since it was on in our village theatre we succumbed to temptation and forked out 25 euros to go and see Celtic Legends.

Two grey hairs and a splodge of BBQ sauce

“Chicken or lasagne?” says the stewardess in a challenging voice. “Vegetarian please young lady,” commands the peroxide septuagenarian blonde in row 30. With her surly face and total disregard for others she reminds me of my defunct mother-in-law, better known as the ‘unmentionable’.

No holds barred

My old man left school at the age of 12 after his own father had gone and got himself killed for king and poverty in the first battle of the Somme. As de facto head of the burgeoning Taylor household in Roman Rd, Ilford, there was to be no schooling for him. In wartime the only work available for a dead dad’s lad was labouring on a farm. It was there that was kindled in him a love of that noblest of beasts: the cart-horse – affectionate giants chock full of muscle and gentleness.

Left hand Lenny

“I thought you said you knew how to drive,” said Auntie Edith tartly, clutching the leather handbag containing all her money tightly to her chest. “A right pickle you’ve landed us in now!” Devoted as he was to his wife of 35 years standing, Lenny detested that superior air of hers. “Gawd, give me strength,” he muttered to himself as he turned to face the RAC man, the two traffic cops and the offended Friesian cow.

The man who couldn’t come

A man and his wife pushed open the doors of the fertility clinic, with hope in their hearts. It was 1984, the year in which Richard Burton and Truman Capote died and the AIDS virus was first identified. Perhaps, thought the couple, artificial means might succeed where the natural way had failed. 

Nowheresville

A long straight highway across the middle of nowhere approaches a small town out west in the USA. In my mind’s eye, influenced by the brash roadside hoardings that have been clamouring for my attention along the endless road for the last 10 miles, it is a bustling conurbation, full of life.

The Great British Army

Grandfather George was a cook in the Great British Army. A veteran of several campaigns with the Royal Kents in the Boer war, he was, by all accounts, a popular man. As a ten-year old child, my father, another George, was fiercely proud of his Dad in uniform. He cut such a fine figure, with his clipped moustache and row of medals along his chest, a glossy metal identification medallion hung hidden around his neck.

The Wan Zoreille

After making a brash exit from St Denis – the provincial capital of the French overseas département of La Réunion – the RN1 widens westwards into an anxious dual carriageway road, complete with worrying warning signs and dazzling danger lights. Thus alerted, it penetrates into a skinny coastal strip of strewn boulders that runs in the shadow of an imposing stand of sea-cliffs.

The Good Galleon

Stepping gingerly on Saturday around the dog dejections on the way back from La Poste, I found myself walking in the wake of an African lady. She was sheltering her considerable bulk under a multicoloured headscarf that had been wrapped about her noble prow in such a way as to make her seem taller than she really was.

The white bird’s final flight

Roy’s wife cried more tears into a flagon of grief on the day the great white bird so graceful rose for the last time into the skies.

Caramba, lumbago!

Grin and bear it señor and it will pass, that’s what I always say.  

Fancy a Pint in the Pink Lion?

The pristine interior walls of this pretty pub have been painted a dainty shade of pale prune, the windows are dressed with dainty lacy pinky curtains, the seats are comfortable, set at just the right height for dainty bums to perch upon with decorum. Placed tenderly in the middle of each table are little earthenware pots in which grow poinsettias, sitting atop freshly laundered doilies Made in England.

Le dernier vol de Concorde

La femme de Roy versa une larme de plus dans le grand seau de son chagrin le jour du dernier vol du grand oiseau blanc si beau. D’ordinaire, elle n’avait plus la force de pleurer car à force de pleurer, ses yeux se sont séchés. Elle en était tout de même à son dixième seau…