Online Works

We would like to give you the opportunity to see your work published on our website. It can be any type of creative writing: a poem, a short story, a monologue etc. Our Readers and Writers panel will select the work to be published on the web every two months. If you’re are interested in submitting your work – please send it by email (max 1000 words) to: readers&writers@oldham.gov.uk

The Last Supper - Colin Bishop

I am not going to say that this story is completely true. I am only repeating it as my cell mate Pinocchio gave it to me. If you knew what I was in here for then you would probably turn and walk away. I swear to you on my mother’s grave that this is exactly what he told me last
night and not a word of it is a lie. Now my mate Pinocchio is
doing time for burglary, although he swears he is innocent.
As he was returning late one night from an evenings entertainment, he happened to find a house that was unlocked. Pinocchio being a civil sort of fellow stuck his head round the door, to enquire weather the occupants knew they had made such an error as to leave their front door open.

What he saw was a scene to make the heart grow cold. Two old gents sat opposite each other at a candle lit table, like a couple at a restaurant only one was dead in a pool of blood and the other dieing. The strangest part of all was that they were identical twins. Alike as two peas in a pod or as if some on had placed a mirror in the centre of the room. Fair gave old Pinocchio a turn and he almost called the police. Well we all have silly notions in moments of stress. The guy at the table looks like he hasn’t got long to live and he beckons Pinocchio over as if he has something to say. It seems only right to listen to a dieing mans last words.

It transpires that the table has been set for the brothers 50th birthday celebration, the same as it has been for at least 35 years. The twins shared a passion for fine food that came from their father a celebrated chef at the Chesterton. This was really their only similarity for in ever other respect they were as different as day and night. One was quite, studious and polite the other boisterous, mouthy and with little regard for learning. Their lives took very different paths. One became a high powered lawyer with a beautiful wife and three gorgeous children. An apartment in the city with all the trappings of success. The other drifted from job to dead end job with a turn inside for petty theft. It is however a quirk of nature that twins share a gift that few can know. They are born with a soul mate, two halves of the same being, one single egg that divides. They have a shadow that feels the same feelings and even thinks the same thoughts. They will always have another who understands exactly how they feel. This gift didn’t seem to apply in this case and as the years passed the twins drifted further apart. They seldom met aside from the yearly birthday banquet.

The celebration started out simply enough with the best food and wine they could afford. Each brother bringing a course to the banquet which over a period of a few years began to become competitive , each sibling vying out do the other with the most exquisite dish. As time passed Edgar the older of the two twins became more prosperous as his career blossomed. He found he could order what ever he wanted from the finest restaurants in Paris. Birds nest soup; Larks tongue in aspic and other delicacies which left Alan the less affluent of the brothers in an awkward position. He was working as a park attendant at the time on a pittance and so availed himself of nature’s bounty. For a while he held his own with squirrel tureen, baked badger and foxtail soup.

Year on cruel year Edgar, found he could easily raise the ante. MasterCard in hand he brought shark, barracuda and ray from across the seas to their dining table. This was enough to drive Alan to distraction until he found an advert for a job at the London zoo. The description called for a cleaner but Alan knew it was a golden ticket to the world’s best stocked larder.

For the next ten or fifteen years the twins attended the strangest feasts on earth. Antelope would follow elephant or Zebra onto their plates. Bears paws dripped with honey, Armadillos lay, golden on a bed of fricassee rice. Creamed koala brains served in the skull were offered as desert. The table groaned under the weight of an ostrich stuffed with swan, woodcock, pigeon wren and ortolan. The twins ate their way through every species of animal they could imagine.

As they say every good thing must come to an end and as the pair approached their 50th birthdays they seemed to have exhausted every conceivable dish. It became a chore to try to construe a new course after so long, and difficult to find anything that would surprise or delight the palate. Edgar found he was busier with work and family life, Alan felt sure he was under suspicion at work after the staff had found a dead snake in his locker. He felt sure that if he was going to be fired that he would have at least one more good meal. That was when his eye fell upon ‘Graham Souness’ the Royal Bengal tiger. He knew that he would never get the beast out of the zoo. However he surmised if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain then the mountain must come to Mohammed.

The evening of the feast found Alan stretching a fishing line across the steps that led down to his crummy basement flat. He sat in the house until the appointed hour which brought Edgar clattering down to his door with a broken neck. Alan opened the door and dragged his sibling into the shabby kitchen, where with a little light sautéing he provided a most agreeable steak

for Alan’s supper. Alan was in truth a little disappointed to find that having eaten all that wonderful food down the years his brother just tasted like stringy chicken.

After dinner Alan decided that all he had to do was to dress Edgar in his Zoo uniform and leave him for ‘Graham Souness’ in the tiger enclosure. He knew that his employers would think it was Alan who had died and he would not be missed. Alan though could then take up the reins of Edgar’s life. He could see how it felt to have a wonderful life with a wife and three terrific children. A beautiful place to live and money to burn. As he began dressing his brother for his final journey, Alan came across a note in his pocket that made his blood run backwards. It read as follows:

Dear Alan

I know things haven’t been great lately. What with work and everything. I have probably neglected you and I really can’t think of anything thing to cook tonight.

I am depressed. My wife hates me the kids are foul and the job is dull. My life is a hollow sham.

I know that you have been thinking about eating me so I have taken rather a large amount of poison before coming to dinner. I do hope you understand, I can’t bear to be with out you.

All the best

Edgar

That is really the end of the story. I swear it is exactly as Pinocchio told me. As to weather it is true or not you will just have to ask him yourself. You can’t miss him; he’s the guy with the really long nose.

Desperation - Carol Higgins

Desperation drives a frenzied mind to want to maim and kill for a political cause

Inhalation

Desperation drove thousands of people to march in London 2002 to stop what was thought of as an unjust war in Iraq

Frustration

Desperation drove country people to meet outside parliament to protest against a no more cruel sports law

Confrontation

Desperation drives the younger generation to fight against the known system

Exasperation

Desperation drives a family unable to afford the television materialistic Christmas to resort to huge credit card debts

Commercialization

Desperation finally drives opposing sides to sit down and talk

Mitigation

Desperation drove women of long ago to stand up and fight for equal rights and the right to vote

Emancipation

Desperation drives groups to sit down and join together to work things out

Collaboration

Desperation sometimes drives a mind to unlimited

Inspiration

The Summer Solstice - Carol Higgins

Will we miss the minutes now,
The midway of the year has passed
Each day only by two the light,
Quietly slips away.
Shortest night and longest day
We should enjoy it while we may

This time of year informs humans,
That when growth is present then growth must fade.
Where sun shines bright,
You will always find there is shade.
Balance stretches way beyond our shores,
In northern parts the summer light shines bright,
Way across the world,
They are experiencing dark night.

The labyrinth of life a puzzle to unfold.
From human to animal,
From mighty oak to wayside fern.
From where we start, eventually we return.
Maybe we should realize and learn.

We do not always notice,
That the nights are drawing in.
Until we find teatime light has gone.
The missing minutes accumulate,
Before our light filled eyes,
It is as if by some secret miracle,
We reach dark nights in October skys.

The End - Margaret Meehan

Laura stood, shivering violently. It was enough that it was the coldest winter day for years – 10 below they had announced on the radio that morning – but her tiny pink skirt and crop top were hardly suitable for the weather and her feet were bare and fast turning blue as she stood aghast in the snow at the side of the garden path.

She leaned against the doorjamb carefully avoiding the well-trodden ice on both the path and the doorstep; her streaked blond hair had collapsed over her shoulders, shards of ice from the frozen drainpipe at the side of her littered the ground and blood seeped sluggishly from the gashes on her feet from when she had slipped and from the grazes on her fingers. Shudders continued to rack her body, painfully thin with the ribs visible just above her waist.

The icicle hung from her right hand as she gazed down in disbelief at Terry’s body that lay with its head in the narrow hallway while the sock covered feet were on the path. She noticed the ominous, dark hole on the left side of his chest and started to retch.

Lifting her left hand to her mouth she edged past the dreadful figure, glancing nervously to the side. She walked down the dark hall, skidding in the vindaloo vomit that decorated the otherwise clean floor. As she did her skirt lifted slightly revealing finger shaped bruises on her thighs and the end of a long, curling red weal.

She made it to the kitchen in time. She dropped the icicle into the sink and then allowed her stomach to empty. All that came was a mess of green and yellow bile and a foul taste. She ran the tap to clear the sink, took a glass of water and sipped warily.

Reluctantly she returned the way she had come. The door to the sitting room stood open and the combined smells of the night oozed out. There was curry and beer, tobacco and male farts and an indefinable atmosphere of indecent excitement and fear. The video Terry and his mates had been watching was still playing. Laura tried to shut her ears to the squeals and groans. She noticed the belt over the arm of the settee and her already pale face whitened. She tugged her skirt down.

Her attention was drawn again to the open front door. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and straightened her shoulders. She picked up the phone and dialled 999.

As soon as it answered she gave her name and address. “There’s a man dead,” she said and hung up.

Laura went back to where her husband lay, gazing sightlessly at the sky. She sat down at his side, curling her legs underneath her, hot tears burned down her cheeks and her voice came in a broken murmur.

“Oh Terry, my love, my darling, why did it have to be like this for us? Why did it have to end this way?”

Solstice -Rod Whitworth

The darkening days are now
And coldness spreads from deep inside
To chill my world.

Life’s storms do make me bow
And look for somewhere I can hide.
My hopes are furled.

I steel myself to make the choice
About the road that I must go,
While we are half a world apart.

Then wires and chips bring me a voice
That makes me think of all I know
To speed the pulses of my heart.

It pushes back the dark and night
To bring the sun, and warmth, and light.

Petty Crime - Rod Whitworth

Alice looked at herself in the big mirror over the bath.

To her surprise, she looked no different. She had wondered whether, now she had done it, her smile might have returned. It had not.

She studied her reflection. She had been one of the taller girls at school, but this was no longer noticeable in a world where each generation was taller than the last. Her short-cropped hair, on the border between mousey and blonde, showed more and more grey. Her narrow face, with its long nose and hazel eyes, seemed very plain to her. Her waist, hips and legs had thickened and gravity had had its way with her bosom and upper arms, but not in any exceptional way.

In fact, she had never stood out in a crowd - except when she smiled. And she had not done that for some years.

The bathroom always looked bigger than it was, an illusion created by the big mirror, the white tiles round the bath, the white-painted rough plaster of the rest of the walls, the white cupboard doors and the white bathroom suite. Even the floor tiles were pretending to be marble. And Alice’s long winter nightie was white.

The red was splashed on her hands, on her nightie, on her feet. It was on the nail scissors she clutched.

Where could she put them so no-one would find them? Where could she put them so no-one would find them? The question drummed and drummed in her mind.

Eventually, recognising her panic, Alice started to slow herself down.

She breathed deeply and started to think what had led to this.

The problem was Eric’s pettiness. There really was no other word for it.

Things like running the car down the drive and onto the road before turning the engine on; like taking the battery out of the living room clock every night to make it last longer.

He had not been like that when the children were young and Alice was not working - when money was a bit tight. But over the last few years, the pettiness - there’s that word again- had come to rule his life and to wear her spirit thin.

Now they were both so close to retirement, the thought of spending all day, every day in that mean environment had dismayed her. She had resolved to leave him, and was even beginning to plan for that.

But that was not to be.

That night, after her bedtime ablutions, Alice had returned to the bedroom to find Eric in bed, the curtains open and the room in darkness. She pressed a light switch. Nothing happened.

“This light’s not working.”

“I’ve taken all the bulbs out.”

“What?”

“Well, with the curtains open, we can use the light from the street lamp outside.”

“What about when I’m getting undressed?”

“Stay on the far side of the room. With no light on, nobody will be able to see inside.”

“How am I going to see to put on my make-up?”

“I don't know why you bother with that. Who do you think’s going to look at you?”

That was when everything changed.

She groped in the drawer of her bedside table, pulled out her nail scissors and launched herself. By the time he realised what was happening, she had struck several times. He tried to grapple with her, but she had already hit an artery.

She felt no pity as she watched him die.

The question came back to her. Where could she put the scissors so no-one would find them?

It was then that she realised there was no point in hiding them. With the mess she had made, she had no chance of getting away with it. She was going to go to prison.

Now she smiled. She would be all right. After all, she had spent the last few years learning how to live in a petty regime.

Alice let the nail scissors fall to the floor and dropped her nightie on top of them. She had a shower, dressed, put on her make-up and phoned the police.