Short Story: On the breeze with a cigarette

It was nearly the weekend. Dan and I stood in the usual spot, in an alleyway just down the road where the building was almost, but not entirely, out of sight. Between an industrial bin and a parking garage. Dan leaned against the wall smoking. “Smell that. Doesn’t that remind you of last year?” Dan…

On the wisdom of the avocado tree

Spring arrived recently, and as such I have been trying to grow an avocado tree. After watching numerous videos on Youtube that suggest that the process is actually a relatively straightforward and simple one, I assembled my three pronged, alien-like avocado pip on my windowsill. And then just in case it didn’t work I assembled four…

Take your books to the tomatoes

When I was younger, my grandmother made me a little bag. Roughly half the size of an A4 page, it has no zips, no cover and nothing particularly remarkable about it. Every day, I wore it to school beneath my blazer, for it was perfect for slipping books into, and this indeed had been its…

On the Train Towards Tralfamadore

So, for something different....This piece was written as a dialogue between Djuna Barnes' character 'Dr.' Matthew O'Connor, and Kurt Vonneguts' character, Billy Pilgrim. Both Nightwood and Slaugherhouse-Five take place in the historical context of World War II. However, as Vonnegut wrote his novel in the 1960s during the Vietnam War, interesting parallels can be drawn between…