Showing results by author "R. B. Russell" in All Categories

At the edges of everyday life, on geographical boundaries and in the margins of society, certainties and realities can wear thin. And if we find ourselves in such occult and outland territory late at night, we might glimpse phenomena out of the corner of our eye that cannot possibly be there. At such times even the past, apparently fixed and unchanging in memories and dreams, cannot be relied upon. But what happens if we find ourselves passing beyond even these frayed perimeters of life? Can others follow us, or are we on our own?

I spent nearly forty years working for the District Council in their Housing Department, and now that I've retired I look back and wonder whether I wasted my life there?

Up until the moment I approached the door everything had been effortless. My connections from Amsterdam to Bialystok had been on time, and there, at the airport, had been my old friend David to greet me.

My father was one of seven boys and all of them married young and went on to have large families of their own. Consequently I ended up with more uncles and aunts than I have ever been comfortable with, and the number of cousins was almost incalculable.

I had to go outside. The air in the room had grown almost unbreathable from the cloying smoke; a mixture of hashish and incense. Normally I revelled in such an atmosphere, in the artificial light and warmth.

Justin had been humiliated many times in front of his fellow students. On a regular basis they were all made to put their work up on the studio wall for a Criticism, when their tutors would patiently explain exactly how and why their art failed.