Ginge Reads

You can tell an awful lot about a person by their shoes.  I barely did much wrong, just a bit of lifting here and there but enough to put me in trouble. Grey never was my colour. And yet here I am, shivering on the bottom of a bunk bed with my toe poking out of a hole in my right sock.  Photo by Carles Rabada on Unsplash A pair of Jordans snore above me. A white base with red and black streaks across the tongue and midsole. No one knows what he did – no one’s brave enough to ask. But he’s been here that long you might call the great dent in his mattress ‘memory foam’. A couple of white Nikes follow him around, occasionally punching spider web cracks on a wall that looked at them the wrong way. They’re alright, really, once you get over the low glances.  Six doors down, a pair of muddied, navy trainers with no name. He doesn’t say much, just mumbles to his game of solitaire and whispers when he needs a hit of china white. Fila is in next doors cell, plain whit...

It was the perfect spot, really. Under the bridge between the two stations with the little Tesco express tucked into the side. The hustle and bustle of the city couldn’t help but pass by him on the daily, while the heavy redbrick that he leant against kept enough wind off his back. Of course, there was no escaping the chill of a concrete floor, but he’d been out here that long that the numbing sensation to his rear was more of a familiar friend.  Photo by Cory Woodward via Unsplash Armed with a week-old paper cup from Costa, he slowly emerged from his ragged sleeping bag as the arrival of the first train signalled 6:30am. A stranger had given him his makeshift duvet on a particularly bitter day back in November when the rain fell sideways through the bridge. Probably just an old bit of camping equipment that had been sat in the garage for the past 2 years next to the forgotten gold clubs and mouse-nibbled jump cables. Tracksuit hood pulled up over his head, he crossed his l...

I was born in the British trenches of 1941, to a man that put his pen to work. The spray of bullets and crash of bombs turned to simple white noise as he poured out his heart to me. I creased with the curve of the knee on which he leant, and felt thick desperation run from his heart through to the pen nib. Four long months of separation had taken its toll, and by now he imagined how her belly would have swollen to a considerable bump. As he thought on this, I remember so clearly hearing the loud pounding of his heart through the thin fabric of his uniform. Kicking at a dull piece of shrapnel that lay close by on the muddied floor, his fists balled. What could he possibly tell her about this life? News of the daily suffering was hardly appropriate, and he wasn’t even sure of his exact location, let alone what tomorrow held. I willed him to write on, my bare back a blank canvas for his thoughts. Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash By now the sun was blocked by a heavy m...

You never think it’ll happen to you… until it does. Pine needles pierce my swollen feet as I race through the forest maze. I see my breath roll out in front of me, condensing in the bitter winter frost. My heart is deafening in my ears, and for a moment I am disorientated, the sound of my pursuers concealed by the rapid thumping. There’s three of them. No, four. I can hear their shouts now, and they bark just the same as the hounds that lead them. Shit, they’re close. The thick forestry is enough to dampen the sound of my frozen footsteps, but nothing will cover my scent. They thrive too much on the acrid smell of fear for it to go unnoticed… My pace quickens. Photo by Deglee Degi  on Unsplash I glance back, licking my cracked lips with a dry tongue. My foot buckles beneath me as it catches on a small pile of rock and dirt, and I collapse deadweight into a nearby tree. Falling forwards, I grasp desperately at the thicker branches, using its solid bark to steady...