Stories

Connection Lost This story was published in Caustic Frolic’s Spring ’21 edition Was it good for you? I thought I told you to stop asking that. I’m sorry. And I thought I told you to stop apologising. …  That’s better. I’m going to have to send another email to customer service, aren’t I? You’d think […]

Chasing The Dragon was published by Your Life Is A Trip in August 2021. https://www.yourlifeisatrip.com/home/chasing-the-dragon Chasing the Dragon Richard Owen Collins We start walking at noon. The weather is mild. We’ve been obsessively checking the reports the last few days. Some light rain expected, but otherwise clear. This is good. We’re prepared. We lug our […]

The end of the summer always makes me sentimental, so here’s my atmospheric audio novella.

The last installment of the Hiraeth collection. Stevie started and finished every day with music, but, like most people, she struggled when asked to pick her all-time favourite top ten. Top ten anything: artists, albums, songs, lyrics. Too many memories were attached, too many allowances desperate to be made. She couldn’t do it with films, […]

Tap tap tap. It’s time. The spoon on the glass brings the private room to a hush. The twenty-six faces seated at the oblong table turn to see the esteemed Professor Marvin Cockburn, standing, smiling broadly with the anticipation of someone who knows he is about to hear his own voice. Oh boy, how lucky […]

Archie Wright may not remember much these days, but he knows his wife better than anyone. He knows that when she gets confused and irritated the whole world sees it on her face. Her nose scrunches into a hot little red ball, forehead folds over itself, hands just slightly shake, eyes turn cold and hard. […]

This is one of the more personal stores in the collection. You hold it in your hand. The little green nugget. Your best friend. This is the only stable relationship in your life, and it is ending. You will miss it. You have been together for ten years. No one else in your life has […]

This story was originally a short film I wrote for my MA course. It never got finished though, so I reinvented it as a short story. This one is actually quite short. You are not alone. Help is available. Speak to a counsellor today. Samaritans are available twenty-four hours. 116 123 The return of his […]

Here is the next installment of the Hiraeth collection: a story I wrote in a frenzy during the good old simple days of Lockdown One. It was easy forget the fragility of it all, but the fishermen knew. The people and their world: small, transient, breakable. The fishermen needed no reminders. Like true crepuscular beings, […]

Over the last year I’ve done a lot of writing, including a collection of stories set in Wales, entitled Hiraeth. This is a unique Welsh word – a word I’ve read essays on, listened to entire podcasts on – with no direct translation in English. The only word in any other language (I’m aware of) […]