(First published by Flash Fiction Magazine January 4, 2017) By Michael Bloor The trees should never have been planted in that place: the slope was too steep for a mechanical harvester. Alan’s father reckoned they had been planted in the 80s, as a tax-dodge, with no thought of selling the timber. Now the Estate wasContinue reading “The Rogue Spruce”
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The Carpet Circular Affair
(first published in Platform for Prose, Nov 1st, 2016) Michael Bloor For want of reading matter (other than the label on the sauce bottle), I was reading the story in my gran’s magazine. It seemed that Madeleine, a nurse with a mass of dark curls and a pretty retroussé nose, had been initially drawn toContinue reading “The Carpet Circular Affair”
Happy Birthday, Dear Madame Blavatsky
Michael Bloor (first published in Ink Sweat & Tears Oct 15, 2016) She didn’t think things could get much better. Madame Blavatsky blew out all the candles on the cake, closed her eyes and wished. Each of the encircling adepts then extinguished their own single candles. A cloud crossed the lambent Sicilian moon, she breathedContinue reading “Happy Birthday, Dear Madame Blavatsky”
The Rime of the Globalised Mariner. In Six Parts (with bonus tracks from a chorus of Greek shippers).
Michael Bloor Seafarers International Research Centre, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom First Published in Sociology, 47: 30-50, 2013 Part I It is a global Mariner,And he stoppeth one of three.‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,Now wherefore stopp’st thou me? ‘The centre’s doors are opened wide,And Bourdieu got it right:Consumption lendsContinue reading “The Rime of the Globalised Mariner. In Six Parts (with bonus tracks from a chorus of Greek shippers).”
Twenty Pounds a Completed Interview, Plus Expenses
Michael Bloor (first published in Fictive Dream, Nov. 13th, 2016) It’s a week since Kate and I had the row. It started at a far-away station (Kate’s reverse parking) and picked up more and more momentum en route – my old leather jacket, the joke I told at Kate’s sister’s wedding, the snore wars, theContinue reading “Twenty Pounds a Completed Interview, Plus Expenses”
The Aberdeen Kayak
by Michael Bloor (first published in Breve New Stories, Vol 1, Issue 1, January 2016) Sometime between 1700 and 1720 (accounts vary) an Inuit man landed in a kayak near themouth of the River Don in Aberdeenshire. The fishermen who found him put him in a cartand took him to a nearby cottage, where heContinue reading “The Aberdeen Kayak”
Michael Bloor 