Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

‘Stop, you will hurt yourself.' He doesn’t answer, just moves away towards the greying landscape surrounding the fairytale-like castle we had booked a room in for the weekend. ‘Please Dan, slow down.’ He catches himself suddenly and turns. ‘I will be back in five minutes, I just need some air to clear my head.’ ‘Ok, but the glass. Do we tell the hotel?’ ‘Leave it. They won’t notice or care, it’s an old window.’ He walks off but I follow. ‘Wait, I'll walk with you. I'm sorry if what I said brought this on.’ ‘It’s not just that, it’s everything.’ ‘I do understand some of what you are feeling but if you could only talk to me a little bit more. You never say much about your work and when I day-dream with you it’s only because well, it’s natural isn’t it, when two people are in love to dream about doing things together.’ ‘There are just some things I can’t do and don’t dream about, that’s all.’ We walk in silence for a while. ‘...

A Cafe Aphra contributor recently sent us the links to two excellent articles from The Guardian newspaper . ..  Now, to be honest, I'm a bit sick of reading endless lists of other people's 'Rules for Writing' at this point.  But even I have to say this made for fascinating reading - if for no other reason, because of their diversity, which shows me that in fact, there are no rules.  Or at least, that the rules that work for one writer don't necessarily work for another.  At all.  And I enjoy that. ;) Have a read and let us know your thoughts! This is Part One... Part Two to follow. Rules for Writing from everyone under the sun (Part One)

"Oh God, yes!" His favourite: her on top wearing no more than UGG boots, a push-up bra, blonde plaits and a succulent lipstick smile. Bustluscious, callipygian, Swedish and young enough to be his granddaughter, he'd fallen for her at once. She'd fallen on his money just as fast. His empty whisky glass sat next to his pill organiser, tonight with a weekend pill bonus. He liked to plan these evenings. She turned around, leant forward with her hands round his wrists, and sucked his toes, one by one. His favourite. That should do it. "Oh God, yes!" She'd been planning this evening for over a year, for when the prenup expired. Her carefully positioned fingers felt his pulse become erratic: the effect of her and the whisky and the weekend pill; the non-effect of placebos she'd switched for his medication. One more round of the toes should do it. "..." by Kevlin Henney First published as part of NFFD's F...

The red-brick walls smell of rain, fingers run across the cracks breaking mud. We hold hands, my brothers and I, searching for that yellow light of comfort. The naughty one tugs at my hair, I slip him a sweet rock. We see her. Clad in a peacock sari, our mother waves a smile. She has brought us chickpea sandwiches. They call us in. A brown leaf falls. The lady in black: 'The children shall stay with the father as requested by the mother'. A hush spreads the message. She feeds us with promises, and he promises love. Later that night, tucked in together, the night lamp is my blanket.  by Ajay Nagaraju Photo by A. M. Yeager

Raymond had been the cook in Denny’s Diner for 10 years. He knew the regulars, and what they ordered. He started preparing Vince’s two eggs, sunny side up, two rashers of bacon and side of hash browns a few minutes before he normally got there, so it was ready for him when he sat down at the table by the door. This wasn’t just about customer service, more to make sure that the orders didn’t stack up. Because of this, and the fact that most of their customers were regulars, Ray never got too busy, which suited him just fine. He’d returned from Afghanistan minus his left foot, replaced by a Government issue prosthetic number, which had given him a shuffling gait that he’d now got used to. The owner of Denny’s, a hard-bitten woman called Joanne, had given him the job partly, he thought, out of pity. He was never away from the place, because the job came with a room and shower out back, and because he had nowhere else to go. At nights he got to sleep with the help of half a pint of B...

Isobel’s mother had played bridge every afternoon of the week except Tuesdays, which she devoted to her husband when he retired. He did not play, despite having heard a hundred times her mantra: “no-one should go into Old Age without being able to play bridge”. He played golf or pottered in his shed. So, when Isobel and her husband Mark retired and downsized to a new town in the Cotswolds, history seemed to be repeating itself. Mark joined the large local bridge club to do the only thing that he and his mother-in-law had ever agreed on. Isobel had been a bridge orphan and now she had become a bridge widow. She didn’t play golf like her father or do gardening. The downsizing had been traumatic. However, she knew that she must make a life for herself, so she did her best to settle into the small house which was to be home until senility, arthritis or incontinence dispatched her to the Sunset Eventide Care Home. Deep down she had always realized that Mark would have liked her to par...

Not that I don't want to walk the streets with you. But when I sit on a suspended turtle shell hanged from risen arms and don't think it's magic is the issue. It should be magic. We walked through spider webs. Middle-school basketballers howled like playing wolves behind us. A rock split and whizzed past us like a meteor: hurled through space and time to find us here and still barely missed. Thousands of light years on the pin of a needle. Striking sandy bits of gravel. Clanging like dropped silverware. The fridge is packed with eggs inside. Vodka lives frozen but still fills glasses topped with orange juice. They swirl and marry happily and end in a bathroom, anyway. As if chocolate swirls in ice cream didn't represent the arms of the galaxy. Comets made of custard and fairy dust move in high speeds and travel in circles smaller than us. I know at great range there is someone else I will barely miss. ...