Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

Outside the cornershop a dog had died.  The heat had accentuated the stench bleeding off the carcass. Some number of flies had made it their new water cooler. Discussing filth, presumably. Across the road, in between the impatient footsteps of city-ridden mental illness, I saw two pigeons. One slightly larger than the other, with a lighter hue of that bluish grey they possess. He looked well-fed; well, as much as a city pigeon could.  In Bournemouth, in the gardens of the house to some Victorian eccentric expatriates, styled with old stone, vines and exotic flowers to look like a narcissian stage, a certain pigeon had once paraded the lush koi pond, adorned by gentle fountain faucets and hydrated foliage. He was a royal-looking pigeon, their Prince on his travels, a young Siddhartha but with vanity and less commendable intentions.  The pigeon on the London road that day could have had this beauty; he was lucky to only have the few scars. Behind him was a smaller one, jet b

The bulbs of the Empire, a proscenium preserved in aspic, flashed out the name of my first show. Some would say it was not ‘my’ show, that I was just the scriptwriter, but authors are tyrants and I knew it was all me, me. I walked round to stage door with a feeling that, although everyone down here on the city streets didn’t know I’d written the Empire’s newest musical, if they hadknown they’d have revered me very much, and this lent me the power of a dormant volcano. I entered stage door and – OH! – what a sight. At the desk sat a short hairy man who harrumphed and curtly asked me my name. He was a sprite. Standing near, three or four bored ushers who were clearly waiting for Cassandra Fleming-King or Walter Godolphin, to harass my beautiful actors with flattery. ‘Molly Mead,’ I said. The sprite scribbled it down. ‘You’re the writer, yes? You know you don’t need to come backstage, you can just take your seat for the…’ ‘I’d prefer to have a word with Cass and Walter first,’ I s

She kissed me like a tender touch of the rainy wind and vanished like the moon behind a dark curtain of clouds her love was just a dream like the dying sunset kissing the evening skies then she vanished like the wind romancing the sea waves in the immaculate beauty of the romantic night. Her love is just like the moonbeam kissing the elegant sea waves smiling from a distance as the seagulls sing a new anthem of love from eternity to eternity. by Gideon Cecil