THERE'S NOT MUCH YOU CAN DO WITH 180 CHARACTERS...OR IS THERE?

Thursday 21 July 2022 / Leave a Comment

 


There’s not much you can do with 180 characters…or is there?

      One fine day, I came across a post on social media that went something along the lines of – Nostalgic for my first proper boyfriend in the 90s. We had no money and would buy second-hand answering machines from charity shops, get stoned, and listen to the old messages.

     Which made me not only feel nostalgic for those plasticky, crappy, tinny machines of yesteryear, but gave me a whole host of Lynchian, Blue Velvet style ideas for a story.

     A year or so later, I’m delighted to say that I not only wrote that story but that it has just been published by the good people at A Thin Slice of Anxiety magazine.

 

Here’s the opening scene:

 

We met at a house party. Wary as I was of the situation – teenage girl getting chatted up by a much older boy – I’d seen him around town before. I knew he had a bit of a reputation – trouble with the police, shoplifting, selling drugs – pretty much the holy trinity for anyone in their early twenties. Maybe that was the attraction.

       “You fancy a smoke?” he asked.

      “Yeah. All right. Why not?”

      We went and sat in an empty bedroom upstairs. After much trial and error, both in keeping the joint alight and trying to smoke it properly, I not only got stoned for the first time, but really enjoyed it. I just couldn’t stop laughing. But more than anything, it was the first time I’d ever really been alone with a boy like this. Course, I’d had snogs and stuff with lads round mates’ houses, fumbles in darkened rooms when their parents were away for the weekend. But I don’t think I’d ever been in what you could call intimate surroundings before. ’Cause, inevitably, I s’pose, we ended up kissing, sharing these soft tender smooches. And it was all so lovely and new to me, so different from having some sweaty, panting seventeen-year-old groping roughly at your tits or trying to force his hand in between your legs.

      “Hey,” he said, “you wanna do something tomorrow? Maybe meet up in town ’bout lunchtime. Hang out. You’re a top girl, Georgina. I really like your company.”

     And that’s how the whole thing started between me and Will Crabtree.

 

If you want to read more, the story can be read in its entirety on the ‘A Slice of Anxiety’ website. Click on this link: http://www.athinsliceofanxiety.com/2022/07/fiction-my-legendary-boyfriend.html?m=1

And if you’re still hungry for more, why not check out my published work at amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neil-Randall/e/B00JYXI862/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1




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