John-J Anderson

Putting into words what grief currently feels like would be a pointless exercise, I feel empty and hollow on my worst days - devoid of all purpose and my usual hobbies bring me no joy. On the better days, I can feel grateful for what we had with Angel and realise how lucky we are to have cared for such a wonderfully loving cat well into her senior years.  That is the thing about grief, it doesnt just end. It lingers and festers in little memories that felt happier before and now create little rocky lumps in your chest when you think about them. I still keep the bathroom door ajar when using it so Angel can poke her head in, I still swivel around on my desk chair when writing (or trying to write) to get her input, I still roll over carefully in bed knowing she might be between Tan and myself and I still hear her knocking around when I sit quietly in the flat. Her memory is still here, that energy of absolute love doesnt just evaporate the second they leave our lives.  I dont wa...

Angel passed away on this Tuesday 11th at 12:30 in the afternoon. She held on long enough for Tanya and I to rush to the vets and be by her side, we gave her bum massages like she loved, deep head scratches that still even then made her eyes close in delight and gave her all the kisses that she deserved. I will always be thinking about you, my little baby dinosaur. I feel like something has been ripped away from me, I will miss her every day and selfishly wish I had one more day at home with her to cuddle up on the couch and feel her purring away in my hands.  I am taking time away from the writing and the website for a while. If you have your own animals at home, please give them a cuddle and appreciate the time you have with them.

The Man Made of Mosquitoes   I saw the crackling, the taste of static on my tongue. The lights burst on the back porch. Night air became a vacuum of silence and fizzing menace. Circular shapes held together by fractured broken colours exploded and disappeared. My eyes struggled to make them out. They are out   of place. In the wrong time. - The chill held a silence that hurt the inside of my skull. It was unnatural to exist within. Could this be the rapture. Some heavenly messenger. If the Christians have it right this could be a bad evening for me. The colours continued to appear and fade with popping lights. Illuminated the ground momentarily. I had not realised how tightly I gripped the wooden railing; splinters began to intrude into my clammy palms. But how could I care, this was alien, the light show before me, it was arching thrashing colour alive. - Loud pops descended upon me, the atmosphere surge into violence. Then a shape of...

Release By John-J Anderson The river grew black, glowing with the faint spectral petals of ghostly pale hands reaching up from the depths, unable to break the surface, trapped in a sodden muddy prison of breathless torment. Cries echoed out through the desolate landscape surrounding me as I dug my bare feet into the crumbling soaked winter banks. “Release me from this nightmare!” Adding malice to misplaced anguish, the whippings winds that howled through my ears and drew up spiky grey hairs upon my limbs. Shrouding the night sky that had grown tired with a black cloaking mass of cloud, the darkness held a canopy of withered tangled tree limbs. They danced against the stars as though orchestrating the events unfolding just below their reach. Nature succumbs to the forces of dark splendour that danced on her soils that evening. With sudden disarray, the river ceased its tempest storm of crashing waves and became deathly still. Frozen as a solid block of obsidian, as though the arrival of...