Tag Archives: the daily cabal

New Story at The Daily Cabal

A Monkey in the Hand – Part 2

How could I resist? A Galatea to my Pygmalion – but something infinitely more intriguing than an ordinary woman.

I’d read about sailors who’d caught a mermaid in the South Seas and tried to bring her back to Portsmouth. They kept her in a barrel of water on the deck, but it seemed she
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The Frog Prince – The End Bit

Tad was feasting on the last of the cold roasted carrier pigeon. Felicity did her best not to gag. He let out a great froggy burp and leaned against the padded chair with a satisfied air. The princess took a deep breath.

‘Tad, we need to talk.’

‘Oh, no. You’re froggist, I knew
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New Story at The Daily Cabal – The Frog Prince: The Bonus Middle Bit

Five days later and Tad showed no sign of getting bored or homesick for his pond.  He left a mess in his wake, ate enormous amounts of food, snored like an earthquake, and kept blowing kisses at Felicity when her parents weren’t looking.  The final straw came when she walked into the
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New Story at The Daily Cabal

The Frog Prince

She was never a big fan of the castle pond.

It lay at the fartherest corner, hidden by scrubby shrubs, and gnarly trees that dropped leaves into the nasty brown water. Frog spawn clung to the edges of the pond like an unfashionable necklace. Really big spiders waited for short-sighted flies. Pretty awful, all in
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Even Better than Bacon Patches!

What cheers you up even more than bacon patches? Seeing stills of the movie that’s been made of one of your short stories, that’s what! Huzzah. And creepy thing is: the dead girl looks exactly as I imagined her in my head when I wrote the story.

Sisters is based on Sunday Drivers, which appeared at The Daily Cabal.

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An Impromptu Story at The Daily Cabal

A Monkey in the Hand

In retrospect, dear reader, it was a mistake.

I should have known. Mere days after I finished the mech-monkey, I found it dissecting its real-life counterpart. Pinned it to the table with my set of German-engineered scalpels, and taken it apart. The dirigible from Stepney Marsh was running late, so when I arrived home with a sack
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New Story at The Daily Cabal

Brisneyland by Night – Part Six

I broke a panel of glass in the front door and let myself in. Ziggi, on lookout duty in the cab, studiously ignored my break and enter.

I crept along the long hallway to the kitchen. A door in the pantry floor was open. I guess when you’ve got a glamour around your house and you
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New Story

… at The Daily Cabal … Wish

I sit on my favourite rock at the edge of the lake and watch the girl with the clever fingers. She has come to ask a boon and knows there’s a price. I am uninterested, for they all fail.

A leather satchel is clasped in her arms. When she reaches the edge of the lake,
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New Story at The Daily Cabal

‘Shoulda worn a better hat,’ says my sister.

‘Yes, thank you,’ I reply, a little testily. ‘Hindsight is twenty-twenty.’

‘Hey, don’t get cranky with me. I did not do this.’ She makes a sweeping gesture with her hand.

Stones as far as the eye can see, big and small. Stone statues, that is.

‘It could have been worse,’ I venture.

‘How precisely?’

I think about it.
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New Story at The Daily Cabal: 'Bone and Breath'

They lured me here with promises of marriage. The best of men, the greatest of warriors was to be my husband.

We left my brother and sisters behind, taking the lightest chariot, the fastest horses, my mother and I. Chrysothemis and Elektra wept, covering their face with grief at our parting, but I saw their eyes, rich and dark with envy.
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