Writing is a passion and one I have played with for many years. Those stories that I publish are for children but I love writing all genres and just because the words I pen may seem insubstantial or incomplete and may never be sent out on submission, they are still words worthy to be kept and maybe sometimes shared. For when I wrote them, they were powerful pictures in my head, characters that willed to be written and ideas that wanted to live, even if only in my notebooks and never shown.

So, here, with this blog, I will share some of these, for there are many. If you are a writer, it may inspire you to write something new, if you're a reader you may enjoy the characters that I try to bring alive.  

All I ask is that if you enjoy them, let me know.

 Last Hope

    A spark of life sprouted inside my pocket. I’d kept it hidden, for it belonged to another time. But the presence of a stranger amongst us would reignite the courage that had shrivelled with the blight.

    “Don’t judge me by what you see, for beneath the years of dirt which line my face is the flesh of a man who has seen the truth.”

    His words led others to crowd around to listen. The old man moved in his seat, edging nearer to the fire, the only light in the darkness that closed in around us. His hair, thick and encrusted, hung heavy over his shoulder.

    “Traitors led us here,” he continued. “Our forefathers’ greed is why we now fight starvation, why we watched our crops burn and our cattle die of thirst. We saw it coming but we turned our back on truth, but remorse won’t feed our children.”

    He pulled out a small leather pouch from his pocket, opened its frayed cord and sprinkled tiny seeds into the palm of his creased hand.

    “I have new life and there is more where this came from,” he said.

    Gasps and whispers joined the crackle of the flames which warmed our cheeks, chapped from the winds which swept across the barren lands around our encampment.

    “But without rain such hope is useless,” came a voice from beside me.”

    “Oh, but there is hope,” said the old man, catching my eye, directing his words as if to me alone. Hope sits amongst us but she will reveal herself, of that I am sure.”

    I clenched my fingers around the glass bottle of crystal clear water nestled in my pocket.

    It was then that I recognised him, his face hidden now beneath hair flecked with white and skin as weathered as old leather. Those were his eyes, still so pale and blue, as piercing as his words. Now was the time, it had to be. I’d believed him dead, stolen with the others, just another mortal soul to weep for, another tiny piece of our extinction. But my father sat amongst us, a prophet like no other and I realised the truth must be told, before the very last human was allowed to take their final breath.

    I held out the tiny plant, a drop of water like a jewel upon its leaf. I was the last hope of humanity.