You know that old expression about no such thing as a free lunch? Well, it’s baloney. If you like a free lunch, you’ve come to the right place, for here you’ll find a free lunch, brunch and dinner. 100% free chapters and excerpts from my three published works to date.
Lucky was published in February 2004. Its print run sold out some time ago. Watch this website for news on future reprints.
Johnny Hazzard was released in hardback in August 2005, and in paperback in November 2006. It has its own website which you can take a look at here. Or check out the trailer below…
Read chapters from Lucky here, and from Johnny Hazzard here.
THE FEATURED FREEBIE
is an excerpt taken from The Blanket, published in This Is Push : New Stories from the Edge
*************************
I’ll tell you the thing I hate the most.
It is an inane, ignorant, and incorrect phrase that grown-ups – those who are supposed to know better – throw around casually. Every times I hear it, my face contorts itself into a deflating balloon. My frown goes south and begins to eat up everything below it, my eyes pop out of my head, and I twist my mouth and bite my lips. i cannot help it. I hate this phrase more than anything. More than cucumbers or minced meat. More than James “The Dick” Head, aggressive and gangly and who picks on everybody at school. More than football. More than Sundays.
“School days are the best days of your life.”
That is the biggest cheap of crap I have ever had the misfortune of hearing, and it is always said with such a smug “I-know-better-than-you” smirk.
I am thirteen years old, not tall, not short, and not amused. My favourite food is not pizza.
Kids at school call me emo. I call myself Luke.
I go to school, like every other kid in the world, because I have to. I do not understand when my parents and other grown-ups complain about their jobs. At least they are paid. I have to spend seven hours a day listening to bored, frustrated teachers driveling on when I know their minds are on other, more important things, and I don’t get a penny.
The only good thing about school is that I cannot fall asleep there. I do not like going to bed anymore. Sleep has become the enemy. Sometimes I drink three cups of coffee and put on a really good DVD to keep me up. Sometimes I go to school after just half an hour of sleep the night before. I spend the whole day tired, and the next evening I sleep like twelve hours, which can be fine, but it can be awful. Because of the dream.
I do not understand the dream. It is stubborn, and scary, and so very strong. Last night was the third time in two weeks. I knew what would happen. It was always the same. Every time it is the same. It doesn’t matter what has happened that day, or how happy I have been, for the dream is identical. But I still do not understand. This is not a nightmare. It is far worse than that. A nightmare ends when you wake up.
I see myself walking along a country road. The road is narrow, flanked by carefully trimmed hedges, behind which roll fields and fields of perfect green. It is a green so bright and precise that it looks computer-generated. The day is not overcast. Butterflies and dragonflies the size of small birds flit about carelessly. I am always wearing a black T-shirt, rather old, long, dark green shorts, and square, black sunglasses. I like the way I am dressed in the dream.I walk down the road, unsure of where I am going. The road is unfamiliar but it feels safe. It is summer, after all, and the sun brings happiness.
This picture of perfection lasts for a couple of minutes. Then, quite suddenly, the blanket appears. I have learned to be fearful the minute I see myself in this dream, walking down the country road. I know the happiness is fake and temporary, and my sleeping self desperately tries to wake my dreaming self so that the blanket won’t ruin everything. Because that’s what it does. It ruins absolutely everything, sapping energy and converting joy into misery, peace into panic. It doesn’t care. It shows no sympathy, no mercy, no remorse. I wis I could somehow wake up. But I know it is no use. And now, ever since I started having these dreams, I am deeply suspicious of any moment of happiness in my real life. Each and every time something very cool happens – like meeting a new friend, or a girl fancying me, or even just being told by a teacher that my essay is good – the feeling of pride, of excitement, of plain happiness is quickly followed by a weird, scared feeling. The dream has taught me never to trust something good, because, just like the beautiful sunny walk down the country lane, it is bound to be replaced suddenly be something awful. I hate the fact that I can’t trust happiness anymore.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Like what you read? You can read the entire short story, and loads of other great ones by fellow PUSH authors, in the anthology. Buy it here.
