Evan Dottridge
Bio
Currently studying Media / Performance, with focuses on working within the film industry. I enjoy writing the odd short story, and exploring the profusion of wildflowers that the World has to offer.
Stories (10/0)
The Bunker.
Miles from my bunker, thousands of bullets rain from the sky and fools with mouths wide open try to catch them as if they were snowflakes. All for a country that has damned them to a living hell. Damned them to be killed and sent down to the exact same torture. Yesterdays infiltration of the enemy camp was merely a pyrrhic victory. We lost three quarters of our squad during the attack. I barely dodged the reapers grip myself last night; two of the arseholes that hid during the attack stormed our bunker and sprayed a volley of bullets into our bunkbeds. They slayed Corp. Larry and Pte. Amiel as they slept. Luckily, I was still awake during the depredation. I shot them both before their fire could deter downwards. Jerry awoke and cried out in surprise like a kid post-nightmare. Which, I suppose, is what we are. Kids suffering a nightmare.
By Evan Dottridgeabout a year ago in Fiction
Lost Reflections
“This is where we searched last,” noted Sgt. Dayle as they drove along the road out of town. He waved vaguely out the right-hand mirror of his police car. “Other than through this marshland, there’s very few places Thomas could have gotten to. I’m telling you Mrs. Kursley, Worsley Hollow isn’t a big area, and we’ve searched high and low. This marsh on the other hand, it's pretty much endless.”
By Evan Dottridgeabout a year ago in Horror
The Beauty of Wild City Flowers.
A personal hobby of mine for the past two years has been taking walks during the balmy, warm springs and summers of England, searching for wonderful flowers of all shapes and sizes. I take a picture on my camera and then peruse my botany book to see if I can identify the plant. I research its origins, the family of plants it shares a bond with, and other fascinating facts linked with the gathered flower. But, as the curtains close on summer, as the leaves turn brown and crinkled, and the warmth fades to winter, many of the flowers take it upon themselves to bury underground in wait for the next spring year to arrive. Some flowers, however, are a little less quick to scurry. These are the urban flowers.
By Evan Dottridgeabout a year ago in Earth
A Message from Grandfather
The day before her grandfather died, Holly already suspected something about him was amiss. He sat in his wheelchair, staring up at the gauzy white glass that separated the garden from the kitchen, watching the sun rise above the overgrown trees, as he did most mornings. However, this time, to Holly’s visible confusion, he was smiling. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime for Holly, her grandfather showed an expression other than stolidity in his forever aging, wrinkle-ridden face.
By Evan Dottridge2 years ago in Fiction
New Haven
Billy Duff inspected the city, his city, with one squint eye and a mouth that slacked to the right of his face. He held a cigar in the operable portion of his mouth, blowing heady smoke into the dry air and watching it perforate as fine grit sliced into the cloud of tobacco. The sand blew westerly, repulsed by the rising distant rock, and the last patriots of the closing saloons tippled and swayed towards their shacks. One of those drunkards was three footsteps from being one life lived. Billy Duff would make sure of it.
By Evan Dottridge2 years ago in Fiction
A Peaceful Insight to Nature.
Human Beings have a natural and habitual tendency to disagree. Whether about politics, family issues, sports, laws or even colours, we love to brawl in discord over our own opinion. In fact, it seems in modern day society, it would be deemed wrong or inhuman to not carry strong opinions on particular topics. Which is why, throughout my late teens and early twenties, I have been fascinated by flowers - the one redeeming, unarguable quality of planet Earth.
By Evan Dottridge2 years ago in Earth
Chocolate Therapy
I was two years into my fifty-four-year sentence when the ‘Six Week Prisoner Reform Act’ was passed. It was a cold, late January. The frost coated leaves shivered as a cold wind whistled by, and the birds' lullabies seemed melancholic rather than cheery. I was waiting at the back, with my arms by my side, as an assembly of Block D’s disgruntled inmates were shoehorned into the dining room for an impromptu meeting. The prison director was stood on a chair in the centre of the room, the clinic blue prison lights reflecting from his oily bald head. He informed us of the new reform bill and that prisoners across the nation would be trialling this new form of intense rehabilitation. The scheme consisted of “specialised psychological therapy, group healing, and ‘avant-garde’ reform procedures.” Just from the summary I could tell it was a load of nonsensical jibber jabber. We were murderers, sex-traffickers, rapists, the black soil of society. How could petty therapy remedy our traumatic childhoods or malicious past decisions? The naivety was astounding. We were certain that it was just a half-assed attempt at Government reducing jail intake. A large portion of prisoners from my block were chosen to trial the new scheme, myself included. We surmised that it was an arbitrary allocation, though some were convinced there was a systematic selection of inmates done by government intelligence agents within the prison. The people with this notion were your usual wacky, conspiracy-theorist types; wired hair, thinly rimmed glasses, and with more fantasies than a dreaming child. As far as most of us were concerned, those who were chosen were promised a cushy six weeks of talking to ostentatious psychologists in their dandy navy suits and pinstriped ties, who feigned sympathy as we spoke of our traumatic pasts. This was an alarming misconception.
By Evan Dottridge2 years ago in Fiction
Chocolate Reform
I was two years into my fifty-four-year sentence when the ‘Trialled Prisoner Reform Act’ was passed. It was a cold, late January. The frost coated leaves shivered as a cold wind whistled by, and the birds' lullabies seemed melancholic rather than cheery. I was waiting at the back, with my arms by my side, as an assembly of Block D’s disgruntled inmates were shoehorned into the dining room for an impromptu meeting. The prison director was stood on a chair in the centre of the room, the clinic blue prison lights reflecting from his oily bald head. He informed us of the new reform bill and that prisoners across the nation would be trialling this new form of intense rehabilitation. The scheme consisted of “specialised psychological therapy, group healing, and ‘avant-garde’ reform procedures.” Just from the summary I could tell it was a load of nonsensical jibber jabber. We were murderers, sex-traffickers, rapists, the black soil of society. How could petty therapy remedy our traumatic childhoods or malicious past decisions? The naivety was astounding. We were certain that it was just a half-assed attempt at Government reducing jail intake. A large portion of prisoners from my block were chosen to trial the new scheme, myself included. We surmised that it was an arbitrary allocation, though some were convinced there was a systematic selection of inmates done by government intelligence agents within the prison. The people with this notion were your usual wacky, conspiracy-theorist types; wired hair, thinly rimmed glasses, and with more fantasies than a dreaming child. As far as most of us were concerned, those who were chosen were promised a cushy day off talking to ostentatious psychologists in their dandy navy suits and pinstriped ties, who feigned sympathy as we spoke of our traumatic pasts. This was an alarming misconception.
By Evan Dottridge2 years ago in Fiction
The Locked Hearts
On first inspection, one would find New Buxton to be peaceful and discreet. It would strike any mindful traveller as a perfect location to camp for a few nights, away from the turbulence and danger of cities. Hell, given the quietness of the town, it could very well be an irreproachable sanctuary. The wandering visitor would forage for food in the abandoned buildings, search deserted cars in hopes of finding forgotten keys in the ignition or weaponry in the boot, and perhaps prospect drains for rainwater. Inside these drains, rather than potentially polluted water, they would find pipes teeming with bullet shells. A wary eye would notice that some of the shells were crimpled and fouled with residue, suggesting that they had been fired within the past few hours. To the many, as most survivors were not engrained with such military knowledge, and therefor would not notice such nuances, it would simply mean a grand sum of exchangeable goods the next time they encountered an itinerant gunsel. This visitor would scoop up the ammunition, gaze along the main street, saunter through the verisimilitude town in the early hours of the day, listen to birds sing lullabies from leaves coated in rime, and their saunter would become a dance, their mind leaden with happiness. They would remain in such high spirits too. In a world fraught with death, they had found themselves a forever home! That was, of course, unless they happened to stay beyond their welcome. For, if they were to stick around creating a personal paradise, they would not spend eternity there. The Locked Hearts would ensure that.
By Evan Dottridge2 years ago in Fiction
