Phil Flannery
Bio
Damn it, I'm 61 now, which means I'm into my fourth year on Vocal, I have an interesting collection of stories. I love the Challenges and enter, when I can, but this has become a lovely hobby.
Stories (65/0)
From little things...
Life is full of small moments that make you stop and reassess your way of thinking about life and things or even how you see others. Then you have the monumental moments that knock you to the floor and take the air from your lungs, sometimes they are so bad, you think that there is no way forward.
By Phil Flanneryabout a year ago in Humans
A Letter to Poetry
Dear Poetry, When I try I cannot see the way that you are meant to be. I lean toward the horror show, the fairy tale, the great heroes. I place myself into the midst of every genre that exists, except for yours, that dream escape, where lovers love, and darkness waits, emotions are explained in depth in couplets, odes, Haiku and sonnets.
By Phil Flanneryabout a year ago in Poets
To my far away lover
Dearest one, The days are long without you near, I worry I won’t make the year, so till I see your face again, I think of how our love began. With puppy love the catalyst, our dog leads getting in a twist, that random meeting in the park, led to covert meetings after dark.
By Phil Flanneryabout a year ago in Poets
Safe and Sound
The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own, it was almost me, like that of a twin, the same but not. They were standing in a room that wasn’t mine either. I stared into the eyes of my doppelganger and felt suddenly dizzy, like I was being drawn physically into them. I had to stop myself falling forward. I couldn’t break away from the glaring eyes staring back at me. I could feel their menacing intent.
By Phil Flanneryabout a year ago in Horror
Travel Bubble
December 1967 and Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt was contemplating his next step. Nearing the end of his second year in office, he could have been thinking about the current war his country was participating in, or possible pressures from a strengthening opposition or worse, from within his own party. There had been rumours of an affair which may have weighed on his mind, but none of that was likely bothering him this day. This day was a perfect day, parliament had finished for the year, Christmas was around the corner, and he was at his favourite place in the world, Portsea, on the Mornington peninsular.
By Phil Flanneryabout a year ago in Fiction
Time and tide
Perched in the fork of a mangrove tree, with the early morning sun merely a line highlighting the distant horizon, the urchin watched as the little boat was slowly coaxed to shore by the rolling waves. He had never seen one like it, it was tiny, and he was quite excited by this new thing that the sea had brought him. The most the great ocean ever gave up after tasty, juicy fish was driftwood and random pieces of flotsam that he had little use for. If he couldn’t eat it or make shelter with it, it was useless. Some of the useless things though, were colourful or shiny and he did like to put them around his shelter; he didn’t know why, he just liked it.
By Phil Flanneryabout a year ago in Fiction
Surprise Package
The woman’s body lay diagonally, motionless across her bed, her face buried in her pillow. The fly, which had attempted many times to rouse her from her self-induced coma, had given up and committed suicide in the half empty whiskey glass sitting on her bedside table. Possibly a happy end for the fly.
By Phil Flanneryabout a year ago in Fiction
Arrowhead Mountain
The mountain reached straight up from the floor of the vast forest, tearing a hole through the thick canopy, like a giant arrowhead, poised and ready for the call to battle. Unlike the forest below, the mountain was bare, no life could cling to its jagged surface. Well not quite. In plain sight it clung to the cliff, its wings spread across the face, absorbing the morning sun but reflecting nothing back to betray its presence. The large dull scales, its sharp edges, the unblinking slit of its eyes, the absolute stillness of its body, gave nothing away to even the keenest observer. It stayed there for hours, days, surveying its domain, like the predator it was.
By Phil Flannery2 years ago in Fiction