[{"id":3226,"link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/an-autumn-love-story-told-in-the-last-days-of-summer\/","name":"an-autumn-love-story-told-in-the-last-days-of-summer","thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/neverwhere.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/pexels-photo-1274220.jpeg?fit=1880%2C1254&ssl=1","alt":"woman standing outdoor holding smartphone"},"title":"An Autumn Love Story, Told in The Last Days of Summer","author":{"name":"Alan Preece","link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/author\/alan-preece\/"},"date":"Jul 26, 2025","dateGMT":"2025-07-26 10:42:04","modifiedDate":"2025-07-26 15:56:40","modifiedDateGMT":"2025-07-26 14:56:40","commentCount":"0","commentStatus":"closed","categories":{"coma":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/short-story-collections\/thenewsletter\/\" rel=\"category tag\">The Newsletter<\/a>","space":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/short-story-collections\/thenewsletter\/\" rel=\"category tag\">The Newsletter<\/a>"},"taxonomies":{"post_tag":"<a href='https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/tag\/short-story\/' rel='post_tag'>short story<\/a>"},"readTime":{"min":7,"sec":0},"status":"publish","excerpt":""},{"id":3120,"link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/lucid-a-very-short-story\/","name":"lucid-a-very-short-story","thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/neverwhere.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/1_2OJ7AE8076R7_SQgnOebTQ.jpeg?fit=1400%2C933&ssl=1","alt":""},"title":"Lucid [A Very Short Story]","author":{"name":"Alan Preece","link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/author\/alan-preece\/"},"date":"Jan 24, 2024","dateGMT":"2024-01-24 14:04:14","modifiedDate":"2025-07-26 15:54:10","modifiedDateGMT":"2025-07-26 14:54:10","commentCount":"0","commentStatus":"closed","categories":{"coma":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/stories\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncollected Stories<\/a>","space":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/stories\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncollected Stories<\/a>"},"taxonomies":{"post_tag":"<a href='https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/tag\/short-story\/' rel='post_tag'>short story<\/a>"},"readTime":{"min":10,"sec":55},"status":"publish","excerpt":""},{"id":3117,"link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/lifes-adventure-a-short-reminiscence\/","name":"lifes-adventure-a-short-reminiscence","thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/neverwhere.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/pexels-photo-571249.jpeg?fit=1880%2C1253&ssl=1","alt":"brown metal playground during golden hour"},"title":"Life's Adventure [A Short Reminiscence]","author":{"name":"Alan Preece","link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/author\/alan-preece\/"},"date":"Jan 24, 2024","dateGMT":"2024-01-24 14:04:03","modifiedDate":"2025-07-26 15:52:33","modifiedDateGMT":"2025-07-26 14:52:33","commentCount":"0","commentStatus":"closed","categories":{"coma":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/stories\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncollected Stories<\/a>","space":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/stories\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncollected Stories<\/a>"},"taxonomies":{"post_tag":"<a href='https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/tag\/reminiscence\/' rel='post_tag'>reminiscence<\/a><a href='https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/tag\/short-story\/' rel='post_tag'>short story<\/a>"},"readTime":{"min":7,"sec":3},"status":"publish","excerpt":""},{"id":3113,"link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/summer-sun-winter-sun-a-very-short-story\/","name":"summer-sun-winter-sun-a-very-short-story","thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/neverwhere.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/1_XIGYtRPqtIeGoMmomtz5tg.jpeg?fit=1400%2C933&ssl=1","alt":""},"title":"Summer Sun, Winter Sun [A Very Short Story]","author":{"name":"Alan Preece","link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/author\/alan-preece\/"},"date":"Jan 21, 2024","dateGMT":"2024-01-21 21:01:58","modifiedDate":"2025-07-26 15:51:29","modifiedDateGMT":"2025-07-26 14:51:29","commentCount":"0","commentStatus":"closed","categories":{"coma":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/stories\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncollected Stories<\/a>","space":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/stories\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncollected Stories<\/a>"},"taxonomies":{"post_tag":"<a href='https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/tag\/short-story\/' rel='post_tag'>short story<\/a>"},"readTime":{"min":6,"sec":44},"status":"publish","excerpt":""},{"id":2479,"link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/three-a-very-short-story\/","name":"three-a-very-short-story","thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/neverwhere.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Red-Boxing-Gloves-Background.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","alt":""},"title":"Three [A Very Short Story]","author":{"name":"Alan Preece","link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/author\/alan-preece\/"},"date":"Jan 20, 2024","dateGMT":"2024-01-20 14:54:55","modifiedDate":"2025-07-26 15:46:33","modifiedDateGMT":"2025-07-26 14:46:33","commentCount":"0","commentStatus":"open","categories":{"coma":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/stories\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncollected Stories<\/a>","space":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/stories\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncollected Stories<\/a>"},"taxonomies":{"post_tag":"<a href='https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/tag\/short-story\/' rel='post_tag'>short story<\/a>"},"readTime":{"min":5,"sec":13},"status":"publish","excerpt":"When he was asked, he always answered with what he thought was a lie. It never occurred to him to do anything else. The lie popped from his lips automatically, fabrication on automation.\tThis time it was a reporter for local radio who had clear blue eyes, but he remembered nothing else about her. When she asked the question and he replied with the lie. Then she smiled and asked a follow up, but he was ushered on and he raised a glove to her in salute.\tThe square circle received him, and though there were spectators he saw little of them. The lights blurred their faces, and they were little more than blobs of grey in the darkness beyond the spotlights glare. He had learned long ago that this was a good thing. He knew that often their cries were just socially accepted bloodlust, no different from the reaction to gladiators from a bygone era. They could only be a distraction, and any distraction would result is his loss.\tThe Fighter slipped off his robe, blue with gold trim. The trim had originally been a trio of plaited threads that ran around his robe, and down the seam of his shorts. One night he had spent four hours picking off one thread until only two remained. That night his fingers felt raw, and one fingertip bled, but when he saw the duo of gleaming gold remaining he felt far better for it.He shifted from foot to foot, swinging warm up blows to an imaginary opponent, and thought of his Grandfather laughing at his labour. He shook his arms, and waited. There was no pomp and circumstance here, he had far further up the ladder to climb before that would be a burden. Here there was a darkened gym, the smell of sweat and smoke, and the occasional dark smear of dried blood.\tThere was a murmur and across the gym a square of light folded open as a door let in his Opponent. He knew the other man’s name, knew his reputation, but he would acknowledge neither. From when the bell rang to when it chimed in the fights conclusion he would acknowledge nothing that marked his opponent as anything more than that; his Opponent.\tThe Opponent climbed the steps and through the ropes, and the Fighter took an involuntary half-a-step back. There had been a mistake. There was a whisper in his ear and he almost swung out, but caught himself. It was his Second, his words intelligible, the Fighters brain slipping into the familiar flight-or-fight space where words had no meaning. The fighter looked at the Opponent again. Did the man step over the top rope? No, the Fighter clearly remembered him ducking under the third rope. Was he sure about that? He seemed far too tall to have slipped under any of the ropes, far too broad to fit between them.\tHis Second held out his black gum guard, and he bit down on it. His tongue slid over the slick plastic, and he wriggled his lips until it was slicked with his saliva. He chewed on the guard gently until it sat as it should, and he felt more at home.\tIt doesn't matter, the Fighter told himself, and then he told himself his lie.\tThe referee stepped out of nowhere, waving the men forward, and the Fighter dutifully complied. He didn't hear the words, he knew where to nod and when to touch gloves. It was ritual, nothing more, and when he looked into his Opponents eyes he saw that they were not blinking from the lofty heights of a giant, but from the height of a normal man.\tHis heard his Second leave the ring, and three of them remained.\tThree people.\tThe number stung, and – again – he told himself his lie.\tHe took a step backward and then turned into his corner, only turning his back when he knew he was far from the Opponents reach. There were only seconds now, the last few seconds that would remain coherent before the bell. Then the adrenalin would rush in, and those seconds would degrade from an ordered march into a jumble of moments.\tA round lasted three minutes, with a respite of one before another one hundred and eighty of these fragmented seconds – these broken moments – would descend.Three.\tThree people died every second, of every moment, of every day. His Grandfathers face flashed before his eyes. One round seeing the final breaths of over five-hundred people. His Grandfathers breath harsh as it rattled through tubes. Twelve rounds, a minute between them.\tForty-seven minutes, two-thousand, eight-hundred and twenty seconds.\tEight-thousand, four-hundred and sixty people gone.\tWhen the first punch hit him, it stung far less than the knowledge that so few lasted the distance.The Fighter beat the average, four rounds. Nine minutes and thirty-six seconds. Five hundred and seventy-six seconds in all, with no more than fifty of them making any sense. Any plan had evaporated less than a minute in, leaving him at the mercy of his instincts.\tThankfully, the Fighters instincts were good, humans were apex predators for a reason.\tThe Fighter saw his Opponent favour his left side, it was nothing more than a drop of the glove, a meagre twist of the body as he approached, but it was all the Fighters instincts needed. His mind drew a circle around the second rib up, and with each punch he imagined the rib splintering.\tHe did not want to win by concession, the proverbial throwing in of the towel, but a win was a win, and the Fighter was not a proud man. Well, that was except for the lie of course, he knew the lie was a matter of pride.\tThe reporter with the clear blue eyes met him ringside, and this time he noted that her hair was short, shaved along one side in a fetching cut. He did not hear her words, but he knew what was expected of him. As his second busied himself with the Fighters’ split and bruised skin, she asked the question and he told what he thought was his lie.\t“Nah,” he said, “life moves too fast to feel afraid.”\n      \n      posted by Alan  Preece\n      on November, 10"},{"id":2499,"link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/the-little-things\/","name":"the-little-things","thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/neverwhere.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/1_jYhSDjGQ6XsRsSwXB4Rj1A.jpeg?fit=1400%2C933&ssl=1","alt":""},"title":"The Little Things","author":{"name":"Alan Preece","link":"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/author\/alan-preece\/"},"date":"Jan 20, 2024","dateGMT":"2024-01-20 14:54:55","modifiedDate":"2024-01-21 21:59:26","modifiedDateGMT":"2024-01-21 21:59:26","commentCount":"0","commentStatus":"open","categories":{"coma":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/stories\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncollected Stories<\/a>","space":"<a href=\"https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/category\/as-a-writer\/stories\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncollected Stories<\/a>"},"taxonomies":{"post_tag":"<a href='https:\/\/neverwhere.co.uk\/tag\/short-story\/' rel='post_tag'>short story<\/a>"},"readTime":{"min":7,"sec":0},"status":"publish","excerpt":"The memories that persist are sometimes not the memories you would expect to. They are not necessarily the life changing moments that dwell in the back of your mind, sometimes they are the little things, things that seem small when examined, inconsequential, but they weigh enough to break the strongest back.\tOne moment I find myself drawn back to again and again is one such memory, a little thing that should have been easily forgotten, but persists and haunts even to the point where genuine misdemeanours could be forgotten behind its shadow.\tI was born on a winter’s day in 1970 to a mother who was little more than a child herself. When she should have been contemplating her life, a child was growing inside of her that would eventually dictate it. As – I suppose – all children must to their parents.\tAssuming, of course, that their parents are good ones.\tWhen the child was born, she became an embarrassment, as I suppose the child did as well. They were expelled from the family and the little girl, now a mother, was forced to grow up faster than she should have been.\tI suppose that it’s right that someone must pay for their mistakes, but when that mistake is loving a child enough to bring them into the world in spite of all the negativity surrounding the act, it’s a mistake I’m very willing to forgive.\tOf course, I’m biased.\tExtremely so.\tSo, this little girl worked to raise the money to give her boy a life. Taking work wherever she could, working two or three jobs, or more if she were able. Cleaning houses of a morning, shopwork of an afternoon, only to retire back to her tiny apartment where she worked her fingers raw with needle and thread.\tEventually the family relented and after many trials the little girl was once again back in the fold. I don’t think this made the little girls’ life an idyllic one, as I think a family bond can be as much a burden as a release, but family – as we all know – is family.\tThe baby grew during this time of course. By all accounts, the little boy was a strange child, introspective and sometimes much older than his years. Sometime later his mother told him a tale that illustrates this.\tWhen returning home from work the mother purchased a bag of penny sweets, a mixture, and when she placed them in the boys hands on returning home the little boy threw a tantrum, as they were not to his liking, and the young mother – little more than a child herself remember – had a moment of justifiable anger.\tShe took the bag of sweets from the child and threw them on the back of the fire.\tThen something interesting happened.\tThe child’s tantrum ceased, and she watched the boy’s eyes moved from the burning bag to her face and then back again. Then the child nodded, once, as if acknowledging something, and after that day he never threw another tantrum. An understanding had been forged, one without words. Actions have consequences, sometimes immediate and unchangeable ones. The child learned, and the mother was pleased and more than a little surprised.\tBut this is not the “little thing” of which the title to this piece refers.\tUnfortunately, the “little thing” that weighs on my mind happened much later, when I was still young but old enough to know better, which – I suppose – is why my actions still sting. This tale, in conjunction with the previous one, illustrates something that the boy would not learn for a few more years still. Even though as a child he was already a living example of it, and he grows more of an example with every passing year.To put it plainly, sometimes youth is not foolhardy, and there’s often little wisdom with age.\tIt was 16th November 1984, and it was a Friday. Back in the early 80’s Tuesday was new release day, when new movies would see the shelves of rental stores, so the movie that my mother had rented had only be out three days.\tI can picture it clearly, even though I was oblivious to it all at the time. She must have heard about the release, possibly from someone at work, and had made an infrequent visit to our local video store without my knowing. She had brought the movie home and had waited until I was distracted long enough to slip it into the player and hit the chunky rectangle of plastic marked “play”.\tI can imagine her grinning inside with anticipation, knowing – just knowing – how happy I would be when I saw the name of the movie across the top of the screen as the copyright notice scrolled below, as was the style on videos from CBS\/Fox. She would sit back and watch my utter joy at seeing this movie for the first time, a movie I had not seen on the cinema a few years earlier, even though I had been desperate to.\tOf course, this is how it all happened; right?\tNot quite.\tThis is the “little thing”.\tI had been watching something on TV at the time, well, not really watching it, but it had been on. It couldn’t have been anything important because what it was is the one detail I have never been able to remember. So, when I realised the TV had changed channel I reached forward and hit the button to put it back. Even as I saw the title of the movie fade in and a part of me knew – knew with utter certainty – that I was making a huge mistake, I still hit that button.\tAnd when my mother said to me, “But its Empire Strikes Back”, I turned to her and spat out the words, “I don’t care.”\tI…\tDon’t…\tCare…\tPerhaps you think this is a silly tale, perhaps you don’t see the point of it. Perhaps you think there are such evils in the world that the silly insensitivity of a thirteen-year-old boy isn’t anything to get concerned about. Perhaps you think this is just what you’d expect from a little boy.\tPerhaps you’d be right.\tBut not when that little boy was me, and not when the person I was so insensitive to had once been the little girl who put her very life on hold when she knew I was growing inside her. Not when the first thing she did when she knew she was pregnant was buy a large piggy bank, one made of China and glazed a deep black, so she could save money with which to treat me. Not when her faith and love had never wavered.\tIn this case, those words were a weapon.\tMy regret was instant, though I’m certain I did not show it, and this regret remained.\tI honestly don’t think it ever went away, and if it ever did it didn’t travel far. It has been a constant companion, a strange little shard of self-imposed childhood trauma. Nothing a therapist would see much of a point in treating, nothing most could see any toxic value in at all. But it’s my personal poison, concocted specifically for my DNA.\tI sometimes think I should speak to my mother about it, apologise to her, but I knew what she would say. “It’s nothing Alan,” she would smile – perhaps even laugh – and continue, “it doesn’t matter.”\tShe would not do this to dismiss my feelings, she would do it because she wouldn’t understand the depth of them. She knows she doesn’t understand me as she would wish to, and to her great credit she has never pretended to. She would say this because, to her, it would be nothing, it was one small cruelty in a lifetime of small, and not so small, cruelties.\tBut it does matter, it may be a little thing, no larger than the needles she used so skilfully all those years. Little, like those needles that would litter the floor of her workshop at home, tiny shards of metal that may draw blood, but could do no lasting damage. But to me, the memory is like a needle in my blood, just waiting to stab me in the heart.\n      \n      posted by Alan  Preece\n      on April, 27"}]