On our way to school a large house sulks behind a chain linked fence.
A smartly-dressed lady sits in the garden, surrounded by weeds.
I often raise my hand in greeting.
She never waves back.
Bill says she’s a witch.
Or maybe a ghost.
I think she’s just sad.
…
“I’m an apha male.”
He’s serious, she realises.
Keeping a straight face she asks what that means.
“You know,” he says. “A hunter gatherer type.”
She imagines him stumbling through a forest following animal tracks and laughter escapes her.
“You can’t even find what you’re looking for in the fridge!”
She enjoys making bread.
The smell of the yeast invokes summers spent with her grandmother.
Nanna loved to share her passion for baking with her granddaughter.
There was laughter and singing as they kneaded together before drinking homemade lemonade on the step, the dough growing behind them, a living being.
…
This is the two-hundred-and-fifty-third story in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.
This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account.
Hive is a blogging platform that rewards posts in a cryptocurrency (Hive).
You will find over 70 more Humpbuckle Tales on the @humbuckletales Hive blog (so this blog is about 6 weeks behind)
On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).
On HumpbuckleTales.com I also publish 12 tales a week but at a different schedule (and about 6 weeks behind): 2 Tales every day, Monday-Friday and 1 Tale on Saturday and 1 Tale on Sunday.
…
“Why am I here?”
“You’ve suffered a breakdown. We’ll help you get back onto the road to recovery.”
“You make me sound like an old car. Change my spark plugs, give me an oil change and I’ll be as good as new. Is that it?”
He laughs.
“Something like that.”
…
This is the ninety-fifth story in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.
This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account.
Hive is a blogging platform that rewards posts in a cryptocurrency (Hive).
You will find over 70 more Humpbuckle Tales on the @humbuckletales Hive blog (so this blog is about 6 weeks behind)
On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).
On HumpbuckleTales.com I also publish 12 tales a week but at a different schedule (and about 6 weeks behind): 2 Tales every day, Monday-Friday and 1 Tale on Saturday and 1 Tale on Sunday.
You can watch the author read the first 22 Humpbuckle Tales on YouTube or you can listen to it as a podcast.
…
Already saddled with debt and bad memories, that poor boy falling through the ice and drowning is the final straw for Lady Kemp.
Selling the Manor for below market value she declares herself bankrupt.
Those she had thought of as friends abandon her.
She dies alone in an unheated flat.
…
This is the ninety-fourth story in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.
This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account.
Hive is a blogging platform that rewards posts in a cryptocurrency (Hive).
You will find over 70 more Humpbuckle Tales on the @humbuckletales Hive blog (so this blog is about 6 weeks behind)
On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).
On HumpbuckleTales.com I also publish 12 tales a week but at a different schedule (and about 6 weeks behind): 2 Tales every day, Monday-Friday and 1 Tale on Saturday and 1 Tale on Sunday.
You can watch the author read the first 22 Humpbuckle Tales on YouTube or you can listen to it as a podcast.
…
Two hundred years after the fire that almost destroyed the Manor, the current Lady Kemp sits in the Drawing room. Pike, the butler, places a letter in the wire basket beside her.
She learns her husband’s been killed in France.
She later finds he has left debts she cannot pay.
…
This is the ninety-third story in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.
This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account.
Hive is a blogging platform that rewards posts in a cryptocurrency (Hive).
You will find over 70 more Humpbuckle Tales on the @humbuckletales Hive blog (so this blog is about 6 weeks behind)
On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).
On HumpbuckleTales.com I also publish 12 tales a week but at a different schedule (and about 6 weeks behind): 2 Tales every day, Monday-Friday and 1 Tale on Saturday and 1 Tale on Sunday.
You can watch the author read the first 22 Humpbuckle Tales on YouTube or you can listen to it as a podcast.
…
Lady Kemp’s brother, Joseph, takes over the Manor, after she dies in childbirth nine months after the death of her second husband.
For almost half a century peace reigns in Humpbuckle-on-sea, until Christmas 1825. A kitchen fire almost burns the Manor House to the ground, killing four people.
…
This is the ninety-second story in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.
This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account.
Hive is a blogging platform that rewards posts in a cryptocurrency (Hive).
You will find over 70 more Humpbuckle Tales on the @humbuckletales Hive blog (so this blog is about 6 weeks behind)
On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).
On HumpbuckleTales.com I also publish 12 tales a week but at a different schedule (and about 6 weeks behind): 2 Tales every day, Monday-Friday and 1 Tale on Saturday and 1 Tale on Sunday.
You can watch the author read the first 22 Humpbuckle Tales on YouTube or you can listen to it as a podcast.
…
Lady Kemp, widowed, now mourning the death of her son, is wooed by Richard Webb, known in court as the Spider Man.
He dislikes Humpbuckle-on-sea and constantly insults the town and its people.
He is found three weeks after their marriage hanging from a tree overlooking the ocean.
…
This is the ninety-first story in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.
This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account.
Hive is a blogging platform that rewards posts in a cryptocurrency (Hive).
You will find over 70 more Humpbuckle Tales on the @humbuckletales Hive blog (so this blog is about 6 weeks behind)
On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).
On HumpbuckleTales.com I also publish 12 tales a week but at a different schedule (and about 6 weeks behind): 2 Tales every day, Monday-Friday and 1 Tale on Saturday and 1 Tale on Sunday.
You can watch the author read the first 22 Humpbuckle Tales on YouTube or you can listen to it as a podcast.
…
The patient enters. He appears calm.
Everyone smiles.
“You look well, dear,” his mother says.
His eyes fixed on the psychiatrist, he doesn’t acknowledge her.
“You!” he shouts. “You killed them!”
A nurse manœuvres him out of the room.
“Still delusional, I’m afraid.”
The psychiatrist’s lie overrules the patient’s truth.
…
This is the tenth in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.
This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account – at the time of posting this I have just published the 16th Humpbuckle Tale there. On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).
If you prefer the drip drip drip approach keep coming back here for one 50-word tale every day!
On Monday 18th October I will be posting an author reading of the first 10 stories (up to and including this one). It will be available here, on youtube, as a podcast and on Hive. If all goes well I plan to post author readings of 12 episodes at a time every other Monday.
Thanks for reading!
“Rain!” Simmons barks.
“Sorry sir?”
“A funeral needs rain! It looks better on the evening news.”
John is the Mayor’s “fixer”.
He feels more like a punchbag: given impossible tasks, slapped down when he inevitably fails.
The sky is stubbornly blue.
Not one cloud.
“Can’t fix the weather,” he whispers.
…
Humpbuckle Tales 