Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

Life is far too short Days, weeks, months pass quickly by Time will never wait.   Forlorn and unkempt The flowers wither and die Are you still alone?   Can you sense me near? Where’s your final resting place? I cannot find you.

  Tor padded along the blood-drenched walkway. Bodies lay strewn against the white steel walls, missing limbs, but he refrained from temptation and hunger pangs.             When he boarded the ship a month ago, the motion sensor overhead lighting had proven a useful feature but now it was just relentless; an artificial stalker pursuing him through unexplored shadow. He could hear every slight click as a new bulb flickered into life. If he stood still too long, some even whined.             He raised himself onto his hindlegs and turned to a starboard window to marvel at the perfect dark beyond. Deep space, approaching galactic central point. The SS Chieftain was nearing its destination, a planet with inhabitable conditions. As soon as Ulrich had confirmed that the voyage was two months from arrival, Tor had ordered the attack. Not so much a massacre as a targeted deple...

  “Newton, I’m a scientist, damn it! I don’t believe in this mumbo jumbo spiritual nonsense. What are you babbling about, what has gotten into you?” “It’s time.” “Time for what? Curses and Voodoo? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” “Dr Angström, Helga, I am answering the question you asked me to analyse. The recurrence of the year of darkness is confirmed every 250 years since the first recorded incident in 536. There are indications that it may have been active prior to that date but there is insufficient corroborated data to confirm an incident in the year 286 or any time before that.” Papers leapt into the air as I slammed my fist down onto the desk. “What am I supposed to do with rumours, legend and tales of werewolves? This will ruin my career, I’ll never get funding for anything again.” The machine said nothing, blank monitor where a face should have been, stared back with a few blinking lights. I’d made it that way, it could even make smiley faces, to enter...

Diary of Georgiana Newton 16 June 1786, Weymouth   So, we came here, to Weymouth, anyway.  Mother insisted.  She has such high ambitions.  She had heard that, despite the tragedy that had beset this coastline earlier in the year, and the lack of sunlight, the Duke of Gloucester would be in residence in Gloucester Lodge for the summer.  Mother is keen that I should make the acquaintance of his daughter, Princess Sophia, as a friendship with her could be the key to helping us rise in society.  And so, we have spent some dismal days promenading beside the sea, in hopes of making the acquaintance of the Duke’s wife, Maria, the Princess Sophia and her younger brother.  We should usually see the white cliffs to the left of the bay, and at this time of year, at least, some days of golden sun and blue sky, but this year has been like no other I have ever known.  The muddy haze in the sky has never lifted, like a constant storm is brewing.  Moll...