by James Webb
High in the mountains was a gem mine, owned collectively by several villages in the region. The mine was worked by a single man who, twice a year, would travel from village to village, distributing the precious stones that he had worked from the earth.
Clickity clickity clickity click. Michael’s hands rolled across the keyboard like an express train. On the screen in front of him the numbers spontaneously appeared in the grid. Cause and effect. Read more
“I haven’t seen you at the shelter recently.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I don’t see much point these days.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think I believe it any more. To be honest, I don’t really see how you can believe it.”
“What do you mean? You’ve given up your faith?” Read more
For years I had been labouring under the illusion that I should write short stories, because they were less work than writing novels. I can tell you now that it doesn’t matter how long your story is, a short attention span is a bad thing regardless. Something changed for me last summer, when motivation aligned with idea and I spent the last months of 2018 hammering away at my keyboard, trying to churn out at least one thousand words a day for my magnum opus, the book that they would plant at my grave instead of a headstone. By the end of November I had finished my first draft, just over 120,000 words that were all arranged in an order that told a story. Then I did what any writer worth his or her salt will tell you to do – I walked away from it for a while. Read more
One Saturday, many years ago, Ruth and I were travelling to London by train. We were sitting, waiting for the train to depart, when a couple and their young daughter got on. The man found a seat, but the woman stood by the open door, finishing her cigarette. The young girl, who must have been maybe five or six years old, began to speak Read more
There you are, just sitting, living your life and minding your own business, when there’s a knock at the door.
You get up and answer it.
It’s Jesus. He’s got a parcel for you. Read more
A while ago I had an idea for a short story that went under the name ‘A Balanced Diet’. It was about a boy who has a revelation whilst listening to a talk at the church that his family attends. The talk, aimed at children, was on the book of Job, and the revelation is this: If you’re really naughty then God’ll get you, but if you’re really good then the devil gets you, as Job experienced. Read more
The other day I was walking aimlessly around the church building, and I found myself wandering down a corridor I had never been down before. I’m not usually the adventurous type, but I thought I’d see where it ended up. At the end of the corridor was a big, thick, old wooden door. As I said, I’m not the adventurous type, but I took a look anyway.
The door opened into a large room, and it was absolutely full of people. There were all kinds in there, old and young, men and women. Anyone that you could imagine was there, and they were all busy with something. There was a group of people painting the walls, and a group of people setting out chairs, and a group of people cleaning the carpets, and all sorts of things going on.
I thought they must be preparing for some type of church service or something. Everyone was working so hard, and the room looked amazing. I mean, it’s hard to get the feel of a room right sometimes, but these people had nailed it. The way that everything was set out, the colours of the walls and carpet, the clean windows, the smell. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it was without a doubt, hands-down, the best room I had ever seen anywhere in any church ever.
I stood in the doorway watching them work for a while. One of the painters ended up near me, meticulously applying some magnolia to the wall beside to the door.
“What time does it start?” I said.
“What?” he said without looking at me. He was giving all of his concentration to the painting.
“The service, or whatever it is you have here. What time does it start?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“It must be soon though? The way everyone’s working so hard.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Well, how long have you been doing this?” I said.
He stopped painting long enough to shrug. “A while. Days. Months. Maybe longer.”
“Months?” I looked around the room. All these people working so hard. For months? “But it shouldn’t take months to get a room ready, should it?”
“The wall could always do with another coat,” he said. “You know how it is. You’ve just finished and then you notice a patch that needs touching up. A fingerprint or smear that needs covering. It’s the same with the carpet. And you’d be surprised at how much work has to go into getting the chairs just right.”
“But why?” I said.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Why are you doing this?”
He finally turned his attention to me. “Because the room has to be ready. We have to work hard to get the room ready. It’s the way to please God.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yeah,” the man said. “God wants us to work hard. It pleases Him. Then we get to go and be with Him forever.”
“Huh,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”
“That’s how it is. Would you like to join us? The guys in the kitchen could always do with one more. There’s just so much washing up.”
“No,you’re alright,” I said. I looked at the watch I wasn’t wearing. “I think I’ll be going now.”
“It’s your soul,” said the man. He went back to his painting.
I backed out of the room and carefully shut the door. As I turned to leave, I saw the sign above the door. It was quite small. I hadn’t noticed it before. It read ‘Welcome to Hell’.
The disciple sat down, cross-legged and attentive, at his master’s feet.
“Teach me,” he said.
“Let me tell you a story,” said the master.
“There was once a man who had two sons. The eldest son was clever and handsome, while the youngest son lacked all of his brother’s gifts. However, being clever and handsome does not necessarily make you a nice person. The older brother teased his younger brother mercilessly, mocking him for his lack of intellect and good looks. The younger brother didn’t always understand his older brother’s jokes, but he knew when he was being made fun of, and he tired of this quite quickly.”
“One day the younger brother decided that he’d had enough, and that he was going to take his belongings and leave home. ‘I’m going to just walk and see where my feet take me,’ he said, and off he went.”
“So, on the first day, he just walked in a straight line. But something strange began to happen. He was amazed to see that, as he passed, the animals of the forest were leaving their woodland homes to follow him.”
“On the second day, he kept walking, and the trees of the forest began to uproot and join the animals following him.”
“On the third day, he kept walking. As night fell, he noticed that the moon and the stars in the sky were also following him. Why was this?”
“I don’t know,” the disciple said.
The master smiled.
“These days, you don’t need charisma or intellect. You don’t even need to know where you’re going. These days, if you just look like you’re walking with purpose, the whole world will follow you.”
I’m currently working on a project where one of the main characters has to make her way through an underground cavern where there was no light. She was supposed to feel her way through the darkness, towards the exit. It marks something of a transition for the character, like all clumsy overused metaphors in stories do. But a strange thing happened while I was writing the scene. I threw in a line that just felt right and it totally changed things. You see, it turned out that she wasn’t alone in the cavern. She was supposed to be alone, but the story wasn’t happy with that. It turned out that, in the blackness, she wasn’t alone, and that made things much more interesting. Read more
