The plumber did not arrive on time. Later I found out he'd been fishing in Plantation Lake, that place near Kingswood with the wooden shack, boats for hire and nasty looking employees that always gave me the shivers.

Luckily I managed to run the hot taps and circumvented a disaster with the overflow. Called in sick so I could monitor the situation, spent most of the time going between the bathroom, tv and excercise bike.

Tom, the plumber never did fix the problem. He drowned, his line tangled with something the few available witnesses described as 'unexplainable to identify'.

An...

The conversation lasted two words. I survived.

That's what I usually told my girlfriends when they decided to end it with me after trying to deal with my post traumatic stress disorder. Those that began in 'rescuer mode' soon realised I was too much for them. The others that either were in lust with me or maybe after my money decided they would put up with anything if it was worth their while. But they all gave up in the end.

The recurring nightmare felt so real. Long empty corridor, bare walls and concrete floor. I saw him approach, tall,...

I found the ring on the bowling green. Slipped in my back pocket for later as I was in the middle of the tournament. Forgotten after the many rounds of congratulatory drinks. Left on the bedroom chair at night. Fallen out in the morning and rolled under the bedcovering to be found by a very suspicious wife the following day.

She didn't believe my explanation - that I had no idea where it had come from. Her catalogue of resentments opened and recited in a monologue, devoid of tone or expression. I packed my suitcase and went to stay with...

Thank God the image was blurred thought Johnston looking over his daughter's shoulder. She had accidentally found his photo folder, the one he thought had been deleted.

'Daddy, who's that lady?'

'No one sweetie.'

He clicked away and back onto the screen with the cartoons ignoring Joanna's 'but Daddy..........' and turning up the sound. Soon everything was forgotten and she was begging her dad to be allowed to see 'just one more' before bedtime, even though he'd already agreed it was way past her bedtime ten minutes ago.

After she was finally tucked up in bed and gently snoring (sinus...

Lola. That was the name of my new girlfriend. The one my friends all warned me not to get involved with. But of course, it was my life and she had been through so much already.

Bi-polar mother, alcoholic father, maladjusted siblings. Not really surprising Lola cut herself, gambled her benefits on the arcade machines and didn't eat much apart from dried Chinese noodles you boil in a cup.

Now that she knew that someone loved her, all this would change. She could pursue her artistic abilities, finish those novels, sleep at nights instead of watching movies and worry about...

On the journey back from the Reichenbach Falls, Sherlock Holmes began writing his memoirs. The book was sent to a trusted friend and kept hidden until 2013 when it was accidentally found in an attic.

John Watson was clearing out his uncle's house, lugging down old boxes of musty clothes, books and Christmas decorations down the rickety ladder and throwing everything into the skip on the driveway.

The book fell out on top of his paint stained trainers. Something about the handwriting caught his attention. He's just read a book on graphology and thought it would be interesting to see...

My email has been compromised, nevermind, nothing I write or receive is of any importance. The girl on the bench was full of self pity, having one of those 'the world is against me' moments we all get when we have too much free time and not enough to do. Usually by choice as usually there is too much that needs to be done but we prefer to surf the internet, read self help, watch tv or simply drink ourselves to oblivion, overwhelmed at the mess we ignore.

Jodie was a successful fantasy fiction writer, had a reliable good looking...

When I lost my mother in the store, I was only three years old. I can't remember what happened but I still wake up in a sweat most nights, an innate sense of abandonment, as though I have been on a mission to the moon, stepped outside the spaceship for a walk across the lunar landscape and left behind. Terror.

Mother never recovered from her fear. She spent the rest of my childhood in a daze from a mix of prescription pill cocktails, agrophobia and alcohol. Dangerous combinations.

She was currently in a secure medical facility, unrecognisable from the pretty...

I hated the fairy picture. Instead of feeling at peace, secure, happy I always had sleepless nights. Mom sleeping on the floor near my bed, comforting me when I cried out. No matter where she put the picture, in another room, even in the trash, it somehow once again appeared somewhere in my bedroom. Once it was inside my Nancy Drew book, another time under the mattress. The worst time was when it floated from the ceiling right onto my face! I screamed the house down even though I didn't at first know what it was.

The parish priest blessed...

I don't understand why it's so hard to lose weight. I know what I'm doing wrong but can't stop. Multi bags of potato chips, carrot cake with creamy frosting, sedentary lifestyle. I used to be such an active man, always playing some kind of sports, walking at least two hours daily as I hated driving in bad traffic to work. It's not as though I have a void to fill, like many other overweight people. I am happy.

So why on earth can't I change???

Martha, my slim wife doesn't even mind my protruding belly (or at least that's the...