CAKE: An Evenings Event in a Conversation

It’s easy to navigate through the crowd who stare, mesmerised like zombies at the stage slowly shuffling their feet and bobbing their heads in rhythm to John McCrea’s deep grainy voice. They sway ever so slightly to the trumpet’s warm honey-esque melody. I make my way to the front right of the stage.

Today I Find My Rabbit Hole

Without opening her eyes just yet she took a moment to feel the warming of the sun on her skin, her knees, she noticed were oddly warmer than the rest of her body and seemed to be radiating heat. Shifting her hands slightly, the cool silky blades of grass soothingly tickled between her fingers. It was a peculiar day. She could feel it in her core. But the sun, the grass, the soft summer breeze…she was even convinced that butterflies were fluttering not too far above her overflowing golden locks. Almost as if she were part of a stereotypical photo on an album cover promoting some form of flower power, guitar pluckin’, smooth rhyming style of music in a decade where the world was made in Polaroid.

Benjamin Sniddlegrass & The Cauldron of Penguins - Digital Copy

Check out the interview here (p.25): http://issuu.com/trisickle/docs/issue6/1

Make Me Infamous

The diner was pretty much empty. Several folk had come in to escape the torrential downpour, have a cup of coffee and wait for it to pass. A couple sat in the far left corner gazing out the window watching the hard rain beat rhythmically against the panes. Two fat men near the entrance ordered Maggie’s Super Special Saucy Supper and proceeded to devour the tower of syrup-covered starch in motion picture silence. The booth across from them sat three young teeny boppers giggling about their evening’s endeavors sipping chocolate milkshakes and speaking in hushed voices. The long stainless steel bar stretched across the diner with sky blue cushioned high stools screwed tightly into the ground evenly spaced alongside each other.

It all happens around the corner

He wasn't breathing.


Did you touch him?

It was cold.



She looked down examining the worn, chipped edges of the table. With her left hand she slowly traced an old dried coffee stain with the tip of her ruby red finger nail. Looking up slightly, her large blue eyes followed the outline of his strong, clean shaven jaw and up towards his pulsating temples. His slick blond hair looked out of place over his dark beady eyes. Pearls of sweat glinted on his forehead.
They sat in silence.
He attempted to get some sort of story, he needed to know what had happened. At this very moment, she was the only witness. He had to hear the truth before the police caught her and beat some lie out of her. Yet, her eyes were blank. No fear, remorse or regret. Not even any joy. Nothing. She stared blankly at him as if waiting for a stagehand to remind her of what her memory had blocked out.

Mykanea (a snippet from the full story)

With his eyes fixed on the body, the ‘to do’ list rolled off his tongue as if he gave this speech frequently yet this was his first murder case. Deaths, accidents or attacks were generally due to technical disagreements or experiment malfunctions, but easily resolved. As he stared at Dr Karn’s body there was something that stiffened his muscles as the pit of his bowels became an explosion of emotions he never even knew existed. The city had become, within a few hours, unsafe. A claustrophobic panic swept over him as he followed Micha out of Karn's office and watched as she shuttled herself to the conference room.

Incase you didn't know me

In the cold month of December long long ago, before wifi and swine flu, a baby girl was born.
Whilst her parents corrupted her with education, vegetables and rock’n’roll music, her older siblings, on the other hand, convinced her that meat tasted like bubble gum, ‘because I’m older than you’ is the ultimate answer to everything, yetis do exist, and that you always blame the brother or sister that isn’t present.