Bentham had staged its #Passion every Good Friday since 1631, same script, same hill. The cross was cut fresh yearly from Cadley Woods. In 1998 the woods were cleared for timber, so they used the last tree. Every Easter since, up on the hill, it sprouts, nails and all. Nobody dares move it. #vss365

Dad's retirement card said it was time to #embark on a new chapter. He read it aloud, announcing it to the whole family. Then he bought a boat. It lives on the lawn, forty miles from the sea, and every Sunday he sits in it with a flask and the shipping forecast, happier than I've seen him. #vss365

#vss365 #poetry #bravewrite Her smile feigns light, but she is #stormy, fury coiled; swirling, seething. Resentment gathers as darkness returns him to them— his wife, his child— as though they were the trespassers, and she the one displaced. Grey eyes, silent, shrieking.

Every #storm since 1820 left something on Heysham sands. A bell here, a piano there. The Braids log it. Monday's left a door, upright on the tideline, locked. Meg Braid's house key turned it. Behind was her own hall, waist-deep in green water, barnacles on the radiators. She logged that too. #vss365

little conflicts at the birdfeeder sunday morning rush #vss365 #conflict #senyrusunday

Eternal conflict Staining all humanity The trees bear witness #tHartigan #haiku #vss365 #conflict

My calendar flagged a #conflict. Two entries for Monday, 3pm. One was mine, collect Ellie from school. The other was also mine, the app insisted, created from my account on 4 May 2049. It said: Be late. Let her walk. I've read it forty times. It's Sunday night. #vss365

#vss365 Fate descends Along the silver threads Of a nightfall so opaque Bigger than the whole sky As all our dreams Make hearts skip jump Under and over Rainbows of #marvel Breaking into Dawn Shadows jealous Cling to the cobwebs Of a mind blind in love shrouded by doubt #poetry

The brochure called the dam a #marvel of the age. It drowned Ashworth in 1936: forty houses, a chapel, a school. Joan Pye was the last child on the register. Every dry summer, when the spire shows, she takes the book up to the waterline, calls the names, and waits. #vss365

We rode in armor to #explore: our bathyspheres and starships proof against the elements and stranger things. Behind, lay lies curling in our wake, growing, eclipsing our nobler pursuits. If we pushed ever faster, ever onward, ever higher-- it was because we could never return home again. #vss365

After the stroke, Grandad began to #explore the house each morning like a guest. He admired the barometer. He asked who the woman in the photographs was. Gran told him, every day, and every day he studied her a while and said, "She looks kind. I hope he deserved her." #vss365

Claim form, section 4: list any injuries you did #sustain in the flood. None, he wrote. Section 5, losses: the house, the dog, the piano. Section 6, dependants. He held the pen for a long while, then longer still. The river meandered past the window, wide and dark and almost silent. #vss365

Peat cutting on Withnell Moss will #commence 1 May. Cutters are reminded: dig no deeper than six feet. Should you find a hand, replace the turf and move one yard east. Should the hand be warm and moving, the season is closed. By order of the Commoners, as every year since 1702. #vss365

We’re busy assembling the new issue but wanted to shout about our contributors. Check out these amazing names. Can’t wait to share their brilliant work, as well! New issue drops 31 July - available in print & digital on our website. #followus for more updates #writingcommunity

Remains issue 5 is mailing out now. New fiction by Tim Lees, Matt Flintoff, Aliya Whiteley, David Vonderheide, Rebecca Zahabi, Ray Cluley, Toby Whithouse, plus James Sallis and colour art by Richard Wagner.

Issue 5

NEW! 100 full colour pages of brand new fiction, with art by Richard Wagner fictionSex Lives of the Spirit World by Tim LeesTributary by Matt FlintoffSandcastle Chalet by Aliya WhiteleyInsights by Dav...

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Thank you for the publish @remainsmagazine.bsky.social !!

She still showed him #affection. A hand on his cheek in the dark. Fingers through his hair as he slept. He hadn't told anyone she was dead. After all, if he did, her touches might stop. #vss365

The Dome protects the village. The Maintainers take care of the Dome. But how the Dome works and why it is there is a mystery to everyone in Matt Flintoff's "Maintainer" (Sci-Fi). Continue reading at crypticfrogpublishing.wordpress.com/2026/05/01/i....

The #lunar tide pulled back further than anyone had seen. A mile of bare seabed, pale and glistening. The fishermen found footprints out there. Thousands of them, barefoot, all heading inland. Still fresh. Whatever came ashore during the night was already gone. #vss365

She used to say love was just #trickery. Just hormones dressed up and the glow of the candlelight. He'd laughed. Now he finds himself standing in the cereal aisle, unable to move, because someone nearby is wearing her shampoo. #vss365

The #investiture was held at midnight, which should have been a warning. The crown was warm like flesh when they placed it on his head. Now they said he hadn't removed it in forty years, that it had fused with the bone. That late at night you could hear a hiss from it, almost like breathing. #vss365

The well had been dry thirty years. Then the Macready boy went missing and the #water came back. Clear, cold, sweet. The whole village drank. No one mentioned the boy again. By September, only his mother remembered his name. She went door to door. Her neighbours smiled, offering her a glass. #vss365

The house started to #sink after the funeral. Slow, steady as grief. Nothing seemed wrong with the ground. The priest they finally called knelt, ear to the floor. He said it was feeding. The old man had kept it away for years. Now nothing stood between the house and what the ground was owed. #vss365

The #bank on Hillcrest Road closed in 1983. The roof caved in a decade later. The vault is still down there, open, flooded to the ankle. Teenagers go in on dares sometimes. They all say the same thing. If you stand in the water long enough you can hear a voice, counting quietly, on and on. #vss365

She found the letter in her grandmother's bureau, written in #ink so fresh it smeared when she touched it. Dated July 3rd, 1847. She left it to dry overnight. By morning the ink had crept onto the next page. The new line was addressed to her by name. #vss365

The oak on the village green had a branch that looked like an #arm. Crooked at the elbow, fingers splayed. The children dared each other to touch it. Most did. Tommy never could. Not since the morning he saw the fingers close around a resting sparrow. #vss365

He smiled. The #sand was on the kitchen floor, just like every morning. Always in the same spot. Small footprints, trailing from the back door to his daughter's room. She'd been gone six years. The prints were still her size. #vss365

From the window, I saw the same #man come to the park every morning. He sat on the bench, two coffees in his hands. After a while it was only Saturdays. Then just the anniversary. Last week he came with one coffee and he sat somewhere else. He looked lighter somehow. #vss365

They built the cairn to #exalt the harvest. Each autumn a stone was added. Each spring one was gone. The pile never grew, but the fields never failed. Old Maren saw what took them. Something pale, just before dawn, cradling each stone to its chest like a gift. No one spoke of the bargain. #vss365

Gran called it a #sprite and left milk on the doorstep each night. We laughed. Then she died and we stopped leaving milk. The scratching began on the third night. We never laughed about it again. #vss365