Charles Heath's writing blog

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: I was not one for naming flowers but the ones growing in front of me, what looked like part of a maze, were hydrangeas.  I knew that because my mother grew them in her garden, but not on the same grand scale at this horticultural masterpiece. I tried to guess how long it would take to build as sophisticated a maze in an acre.  Too long.  And it was distracting me from the conversation that didn't really interest me. I told her I didn't care about the fellow she'd hit, and floored, though it gave me a little pleasure to see him laid out and by a woman no less. This was despite the fact I knew she was very effective in self-defence and hand to hand combat.  She had cajoled me into joining her for one of her training sessions, and that's where I discovered she was a formidable opponent. But, in spite of that, and other warning signals now going off in my

I'm back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written. The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I'm not very good at prioritising. But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn't take long to get back into the groove. An unlikely ally? “Wait.” It seemed that I had managed to scare her.   Either that, or she had decided to be a little more forthcoming.   I stopped and waited until she caught up.   I was nearly at the top of the stairs. “Look, I have to go back to my people, and I’ll get them to look into those two people you don’t seem to trust, who were they, Nobbin and Severin?” “I don’t think you want to do that.   You start making waves, your people will send out feelers and they’ll get to hear about it, and they will know exactly where it came from, and it’ll come back and bite you.   For your own peace of mind, I’d let the sleeping dogs lie.” She seemed over-eage

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: I had just attended a spirited discussion about portals to other realms, and how these portals were considered to be found in rocky outcrops, even more so if it was man-made and dating back to the dawn of time. Normally, it would not be my first preference of an evening out, but I was literally dragged along by what I was now beginning to believe to be my girlfriend after several months' long whirlwind friendship. She was if anything, crazy in a good way, but impulsive, kind-hearted, and hard to read.   It was why I had spent most of my time with her guessing as to what her feelings towards me were. I still didn't know for sure. But... We were heading towards the hotel we were staying in, staying in the same room for the first time, and the relative silence was a first for her. Until she said, "Do you think it's true?"   She was referring

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way. Whilst I have always had a fascination in what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war. And, so, it continues... Chiara knew the moment she told Martina that one of the Germans was dead, she would be in trouble.  Not only from the resistance but from the British or whoever they were, up at the castle. The man’s name was Eric Carmichael, and he was a nice man, more of a boy really, having not suffered the full effects of a front line.  He wanted to, but the Gods, as he called them, were against it. Now he was dead. He had come to the farm, told she was not there and had left again.  The pity of i

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: A friend, or rather an acquaintance, if mine always had a dream, or rather an obsession, since we were in kindergarten, that he would build what he called, a little slice of China. I never quite understood why he would want to do such a thing until later on, in university, and his father had suddenly died. That's when it became an obsession. His name was John, but that wasn't his real name.  His parents were Chinese, and the cane from Shanghai, and had fled China before he had been born, for reasons he never explained. I expect he would never really know, and although he had asked them why they left, they had never given him a satisfactory answer.  And it was not as if he could go there to find out.  China was not the place you could go and start asking questions, particularly if your parents had left, as he called it, under a cloud But the death of his fa

I'm back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written. The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I'm not very good at prioritising. But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn't take long to get back into the groove. A chessboard of players I sighed.  Someone else who wasn’t who they seemed to be. At a guess, it was a gun in my back.  We were far enough away from anyone else for them to recognise what was happening. “No need for whatever weapon you have in my back.  I’m neither armed nor dangerous.” “Why are you following me?” Should I tell her the truth or tell her a lie.  The latter would be the most expedient, but I needed to talk to her, so I went with the former. “You know O’Connell.” “Were you the one who attacked me?” “I told you I meant you no harm.  What happened to you wasn’t my fault.” Whatever was in my back was no longer there, so I turned around t