click to go down to short stories and NEW small stories©

One of the first examples of the moving image was The Wheel of Life, or Zoetrope. It's with great pleasure that we bring you a regularly updated selection of animated gifs made from a collection of the strips of images that went inside the machine.

To see them move one would spin the wheel and look through the slots on the side, but you can see them the quick, easy and almost as satisfying way by rolling your cursor over the images below (and sometimes waiting a little while the animation loads).

If anyone out there has some zoetrope strips that they'd like to see displayed here (with an admiring credit) please contact us.

The following stories are mostly short and completely free. They are by Matthew Beer. If you like them you'll enjoy A Day in the Life of Telford Q Massey, Matthew's dark, funny and strange short novel. To find out how to order it, click here.

Click on the   icons below to read a story on the web. Click on   to download an Adobe acrobat file to your machine.

045247   a lottery loser laments

I didn’t get an oversized cheque and a swimsuit smile and a shake of the hand.

Spik and Span Man   litterbugs beware.

It was better if people didn’t know it was him tonight, the Police were against him and wanted to get him, like Spiderman.

Rest in Peas   a boy gets revenge on a nasty neighbour

First of all, Mrs Grabowsky was horrible, second she was mean and third she was old.

Inside    that’s what counts

Three months ago, the day after we first met. I knew I would love you forever.

 

Rude     you are a dear little lambkin

... you should have no fear of this well-meant criticism, if you were to step back from your weeny self and consider the tale I will shortly unfold, you would find great meaning, magic and merriment...

 

The Blue Flower     a flower disappears

I backed off a little and waited to catch her eye but she wouldn't look at me. I looked at her face from the side, she was frowning, she got out her little knife and started to dig, carefully at first, then more roughly.

 

Reqium for Martin     an ageing victim of a paedophile laments the passing of his abductor

There was something about him, I knew that it was unusual to just go off with someone else’s Grandpa, but I could tell thath he was much better than mine.

 

The Kiss     an office party embrace is dealt with the next day

we are all fools, we fool ourselves as we primp up and down our carpeted, concrete perches, performing our pointless tasks and constantly reassuring each other as to our great importance

 

 and finally, a not so short short story...

Xmas Day 1997   a first class adventure

Was I to die here after all my heroic efforts?