Lee Firth
The Appraisal
The project was over, three months late: so was summer this year. It just rained and rained. Spain was still a long way off.
He was a bricklayer, a skilled profession, but no philosopher. Middle-aged, medium build, middle-of-the-road in all his tastes.
It was late afternoon: the beginning of the early evening rush-hour. The pavements were crammed with people eager to get home. He shifted his balance and noticed that the slight pain in the bottom of his back was still there, but resisted the temptation to stop and rub it. There was still work to be done.
Seconds later he bent down to scoop up some more mortar onto his trowel. A single gunshot rang out. His trowel went crashing to the ground. Terrified, but unhurt.
A few yards away, out of sight and mind, someone had just proved that the world is round. By now the blood from the bullet hole in his lower back was halfway down his leg.
Page(s) 12
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The