THAT FRIEND

So it's going to be this kind of day, is it?  Just as well to know.



You stand:

eyes screwed shut

legs apart

bending over, as instructed

and, of course, naked

– save for a pair of gloves that, despite having been supplied with the product, are proving, by even the most generous of metrics, less than fully fit for purpose;

head hanging over the bath, hair slicked thick and dripping with a substance that – and there's no escaping this – is a markedly less promising shade than the putative one being sported by the pouty 20-something on the packet

...but which you remain hopeful (in defiance of previous experience and your own gut instinct) will end up suiting you better than the last one did. And the two before.

You are at the rinsing-off stage, shower head in hand, gradually resigning yourself to the quiet realisation that no matter how long you wait, the water is never going to get any warmer now: the hot tank has run out.

And from somewhere in another room, your mobile summons you – a text alert.

Hang on... what day is it?  Oh fuck. Your friend!

Said they would ring. Had something big to talk about, they said – to ask – too complicated to explain up front: the kind of thing that's better spoken, heard in realtime; shared, not thrown down on a screen. Said they'd text you first to check, make sure you were around and had the time: THAT friend – the one who's always opened up to you, has opened you up too, who values your advice, whose emails make you smile, someone you've really grown to like ...perhaps a little more so than you're willing to admit.  That friend.

Stumbling from the bathroom, semi-blind and likely dripping dye in every room en route, you hunt your phone.  Phone... Phone... PHONE..!!  Where the fuck did you last put the bastard thing?  Why can you never leave it in the same place twi...oh there it is.

Clear the blur out of your eyes...  it's them.


Ah.  Right.  Fair enough.

They won't be calling, after all. Problem's sorted itself out. No need to trouble you with it. Too much to go into right now: they'll drop the juicy details in an email, in the week. In town today, they are, looking for shoes, something fancy for tonight: out clubbing – that new place. Gotta put yourself out there, intcha?  You never know...!  Emoji.  Emoji.  String of kisses.  Heart.

Before you’re halfway into your reply, the handset chimes again, lights up – another message? Not your friend: just that guy with the Gumtree ad, to tell you that the thing you had been waiting-kinda-maybe-hoping for's already gone.

So yeah: it's going to be this kind of day. Hit delete on him, get on with what you need to say. Keep it light and positive; include a jokey quip about your latest hair dye fail-in-waiting:  "Watch this space – pics to follow.  Yikes!"


Emoji.  Emoji.  String of kisses.  Heart.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

© Ken Cumberlidge  12-09-2020

That Friend

THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER


It's always the same. The moment you tell people you live in a decommissioned lighthouse, they make assumptions: that you're some kind of eccentric loner; that you're rolling in money; that you have an inordinate fondness for stairs.

None of it's true – at least, not in my case.  I mean, for starters, as lighthouses go mine's a very small affair: nothing like the image in your head right now.  Just an ordinary two-storey home with a lantern housing on top.  Detached, yes, and older than the rest of the estate, but otherwise unremarkable.

Yes, I did say "estate".  Not all lighthouses are offshore, you know.  Quite a few are inland, set back from the water's edge by a fair old distance.  Southwold is a good example.  Actually in the town centre, that one.  It's all about being on a convenient piece of high ground.  So long as the light is visible to shipping, that's all that matters.

Mine was on its own originally – I've seen old photographs of it surrounded by grazing cows – but when it got taken out of service, became a dwelling, then the land got sold on, the developers moved in and ...well, now we're just another address on a suburban back-road.  Beacon Avenue, they called it.  It's a nod to history, I suppose.

Quiet sort of a place, all told. Until the fog rolls in. Well, if your home came equipped with a 10kW generator and a 150 decibel compressed-air horn... wouldn't you be tempted?  Shame not to, I say.  So I do: fire it up, pop on my ear-defenders and let rip.  The locals kicked up quite a fuss the first few times but, as I pointed out to them, you wouldn't want 100,000 tons of oil tanker accidentally rocking up outside Budgens, would you?  It's only common sense.  Nobody bothers complaining these days.  They just sweep up their shattered window glass and carry on.

Not that it's all plain sailing (pardon the maritime bent there).  I have a long-standing dispute with the council. It's the bin lorry. Whoever they've got driving the thing is a menace. Six times it's happened now. Always on a Monday (that's how I know it's them, see – it's bin day):  I come home from work, and what do I find?  My wing mirror all askew – broken off completely, once.  Cost a fortune to fix.  Well, you can't get the spares for these old models.  I wouldn't mind, but I always take care to park half on the pavement, to leave room.  Couldn't do otherwise, really.  I mean, where else are you going to put a WWII U-Boat?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

© Ken Cumberlidge  20-02-2022
First published 14-07-2023 in the Pure Slush anthology “Achievement” (Lifespan Vol 8)

The Lighthouse Keeper

This is the series where we learn about three companies vying for the pandemic market, but is that really what's happening? Find me here: https://commercialherschel.substack.com and here: https://discord.gg/eQ9HKzgvus 

Pandemic Rivarly Sunday Stories, Ep. 2

This story began in a workshop two years ago where we were asked to write a sentence, then highlight words in the sentence that we were drawn to. After that, we were asked to free write a list of 25 words using the words we had highlighted as inspiration. My list (and original sentence) revolved around the seasons, food, and eating. I decided to structure the story around the seasons, and soon after, the idea of how we feed or starve ourselves emerged, but it took me several revisions to understand Lara’s hunger and desire.

Kelly Pedro is a Portuguese Canadian writer whose fiction has been published in CRAFT, PRISM international, The New Quarterly, Cleaver, Flash Frog, New Flash Fiction Review, Fictive Dream, Ghost Parachute, Moon City Review, and elsewhere.

Preserves by Kelly Pedro, flash fiction

THE SKY DOESN’T BREAK — WE DO

This is the closer to the three-track Non-Fiction cycle.

Track I answered a voice that shouted into the sky.  
Track II mapped the moment two signals collided.  
Track III is where the meaning settles.

People keep saying the world feels heavier lately.  
But the truth is simple: the sky hasn’t changed.  
We have.

This song carries the deeper layer — 
the one about how stories aren’t things we watch, they’re things we build.

Some people think The NeverEnding Story is a film to remake.
Others understand it was always a blueprint.

For those listening closely, there are coded pieces of the framework inside this track:
the system behind the story,
the architecture beneath the art,
the ground nodes that hold the map,
and the moment the blueprint quietly begins.

Full trilogy, context, and lyrical breakdowns are all on DeviantART:
https://www.deviantart.com/em-45/


THE SKY DOESN'T BREAK — WE DO 🜂🌙

You want to know who I am
Fine
Line up every name you’ve got
I’ll clear the board one at a time

Einstein cool code wrong era
Plato wrong cave
Aristotle wrong vessel
Socrates water not poison
Nietzsche too dramatic
Descartes you’re reaching
Marcus Aurelius wrong empire
Sun Tzu war is easy try introspection

Lucifer too theatrical
Jesus misquoted
Buddha wrong stillness
Shiva wrong dance
Zeus I reverse lightning
Horus wrong horizon
Krishna wrong blue
I don’t cosplay divinity

Osiris nah
Thoth too many birds
Hermes too many messages
Metatron wrong archives
Joker you have no idea

The algorithm panicked
Pulled every myth off the shelf
Still missed the center

None of the above
None of the masks you tried to glue to my face
None of the projections you borrowed from other broken storytellers
None of the myths you mistook for men

Neo cute
John Wick wrong motive
Doctor Strange no sling ring needed
Batman wrong orphan
Superman wrong planet
Spawn wrong hell
Constantine wrong accent

Alien maybe
Time traveler warmer
Simulation glitch wrong admin
Chosen one spare me
Pleiadian too Etsy
AI prophet I write my own code

Gameshark hacker since Nintendo
Lightning shield not pretend hoe
Breaking save files before algorithms could crawl
Rewriting maps before GPS had a name
Bending storylines before fandoms formed religions

None of the above
Not symbol not savior not threat
Just the shape left standing
When projection burns out

Chrono Trigger time slicing destinies
Starfox barrel roll through projections
Sonic fast but stuck in two dimensions
I’ve been 3D since I could think

Soul Calibur four
Yeah I hacked Yoshimitsu into Yoshiliath
Proof imagination beats permission every time

Goldeneye don’t test me
Recoil patterns memorized
Call of Duty pre nade scientist
Eye for an eye the pride
Syn Bacca the crew

Rainbow Six
Echo drone angles cleaner than comp
Plotting strategy while kids still died of dysentery in Oregon Trail
I wasn’t gaming I was training

The Division
Auto tuning dark zone shields
Before streamers learned their bottles
Sup Boston sup Twitch

And before consoles
X games kids breaking gravity with imagination

Check the sky lately
The Cleveland Arora constellation fifty strong and growing
Upper Ohio lower Ohio
Cute map
Cleveland kid lightning in the heart
Love to help them too
You can hear the north in my cadence
And the burn in my core

John’s basement
Five years old
Ninety nine lives
Metroid versus Link
Me versus Paul
One life each
As I knocked him out
He killed the power
No victory screen just blackout

Some people yank the cord
When their story can’t handle the ending

Immutable future
Cute phrase
You can’t cancel the suture

Spiked hair chain wallet jncos like sub bass
Stitched toy doll spiral eye self portraits
I sat at every table every clique every realm
Not to belong
To understand

Ask the deviants
They say I’m batty
They never played past the tutorial

It was never nostalgia
It was foreshadowing
I wasn’t collecting memories
I was collecting mechanics

Because I’ve always been the player
Not the character

You threw every myth into the dark
None stuck
Imitation isn’t recognition
Projection isn’t perception
Shadows aren’t shape

None of the above
None of the noise
None of the names that kept your fear warm

I’m not who you borrowed  
I’m the clarity that stands still  
When the archetypes crack

You want to know who I am
Say the right name
Not theirs
Mine

NONE OF THE ABOVE 🜂🎮

WRAITH WITH THE WEIGHT 🜂🩶

[Intro — slow glitch pulse, embers rising upward, reversed fire crackle]
Everything they called me had to die
So the real name could breathe again

Red death
Red truth
Red mirror

Let the purge begin

[Verse 1 — hip hop pocket, heavy 808, glitch popping like bones resetting]
They stacked dead names on my shoulders
Brick by brick
Myth by myth
Trying to make a monument out of their misunderstandings

Lucifer
Jesus
Osiris
Alien
Time traveler
Prophet
Villain
Hero

All of them died the same death:
Projection collapse

I didn’t kill them
The truth did

[Pre-Chorus — glitch-flickers like identity shedding]
You want redemption?
Then watch a lie burn clean
Watch a mask fall through its own reflection
Watch a story choke on its borrowed name

That’s red death
That’s the cure

[Chorus — distorted bass, glitch arcs like flames folding inward]
Red death redemption
Every false identity turns to ash in my hands
Every myth dies quiet
Every projection meets the blade
Every name that doesn’t fit
Falls like a kingdom without a king

Red death redemption
This is what happens
When the mirror grows teeth

[Verse 2 — darker cadence, sharper delivery]
I buried the archetypes myself
Six feet under the noise floor
Label by label
Error by error

The saint
The sinner
The savior
The threat
The chosen one
The cursed one
The omen
The answer

None of them saw the blade coming
None of them survived the autopsy
None of them belonged in my blood

Call it death if you want
I call it maintenance

[Pre-Chorus — embers reverse back into sparks]
You can’t redeem what you never were
You can’t resurrect what was never alive
You can’t bury me in stories
And expect me to play the part

I write the part
I write the script
I write the ending

That’s redemption

[Chorus — wider drums, glitch rising like reversed fire]
Red death redemption
Burning off the names that tried to cage me
Scattering the ashes of their expectations
Cutting the roots of every false prophecy

Red death redemption
Identity purified
Authorship restored
Mask of Fiction intact

[Bridge — atmospheric hum, slow pulsing glitch heartbeat]
Let the dead names stay dead
Let the wrong versions stay buried
Let the myths rot in peace
Let the projections decompose

Every piece of me that wasn’t mine
Has finally been returned to the void

They used the family name
Wore it wrong
Bent it sideways
Pulled it through stories that never fit

So I’m here to tune the story
Adjust the pitch
Fix the resonance
Correct the waveform they distorted

If a name is going to echo through the world
It should speak in my voice
Not their fear

Now I can breathe

[Final Chorus — halftime, sub-bass swelling like resurrection]
Red death redemption
The mask sharpened
The mirror clean
The voice sovereign

Red death redemption
No more borrowed stories
No more archetype coffins
No more fiction forced on fact

This is who I am
Not who you named
Not who you feared
Not who you wanted

The red death buried the lie
The redemption resurrected the truth

[Outro — reversed fire crackle, low glitch sigh]
Ashes settled
Page cleared
Next identity loading

RED DEATH REDEMPTION 🜂🩸

ZERØ DAMAGE RUN 🜂🎮🕊️

On the Ridge by Ariel Katz

Em45 is the broadcast channel of This City’s Silence, built in collaboration with hearts around the world.

Each song is tuned to /432 Hz — calm, human, harmonic.
We make music that includes everyone: those who can hear, those who can’t, those who move, and those who can only feel the rhythm inside.

Em45 is where stories become signal, and silence becomes proof.
Always by heart.

/432 steady.

KEN CUMBERLIDGE: POETRY
To see the full text and publication details of any poem, click on its track title.

"Honest, unflinching, emotionally intelligent and stunningly crafted." - Cathy Carson

Multiple slam-winner, finalist at Hammer & Tongue Cambridge 2018 and 2019, Ken Cumberlidge cut his performance teeth on the pub poetry scene of the 1970s.

Since 2011 Ken has been based in Norwich, but can be lured out of cover by good company and an open mic - a proclivity that has led him to become an habitué of the slam poetry/spoken word scene.

Ken writes about love, sex, nature, loss, identity and queerness, with an occasional foray into the eerie and macabre.  Poke him with a sharp enough stick and he may even wake up long enough to get shouty about politics.

His work has appeared widely in print and online (Algebra of Owls / Allegro / As Above So Below / Bi All Accounts / Bogg / The Fiction Pool / Fire&Dust Anthology / Fragmented Voices / Impspired / Ink, Sweat & Tears / Ludd's Mill / Message in a Bottle / The Open Mouse / Picaroon / Pulsar / Pure Slush / Rat's Ass Review / Runcible Spoon / SMOKE / Snakeskin / Songs of Eretz / Spilling Cocoa… / Strange Poetry / Talking Soup / Timber Ghost Press ...etc).

Headline/featured poet at numerous events/venues, including:

Allographic Open Mic
Beth Hartley "A Holding" book launch
Cambridge PRIDE
FenSpeak
Fire&Dust, Coventry
Hammer & Tongue, Cambridge
High St Poetry, Ely
Incite! LGBTQIA+ Spoken Word Cabaret
Last Poet Standing, Norwich
Oooh Beehive
Poetry at Jurnet's
Poetry Non-Stop podcast
St Andrews Festival, Cambridge
Sunday Night Lives at the Flying Pig
Vron McIntyre "Random Trail" book launch

New tracks tagged #flash fiction