Mike Burgess

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2020

Stories (16)

16 Stories

294 karma pts

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“Karrie in the Sunshine, Smiling” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #99

When the sun shone on Karrie’s hair, I believed she might turn to gold. Her eyes, the colour of the sky on the clearest summer day, sparkled like sunshine on the sea. And her voice. It played like wind chimes on the breeze. Whenever she laughed, I pinched myself to see if I was in heaven. We were inseparable. At that age, our perception of time hasn’t yet straightened itself out. A year can feel like an hour and a minute akin to a lifetime. Often both at once. Our affair only lasted six weeks, but it defined my life to date. I was six months...

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“St Theodore's, Hencham, 1993” by Mike Burgess

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #97

On a day like this, there is no better sight in the world. How often have I watched the sunshine streaming through those windows, filling the church with colours like none I ever saw outside these walls? When I was young, my grandparents brought me every week. Mother joined us at Christmas, Easter, and one or two others I’ve forgotten the names of. She never looked like she enjoyed it. For the rest of the year, she stayed home to cook the roast dinner, week in, week out.  I asked once why Father never came. When the Lord declared Sunday...

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“Lowering the Sun” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #94

An elderly man stood on top of Folsby Hill. Rain lashed his grey cloak, and the thrashing, screaming wind threatened to carry his wide-brimmed hat at least halfway back to Thirlton. Beside him, a youngster in his early teens. Tall for his age, with the same skinny build. The pair raised their arms and conducted the sun to the horizon, as if directing a giant elemental orchestra. Usually, the old man went straight home. Tonight, he paused. Seventy years, three weeks, and two days since his grandfather brought him, this would be his last time ...

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“The Farther Quintile” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #91

Whispers. They’re whispering again. They think I can’t hear them. A body needs a good pair of ears for this job. My other senses have faded from wear and tear, yet, with every birthday and each new prescription for spectacles, my hearing grows clearer. I hear the turning of every page, even from the other end of the library, and can even distinguish the sounds of one volume from another. From here, I could listen to half a dozen of you reading, count up the pages you turn and guess at which chapters you’re all on. Sometimes, I walk...

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“Waving at Trains” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #90

Every Sunday morning, Dad drove twenty-six miles to join his fellow steam enthusiasts at the Cansley Light Railway. They worked all day,  taking engines apart and putting them together again while the rest of the world cut their grass, watched the telly or went to church. Some brave souls attempted all three, though rarely simultaneously. Then he drove twenty-six miles home again. Grandma said he must have been born with engine oil running through his veins, although he didn’t get it from her.  He cut and bruised himself regularly ...

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“Shadows across the Water” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #89

Darkness arrives quickly here.  I expected to spend all my days watching the sun rising up on one side of me and sinking again to the other. I now regret every day I took it for granted, paying little attention to its stately procession at the top of the sky during summer, its furtive low dash in winter, and all phases in between.  When our last visitor leaves, an attendant checks nothing’s missing and makes sure we’re behaving ourselves. Then they switch off the lights, including the spot which burns into my eyes all day. I wish t...

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“On Edward's Hill at Tilstow” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #85

The security guard ran through the corridors towards the Foster Gallery, his footsteps echoing among the statuary.  In their control room on the other side of town, Charlie and Sam watched.  “There are two of them. One’s huge”.  Ted only picked out one word in three. Reception was poor in the museum. The walls were two-feet thick in places, with plenty of metalwork to break up the signal.  It was once the town prison and, before that, a monastery, probably founded during the sixth-century. Though it twice fell prey to rai...

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“The Time of our Lives” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #84

Happy birthday, my darling. I remember last year like it was yesterday. You opened the blinds and there were the daffodils, their faces smiling at us and calling for the world to wake up again. With breakfast over, we pulled open the French window, stepped out into the garden for the first time in weeks, and filled our lungs with crisp March air to celebrate.  And how we talked. Just like we used to.  Later, we had a spot of lunch, then I went to bake your cake. Chocolate, with soft icing and bits of Flake on top. Your favourite, f...

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“Footsteps” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #81

Lynnette gave the packaging around the gateau on the worktop a little squeeze. Yes, that appeared to be defrosting according to schedule. Something caught her eye through the window, moving across the garden. The fox was back, leaving tracks in the otherwise undisturbed snow as twilight settled over the roofs in the distance.She shuffled a chair out of the way to get to the door on the left-hand side of the dresser. This mighty object arrived when they emptied her grandparents' old place. It was all she had to remember them by. And reme...

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“The Big Bang” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #80

It was the loudest noise I’d ever heard. If Uncle John hadn’t kicked his ball away, at that very moment, I would have been right outside the shop with the others. I was running after the football. I reached it, picked it up, and, just as I did, there it was behind me. Boom! And straightaway, we were in darkness, apart from the streetlights outside. The ball was brown leather, with white shoelaces holding it together. It was in my hands when I heard the bang. I can still picture it there. Sometimes, I even feel myself holding o...

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“Sitting on the Top of the World” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #77

Harry chose this place for its promise of solitude. So far, it more than met his requirements and exceeded his expectations. Someone put this shack here once; perhaps seventy, eighty years ago. Its roof kept the weather out better than he had any right to expect, and the walls remained upright. He found half a dozen windows broken when he came to look around during the summer. Now, several months later, he was glad he bothered to fix them while the sun shone, filling the frames with the best parts of some wood the last owners left behind whe...

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“The SS January Sails” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #75

As a holiday, this completely sucked. At the beginning of day three, Nick was ready to bail out. Given any means of returning home, he would snap it up quicker than, well, quicker than the quickest thing you can imagine. His only chance was to steal a lifeboat and row back east. Perhaps he might fashion a pair of oars from some of those glossy brochures people kept handing out.Rarely known for his sunny disposition, what little remained when embarking had upped and went. Only the wine rendered it palatable. Even that was so bland and overpri...

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“Home Again For Christmas” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #73

Mum’s face was a picture. I’d hoped to escape for our girls’ night out without either parent seeing me, but she appeared as I was pulling on the boots I borrowed from Jess. They didn’t fit very well. I don’t think the designer expected them to be comfortable on anyone. Mum went to distract Dad in case he investigated what his daughter was up to. Carol waited outside in her thin jacket, wearing even heavier makeup than I was.  Once I’d strapped myself in, we went to collect Jess and Lucy. Jess raided the drinks cupboard on her way out. S...

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“Clarissa Hamilton-Harvey Takes Her Leave” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #72

Shortly before she died, Clarissa Hamilton-Harvey announced, to a world which had largely forgotten, that she aimed to complete her last book before saying farewell to the life she had resigned herself to leaving. Once the darling of the tabloids, her reputation never fully recovered from that business at the turn of the millennium. And that, of course, was where I came in. Even though she was bright, charming, witty, and extremely beautiful, I disliked her a great deal when we met. Eventually, I put it down to prejudice. At the dawn of...

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“Baking and Entering” by Mike Burgess

Submitted to Contest #71

Mr Tompkins’ Christmas puddings were, everyone agreed, quite the equal of any they had ever tasted. Even the parents of the current owner of the bakery, whose recollections of childhood grew more fanciful with each passing year, admitted as much in their less guarded moments.  Behind the shop was the storeroom, and here each pudding waited patiently for three years, each lovingly fed and tended through its adolescence. Come the second week of October, he and the lads from the shop next door loaded the van, drove out and released them in...

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Author bio

Knocking on a bit in the locked-down Midlands of England, always wanted to write but never had the right pen, the proper notebook or the correct laptop. I still haven't, but now I've run out of excuses as well. I hope you enjoy my scribblings, which keep me out of mischief on long winter evenings.

Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #97
St Theodore's, Hencham, 1993 – read story