Short-Stories that take Risks

'Dasein’ was my attempt to personify Heidegger’s notion of Dasein or beingness. As you can imagine these philosophical ideas are quite hard to grasp so I wanted to try and write a piece of flash-fiction that attempted to understand why we, as beings trapped by space and time, find it difficult to experience beingness. I’m no philosopher but I try my best.

‘Diary of a Lost Boy’ was a funny one and one that I wrote just after my father had passed away. I was staying at a Tibetan Monastery and attempting to get my head around ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’. My mind was full of world ending theories and I was compelled to write this piece. The important bit being the leap into the unknown and the freedom thereafter.

‘Beer and Buddhism’ is a slice-of-life memoir taken from my other book. It just captures a period in my life when I was living and working in London. Caught up in the usual busyness and trying to keep my feet on the ground. To make peace with myself I headed of to visit a friend at a Tibetan Monastery.

‘Frankenstein’s Ubermensh’ you can call pop-fiction-philosophy. I’m having fun looking at this notion of Neitzsche’s ‘Ubermensch’ and the supreme-being clearly misunderstood by the Nazis and maybe many other misguided politicians. This idea that we can create perfect beings from nowhere and hope they maintains their humanity doesn’t work. Supreme-beings are like avatars or spiritual figures that have spent life-times perfecting their skills. Knowledge alone is worthless and dangerous without compassion.

‘The Great Santa Delusion’ has a kind of cheeky farcical tone to it. As I say, ‘If a young girl can get it’ so can you. This is looking at the myth of God and Christ and equating it with Santa Claus. It ties in with a spiritual message in the end when the kids bump into a bald-headed mystic who had been running the show from the start.

‘Hojosan’ is another slice-of-life memoir detailing a journey to a Zen Monastery in Uithuizen. A peaceful and inspiring story about a Zen Priest ‘Hojosan’ and his story about the time he nearly became a Kamikaze pilot. Beautiful.

‘Running Away’ is a conspiracy totalitarian thriller looking at the up and coming surveillance world and drone society and how quickly it can all go wrong. It’s fast and dark.

‘Shit Happens’ has a farcical comedy feel to it with a large dose of surrealism added in. The residents of Planet Grey live on a grey planet typifying their dull lives. All of the things deemed ugly in life including colour have been erased for safety reasons. They even sleep during the day so they don’t have to look at the yellow sun. Then one day a large bug lands on the planet offending the locals. Well I won’t tell you the rest but it does get a bit fruity.

‘The Irelefunt’ I am proud of as it was published in Philosophy Now magazine, and it is my only publishing credit to date. It concerns two brothers arguing about different spiritual journeys. One goes on a long adventure gathering wisdom and knowledge and the other stays at home watching the Discovery Channel and reading esoteric books hoping to attain enlightenment without effort.

‘Reverse’ is a very dark story. It involves a servicemen who is suffering from trauma who embarks on an ill-thought out relationship with a young girl in Russia. It turns out bad but the story is told from back to front as he comes back to life after shooting himself and is given a second chance to undo the things he has done wrong.