‘A enir cenedl ar unwaith?’
Blackbird and Snow
‘Blackbird and Snow’ was first published in Skald 19 (2004), and now appears in Reasoning: Twenty Stories.
After the divorce there was snow.
Alex came out of his mother’s cottage in Pendeitsh and lifted his mountain bike down the steps to the lane. He could see the library van turning at the bottom of the hill, and left the bike leaning against the garden gate.
The librarian broke off her phone conversation. ‘We’re leaving in a minute,’ she said to him in English.
‘I just want to see what you’ve got,’ said Alex.
The engine started. Alex took his time. He could feel behind him how stern was her calling, how many were the blind and the halt waiting for her. He chose a book explaining how babies are born and a field guide to aeroplanes. She stamped and closed them with a snap.
Snow was drifting like fall-out. Alex put the books in his school bag and rode to see his sister’s ex-husband in Fforest. The snow turned to hail as he splashed through the ford, and turned onto the dirt track between the trees.
Sara watched him coming through the gate, her arms folded, leaning against the jamb of her open front door…
Featured Posts
Books by Rob Mimpriss
Pugnacious Little Trolls
‘freely and fiercely inventive short stories… supercharged with ideas.’
Jon Gower, Nation Cymru
Prayer at the End: Twenty-Three Stories
‘heaving with loss, regret and familial bonds.’
Annexe Magazine
For His Warriors: Thirty Stories
‘sketched with a depth and sureness of touch which makes them memorable and haunting.’
Caroline Clark, gwales.com
Reasoning: Twenty Stories
‘dark, complex, pensively eloquent’
Sophie Baggott, New Welsh Review
The Sleeping Bard: Three Nightmare Visions of the World, of Death, and of Hell
Translated by T. Gwynn Jones, with an introduction by Rob Mimpriss.
A Book of Three Birds
‘Lucid, skilful, and above all, of enormous timely significance.’
Jim Perrin
Dangerous Asylums
‘In this exemplary collaboration between medical science and imagination, lives preserved in official records, in the language and diagnoses of their times, are restored not just to light, but to humanity and equality. This anthology is a resurrection.’
Philip Gross
Hallowe’en in the Cwm: The Stories of Owen Wynne Jones
‘An invaluable translation.’
Angharad Price
Going South: The Stories of Richard Hughes Williams
Translated by Rob Mimpriss, with an introduction by E. Morgan Humphreys