Fiction Tiny Stories
The Ice-Cream Van That Could Only Play One Note
When the chime on Dennis's old ice-cream van broke down to a single note, he expected to lose his customers, and instead a whole estate learned to run for it.
Home Tags
street
Everything filed under street.
Articles
Fiction Made-Up Words
Turnalibi: Checking Your Phone Before You Turn Round in the Street
(n.) The small show of glancing at your phone, frowning and nodding before you turn round on the pavement, so that nobody thinks you were simply walking the wrong way.
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Greengrocer Who Chalks a Riddle Every Morning
The chalkboard outside the greengrocer's on Larch Street has never shown a price, only a daily riddle, and the one morning it stayed blank the whole street noticed.
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Tunnel Where Everybody Shouts Hello
A short foot tunnel under the railway has such a fine echo that nobody of any age walks through without calling out, and then the council wrote to say it was going to be made quiet.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Kiosk Was a Persian Garden Pavilion Before It Sold Newspapers
Kiosk, the Spanish quiosco and the Russian kiosk all come from a Persian word for a palace or garden pavilion, which shrank on its way west into a booth on the pavement.
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Choir That Rehearses in the Launderette
When the hall roof began to leak, the Thursday choir moved into the launderette next door, and the spin cycle turned out to have excellent timing.
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Window Box That Faces the Bus Stop
A window box on the third floor of Aldergate Road is planted the wrong way round on purpose, so that the people waiting for the 47 have something better to look at than a shuttered travel agent.
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Strip of Grass Between Number Nine and Number Eleven
For six summers, two neighbours who barely spoke each mowed a little more of the shared verge than was strictly theirs, and neither ever mentioned it to the other.
Fiction Made-Up Words
Dodgewaltz
(n.) The short, unrehearsed dance performed by two strangers on a pavement who both step left, then both step right, then both apologise, then both step left again.
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Oak on Tanner Road Turns Fifty
Nobody on Tanner Road could agree on anything, until someone found the date the oak outside number twelve was planted and pinned a birthday card to its trunk.