Joe Young

Joined June 2022

117 stories

Bio

Blogger and freelance writer from the north-east coast of England

Achievements (1)

Honorable Mention in Absurdist Awakening Challenge

Stories (117)

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A 'Dear John' Letter to My OCD
Dear OCD It's over. I quit. When you moved in over two decades ago, I thought living with you might be a blast; a wild ride with a quirky bedfellow. I soon realised what a selfish, energy-sapping bastard you are.
By Joe Young8 months ago in Journal
The Widow. Honorable Mention in Absurdist Awakening Challenge.
"John," Mother said, "are you going into town this morning?" "I am." "Would you be a saint and return the Widow's book to the library?"
By Joe Young10 months ago in Humor
Jeffery Brakelight Breezes Through Life, Part 4
“New year, new me,” I said, staring myself straight in the eye in the bathroom mirror. The proclamation was issued with a hint of irony because at that moment I was in the grip of a robust hangover. I was as queasy as Dracula rushing to his coffin when the sun was coming up. It was New Year’s Day, you see, and I had arrived home at about three in the morning, having seen in the new year at the Feathers
By Joe Young10 months ago in Humor
Preston's Pedicurist
The sky had been filled in using a 4B pencil. The street lamps were still lit, and their glowing orbs reflected on the surface of the shining wet car park. Light rain was falling, its course to the ground impeded by a gusting wind.
By Joe Young11 months ago in Humor
The Saint Valentine's Day Brassica
I come from a long line of butchers. The foliage on my dad's side of the family tree is spattered with blood from the slaughter and dismemberment of enough animals to fill a dozen arks. There have been butchers in our family for so long it may be that one of my forebears was earwigging in the vicinity of Noah on the announcement that every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you. And, with that green light, the slaughter commenced.
By Joe Young11 months ago in Humor
Five Things I'd Like to Tell Orwell About. Top Story - January 2025.
Many years ago, while working as a freelance, I was given monthly commissions to write articles for a management training company. Occasionally, I would be tasked with writing about Microsoft Office applications, and for one such, I sought my material via an old TV ad campaign for a mobile phone network.
By Joe Young12 months ago in Humor
Le Plongeur
When does a passion become an obsession? For example, what causes a football fan to name his firstborn after each member of his team's cup-winning side of 1967? Why does a woman with the correct complement of fingers and no particular liking for sewing have thirty assorted thimbles, each in a tiny pigeon-hole in a wooden display case, with over a thousand more in the garage? That's for the psychologists to decide.
By Joe Youngabout a year ago in Humor
The Potency of Loneliness
Saturday morning. Twenty-two-year-old Frankie Dunbar lay fully clothed on a single bed, staring at the nicotine-stained whitewash on the ceiling. His feet rested on the wooden footboard lest his boots marked the faded yellow counterpane and tested the temper of Mrs Haddaway. Old Podmore, the lodger in the next room, was seized by one of his regular coughing fits. The noise annoyed Frankie, who was listening for the sound of the postman.
By Joe Youngabout a year ago in Fiction
A Grubby Little Pastime. Top Story - June 2024.
When the then chancellor Gordon Brown raised the price of ten cigarettes to £1.30 in his 1998 budget statement, young Joseph drew a line in the sand and said no more. Being an old hand at quitting, I expected this latest attempt to fail like all the others, as cravings would pick at my resolve like vultures pick at carrion until I caved in and grabbed the Zippo.
By Joe Young2 years ago in Confessions
How My Bad Luck Turned Into Good Fortune
Life under the parental roof was miserable. I was out of work and broke, an unfortunate pair of circumstances that tested my parents' patience. To make the situation worse, on the morning this tale begins, I received a letter from my friend Gustav, who, you may recall, had moved to France. In it, he reminded me that I owe him thirty pounds reimbursement for a carpet repair he'd paid for.
By Joe Young2 years ago in Fiction
The Explosion Seekers
My elder brother, Tom, and I share a bedroom at the rear of our parents’ house in a suburb of a northern city. He recently celebrated his eighteenth birthday, and as he goes through life you’ll find me hanging on to his shirt tails, always two years behind. I’ve occasionally worn those shirt tails as hand-me-downs, as we’re not an affluent family.
By Joe Young2 years ago in Fiction
I'm a Shameless Plagiarist
I’d better explain that attention-grabbing headline because plagiarists are universally frowned upon within writing circles, and rightly so. By way of a disclaimer, everything I post begins as an idea in my mind, which I pump down my sleeves to my fingertips and via those onto a screen. I never steal the work of others.
By Joe Young2 years ago in Confessions