Showing results by narrator "Matthew Fuller" in All Categories

In this collection of fourteen short stories, you will meet people you know in your own family or from down the street where you live. They all find themselves involved in things they did not expect or want or even dream about.

Imagine you are in a bar celebrating your birthday and your freedom as a newly divorced man when your eyes meet those of a stunning blue-eyed blonde. The connection is instant and electric. Finally, after such a long and desperately hard road, could true love be within your reach?

Born into a wealthy family in England in 1942, Christopher could’ve expected a privileged life. It was not to be. At six years of age, he entered boarding school. The burden of undiagnosed dyslexia led to an aversion to schoolwork, and violent sexual abuse from a fellow boarder became the impetus for leaving school. He embarked on a life of hard manual labour, before returning to his parents’ farm, but continual frustrations between him and his father culminated in a stint of involuntary commitment. On release in 1964, he left for Australia as a "10 Pound Pom".

Jason Rogers couldn’t remember the last time he had slept soundly. After surviving 20 years in the high-octane world of Russian investment banking, he knew that his time there as the high-flying international banker to the oligarchs was coming to an end. The bank he’d built from scratch in the '90s, Falcon Capital, his pride and joy, was being assailed on all sides by shadowy forces in Russian society with impeccable government connections, the “siloviki”.

A care home, purposely built around a Georgian folly castle façade in Essex, Gramwell Glade is making a fortune for business developer Akin Akindele who, armed with an MBA, foresaw that high-end care homes were going to return significant returns on his investment. If we know someone who works in the care sector or spends their twilight years in a home, if we visit family or friends who have moved on into residential care, make no bones about it, something like the Gramwell Glade experience could come to us all.

On a winter’s night, in a grubby alleyway, in a northern town, Josh, a 17-year-old A Level student, is found stabbed to death. The police investigation soon focuses on the four people who were in the alleyway with him that night – Josh’s girlfriend, Naomi and three members of a local gang, involved in drugs and violence. The three gang members are charged but the police start to look more closely at Naomi. New evidence emerges which seems to point to Naomi.

The ill-fated consequences of happenstance: Born into an English country village community in the 1950s, a young boy is led, through a series of events over which he in effect has little or no control, to take the life of a neighbour’s child, and subsequently his own. And this is the tale, if there can be any, of the subsequent accounting. The book itself is set in an ever-mutating afterlife that also provides an interim existence before rebirth.

Quietly reflective, the beautifully written poems in this slim volume offer a welcome respite from the noisy insistence of modern life. The language, now simple and direct, now rich in associations, double-meanings, and imagery, has its own natural rhythm and appeal regardless of subject and rhyme.

What is the meaning of our existence? From a human perspective, life may seem chaotic and full of contradictions. However, these contradictions are not at odds with each other, but rather they complement one another. Life doesn't recognize individuals, it recognizes our souls and our presence in the world. The days turn into nights, and the nights turn into days, and in an instant, light and darkness become one. Our purpose as three-dimensional beings is to be awake and aware.

As Ed's life took unexpected turns, he found himself on a journey towards a spiritual awakening. From his childhood in the West Country to adventures East, with challenges and triumphs over addiction, to encounters with angels, aliens, and mystical energies, Ed's story is a captivating tale of personal growth and transformation. His experiences in the altered state and waking state, backed up by several neurological feedback sessions, made it a welcome truth, which would change his life forever.

Over 150 years ago, when the sailing ship General Grant was wrecked on the rugged coastline of the isolated Auckland Islands, far to the south of New Zealand, the survivors had to pit themselves against nature. Wild animals, fish, and birds became their main means of survival. Stranded on a cold, bleak, isolated island deep in the Southern Ocean the castaways knew that they must use all the skills they had to survive. No one in the outside world knew they were there, so chances of rescue were slim.

A Career Carol is an irreverent take on the classic Christmas Carol, graduation commencement speakers, and Generation Z expectations. A wry and insightful take on how to successfully navigate a 30-to-40-year professional career. A Career Carol, bridges analogue and digital eras. What constitutes a successful career may have dramatically changed over the last 50 years, but the deeper journey we make as human beings across different life cycles, is eternal.

Russell James Ray is credited with the first canyoneering descents of the Barrancas Sinforosa and Batopilas. It was an endeavor that spanned several years, and included a self-delusional non-first descent of the Barranca Del Cobre. He currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he dreams of other things.