Witty, clever, poignant Gaffney's micro fictions work as funny
routines, moving insights and illuminating character sketches

sad, funny fables recalling evanescent moments of connection and
happiness. 150 words by Gaffney are more worthwhile than some novels

David Gaffney's compact, surreal tales are filled with poignancy and wit. Each story goes off like a tiny depth charge in the mind, leaving you with the trace memory of some new urban myth - comic, absurd and disturbingly true.

David Gaffney was born in West Cumbria, studied in Birmingham and now lives in Manchester. He has worked as an English teacher, a film studies lecturer, a holiday camp entertainer, a medical records clerk, a pub pianist, a debt counsellor in Moss Side, a legal consultant in Liverpool, and now works for a shadowy government organisation. His stories have been published in Ambit, The Illustrated Ape, and The Mix.

He hated grocery shopping, hated the time it took. But he came up
with a method. People bought the same things, more or less. So he would
look for someone of his type, sneak up behind them and roll their
fully-laden trolley off to the checkout.

It made life interesting. Often there were things he would never have
bought; once there was a fat orange pumpkin.

But today he was in trouble. He had been stealing mostly from women because
he liked the sense of order to their selections, but his victim had spied
him and was stomping over. There were women's products in the cart, so it
was going to be difficult. He decided to pretend he knew her.
'Darling, I'll just get eggs'

'We've got eggs' The woman chirped. 'Listen, do you want to go out to the
car? You look stressed. You can listen to your tape'.

2007-08-14 Beautiful Stories

These beautiful stories crafted in so few words reflect the unique writing skills of this author.Revealing, hilarious and entertaining, they add so much to the rich genre of short stories and to the other collections like Usurper and Other Stories, A twist in the Tale, Anton Chekov's, other short stories that have made my day. I will always watch out for more David Gaffney stories.