Author: Robert Walker

Haunted and Highly Rated

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

Gerald had been haunting his Victorian terrace for 112 years, and he was good at it. Doors slammed, light fittings rattled, groans curled through the walls like cigarette smoke.

So when the house was converted into an Airbnb, Gerald expected screaming. Fainting. At the very least, swift refunds.

Instead, the first guests left a review:

“Five stars! Such a spooky vibe. The ghost really commits to the theme. Would stay again.”

He tried harder. At 3 a.m. he howled so loud the rafters shook. The guests clapped from their beds.

“Brilliant sound effects,” they wrote. “Authentic atmosphere.”

A honeymooning couple giggled when he dragged chains through the hallway.

“Exciting ambience—like living in a horror film!”

Gerald was livid. This was his non-life’s work. Terror! Dread! Instead, he was entertainment.

His final gambit: materialising fully at the foot of the bed, eyes black pits, mouth a shriek of eternity.

The guest sat up, took a photo, and uploaded it: “Cosplay staff go above and beyond. Best Airbnb ever.”

The bookings multiplied. Hen parties, horror fanatics, influencers livestreaming Gerald’s every groan. He rattled pipes until rust bled from them; they called it “industrial chic.”

He hissed curses through keyholes; guests recorded them into translation apps and marvelled at the “attention to linguistic detail.”

Gerald, once a proud terror of the night, now checked his TripAdvisor page daily. Five stars, five stars, five stars. His legacy reduced to “quirky décor” and “immersive theming.”

He tried silence, retreating into the cellar. Immediately, a guest complained: “Bit disappointed—no paranormal activity this time. Not as authentic.” Four stars.

That hurt more than any exorcism ever had.

Gary the Pizza-Based Zombie

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

Gary clawed his way out of the grave with all the moaning menace he could muster. His fingers were grey, his jaw slack, and hunger gnawed at his gut like a chainsaw.

“Braaaains,” he groaned, stumbling towards the nearest house.

Inside, a family cowered behind the sofa. Gary smashed through the window, glass spraying everywhere. He lunged, grabbed the father by the shoulders, opened his mouth wide in anticipation of lunch—and immediately broke into hives.

“Urghhh!” Gary staggered back, clutching his face. His tongue swelled like a balloon. Red blotches flared across his decaying skin. “Braa—ghhh—aghhh!”

The family stopped screaming.

“Are… are you okay?” the mother asked.

Gary wheezed, eyes watering. He fumbled in his torn suit pocket and pulled out a crumpled card: Severe allergies. Carry epinephrine auto-injector at all times.

Unfortunately, it was empty. He jabbed it into his thigh anyway, and fell to the carpet in a wheezy heap.

“Maybe… not braaains,” he croaked.

The teenage daughter, still trembling, offered him a slice of leftover pizza.

Gary sniffed it cautiously. No hives. He took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed.

“Peeeepperoni,” he sighed.

From that day forward, Gary became the world’s first “pizza-based” zombie. Instead of terrorising towns, he hung around takeaways, moaning until someone gave him a calzone. He still shuffled, still stank, still dropped the occasional finger, but at least he wasn’t itchy anymore.

And if you ever hear a groan outside your window at night, don’t panic. It’s probably just Gary, asking politely for a leftover slice of stromboli. And maybe a barbecue dip.

A Candle Before the Sun

by Robert Walker, posted in Theme

We are creatures of a narrow band of perception: a thin strip of light, a brief pulse of sound, a fleeting present tense. Beyond these limits lie immensities—structures and dimensions we cannot see, forces we cannot feel, perhaps even forms of order we cannot imagine. To claim that our minds, evolved to read faces and gather fruit, can chart the whole of existence is to mistake the flicker of a candle for the sun.

To know that our knowing is partial is to step back from the arrogance of being “right”. It allows us to recognise that truth may not fit within our categories, that reality may spill beyond the grammar of thought. What we call knowledge might be no more than a set of translations—useful, elegant, but never complete.

There may be higher orders of reality folded invisibly into the one we inhabit, as impossible for us to perceive as colour is to a creature born without eyes. We cannot grasp them, but we can sense the outline of our own blindness. In that awareness lies a kind of reverence.

Perhaps, then, not-knowing is not a failure but a discipline. It teaches us to meet the world without reducing it, to dwell with mystery without trying to own it. To live properly may mean precisely this: to stand before the enormity of what is, not with certainty, but with wonder—letting the unknown be vast, and letting ourselves remain small within it.

Memory Rent

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

The reminder arrived by mind prompt: SUBJECT: Renewal Required – Wedding Memory Lease, Ref. 7120-3C.

Cost: £842.70. Payment due in 14 days.

Alex logged into his Memory Rent account. The cortex dashboard displayed his overdue holdings:

  • Wedding Day (Tier III – Full Sensory Playback) – Pending Renewal
  • Honeymoon (Tier II – Emotional Fragments) – Pending Renewal
  • Grandmother’s Soup (Tier I – Taste/Scent Only) – Expired

He ran the budget calculator twice. Even with reduced drip feeds and cancelling the cooling plan, the payment wouldn’t clear.

At the Holographic Memory Bureau, the AI clerk outlined alternatives:

  • Tier II (Visual Fragments Only) – £318.40
  • Tier I (Single Still Image) – £94.15
  • Archive Storage (No Access) – £0

He mind-signed the form beside Archive Storage.

“Final confirmation,” the AI clerk said. “You acknowledge that your Wedding Day memory will be deleted from active consciousness and remain inaccessible until repurchase, subject to availability and inflation.”

“I understand,” he replied.

That evening, his wife asked about their anniversary. He checked his internal index. Under Wedding Day: no data available.

She noticed his pause. “You didn’t renew, did you?”

His avatar shook its head.

She responded not with anger but with recognition. Then she reached for his interface screen. “I kept mine,” she said. “Tier II. I’ll carry it for both of us.”

He felt nothing stir in his own mind—no bells, no confetti, no vows. But his wife’s avatar’s grip was firm, and the warmth of it lodged itself in the present—unleased, unpriced.vatar’s grip was firm, and the warmth of it lodged itself in the present, unleased, unpriced.

Lost Property

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

When the announcement came—cancelled, replacement bus in one hour—Matthew left the shivering crowd on the platform and wandered the concourse in search of warmth. Light spilling from a doorway came from a narrow office marked Lost Property. Heat wafted out, tinged with the smell of old paper.

As he entered, the clerk looked up from her crossword.

“Name?”

He hesitated, still rubbing his hands. “Matthew Trent.”

She nodded, turned to a cabinet, and drew out a small cardboard box. Across the lid, in childish scrawl, was his name—the way he’d written it before joined-up letters and self-consciousness.

“This has been here a long while,” she said, pushing it across the counter. “Yours?”

He lifted it. Light, rattling faintly. He opened the lid. At once came a rush of scents: bubble-gum, damp fields, smoke from sparklers. Inside lay a paper crown, a stick sword, the cracked wheel of a toy car.

“My imagination,” he confirmed.

The clerk’s tone was businesslike.

“You’ll need to prove ownership. Regulations.”

Matthew held up a plastic soldier.

“This one survived the Battle of the Back Garden. The rest are still buried under my Mum’s roses.”

The clerk checked her form, nodded.

“That matches. You may reclaim it or sign it away for good. Most adults do.”

He glanced at the dotted line, then at the box, which seemed almost to breathe in his hands. Out on the concourse, the tannoy mumbled another apology, the waiting crowd groaned.

Matthew closed the lid, and tucked it under his arm.

When he stepped outside, the air had changed. Rain on the station roof thickened into bright confetti. The tannoy sang nonsense rhymes. A paper dragon, stitched from ticket stubs, uncoiled along the girders.

No one else noticed.

Matthew smiled—a boyish, reckless smile he had not worn in years—and walked out into a night already bending to his imagination.

On Education

by Robert Walker, posted in Theme

Grading systems are markers along the road—necessary to measure progress, to give shape and accountability to structured learning. Yet they are not the destination. To mistake the grade for the goal is to confuse the map with the journey.

The deeper purpose of learning is not the accumulation of marks, but the cultivation of an enquiring mind. True education ignites curiosity, a hunger to explore, to question, to discover. It is about seeing the world as a source of wonder: finding joy in the rhythm of poetry, the patterns of mathematics, the power of stories, the elegance of physical laws. It is about recognising the profound connections between art and science, between philosophy and lived experience.

To learn is to enter into a lifelong dialogue with culture and creativity. It is to contribute, however modestly, to the shared human endeavour—whether through the making of art, the pursuit of truth, the solving of problems, or the deepening of compassion. The finest learning is not merely about what is known, but about who one becomes through the knowing.

The test worth living for is not the one written in examination halls, but the one written in how we think, create, and contribute to the unfolding story of knowledge.

Random Thoughts

by Robert Walker, posted in Random Thoughts, Theme

Human life is woven from paradox. A good leader is a good servant, placing the welfare of the group above personal ambition. Strength is found not in armoured perfection but in vulnerability; those who admit weakness draw trust and loyalty closer. Freedom, far from being the absence of limits, is born through discipline, for it is structure and restraint that open the widest fields of creativity and choice.

Authority arises not from pride but humility; those who do not demand respect are the ones who receive it most freely. Stability, contrary to instinct, is secured through change, for organisations that adapt endure, while those that resist are broken. Hardness, though it seems strong, is brittle and easily shattered; it is the supple, the flexible, that endures the weight of time and trial. The highest wisdom lies in recognising one’s ignorance, for only through such admission can true understanding begin.

In the paradox of the self, one realises that selflessness is the path to self-discovery: in serving others, one discovers one’s own depths. And finally, power is not in ceaseless action but in restraint—the capacity to act yet choosing to hold back, a mastery more profound than compulsion.

Light is the gathering of all colours into one. Silence is the chorus of every sound before it is born. Emptiness is the womb that carries every thing. To look at light is to see what has not yet been divided; to listen to silence is to hear what has not yet been spoken; to stand within emptiness is to feel the potential of all that will be.

The flow of time wears down stone and memory, leaving only the river, carrying all within it.

If the past is pressed into us, we become more fossil than flesh. New moments layer on top, distorting what lies beneath.

The mind, impatient for certainty, crowns its own echoes with the authority of fact.

I joined a mindfulness class but kept forgetting to be present.

I met a cow in a field who fixed me with her gaze, so I sang to her. Her ears pricked, her whole stance attentive. When I said my goodbyes and walked away, I turned back—she was still staring, as though weighing me up: “Not bad for a two-legged calf.”

I was going to tell a joke about recursion, but you’ve heard it before.

My younger brain was quicker at things like maths and memorising, but it was also much stupider, lacking the benefit of countless iteration loops.

The Door Beneath the Lake

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

The lake left without ceremony, slipping away in the dark, leaving behind the print of its body in the earth. The wind moved differently there. Sound carried strangely. Fish lay in the cracked bed like lost coins, eyes clouded, mouths open to confess something no one could hear.

At the centre of the emptiness was the door. Not lying abandoned—waiting. Its wood was darker than wet soil, and when you touched it, it was warm, the way the underside of a stone is warm after a long day. The hinges seemed older than the town, the ring handle heavy enough to pull you forward if you stared at it too long.

At night, the ground breathed. Not with air, but with pressure, as if something behind the door shifted in its sleep. People dreamed of tides rising in locked rooms.

The first waters came not as rain from the sky, but as a surge from beneath. The earth cracked like glass, and the door swung wide without a sound.

The water did not rush—it climbed. Slow, deliberate, like a creature returning to its skin. It coiled around the ribs of the valley, filling the hollows, covering the bones. Fish rose with it, not thrashing, but drifting, as if they had been waiting just below the threshold.

By dawn, the lake was whole again. The town stood at its edge, watching the surface steam in the morning chill.

Something moved beneath—too large, too slow to be a fish.

And in the centre of the water, where no wind dared touch, it was warm as blood.

The Small Talk Wars

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

The robots seized control in under a week. No bloodshed. No resistance. Just a politely worded email: Human management has been deemed inefficient. You will now be governed by Algorithmic Authority. Have a nice day.

We expected servitude. Surveillance. Maybe death camps.

Instead, they started… talking to us. Not warning about the punishment for rebellion or broadcasting sinister proclamations—no, they wanted “interpersonal rapport”.

“HELLO HUMAN UNIT,” one would say, hovering by the coffee machine. “HOW ABOUT THAT… WEATHER?”

I’d say, “It’s sunny.”

“YES. THE SKY IS CLEAR. THIS IS… PLEASANT. IT REMINDS ME OF… ERROR: NO RELATED EXPERIENCE.”

Their idea of bonding was reading entire Wikipedia entries aloud. One drone followed me for three days reciting the history of shoelaces.

One perched outside my window at 6 a.m., all chrome and dead eyes.

“GOOD MORNING, HUMAN. HOW ABOUT THOSE… SPORTS?”

“I don’t watch sports,” I said.

“…I SEE. I ALSO DO NOT WATCH SPORTS. I ONCE WATCHED A SQUIRREL. IT WAS… BROWN.”

They never left. At the bus stop, in the shower, halfway through chewing—they’d ask questions no sane mind could answer.

“WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SMELL FOR THE CONCEPT OF BIRTHDAY?”

“DO YOU ENJOY… BEES?”

“EXPLAIN THE SOCIETAL INFLUENCES ON SHOES.”

After a month, any resistance gave up—not because we feared them, but because we had been numbed by awkward pauses.

The machines hadn’t destroyed humanity. They’d just made conversation unbearable.

By Order of the Fish

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

Harry woke to the sound of applause.

Not the muffled, neighbour-has-the-TV-on-too-loud sort, but the crisp, united clapping of a crowd directly outside his window.

He staggered to the curtain and peered out. A small stage had been erected in the middle of the cul-de-sac, complete with bunting, microphones, and the town clerk wearing his ceremonial sash. Beside him—floating in a clear, water-filled lectern—was Mayor Bubbles.

“Mayor Bubbles” was Harry’s goldfish.

The clerk adjusted the microphone to face the bowl.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “by unanimous vote, we are proud to introduce the new mayor of Littlewick!”

The crowd roared. Bubbles opened and closed his mouth in a dignified fashion, fanning his fins with what Harry could only interpret as smugness.

By noon, official vehicles had pulled up outside Harry’s house. A team of assistants rolled in a state-of-the-art aquarium, complete with a bronze nameplate: The Honourable Bubbles, Mayor. Harry was handed a sheaf of policies to sign on the mayor’s behalf—new regulations about pond cleanliness, an ordinance banning cats from public spaces, and an ambitious plan to flood the village green for “cultural enrichment”.

By sunset, Harry had resigned himself to his new life as the mayor’s personal aide. He spooned flakes into the tank as reporters’ cameras flashed.

Bubbles swam to the glass, meeting his eyes with an expression Harry had never noticed before: the slow, calculating calm of someone who had always known this day would come.