Paul Stewart

Joined March 2021

1333 stories

Bio

Award-Winning Writer, Poet, Scottish-Italian, Subversive.

The Accidental Poet - Poetry Collection out now!

Streams and Scratches in My Mind coming soon!

Achievements (30)

Stories (1333)

Filter by community

Sort by (Optional)

Blueprints to Solitude
Clutching top secret plans for a single-pilot spacecraft, the tall, gangly silhouette made his way out of the base. He was sure he'd gotten away with it this time. After all, one of his many companies did design the security system.
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Fiction
To The Dead We Owe the Truth. Content Warning.
“We should be considerate to the living; to the dead we owe only the truth. " - Voltaire. I loved my Gran. I loved visiting her and wouldn't stop. But since her dementia had taken its vice-like grip. Since that evil disease had squeezed out everything that made her spectacular, it was harder.
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Fiction
Unblinking. Top Story - October 2025.
standby light, standby bright the last light I see at night a stark reminder, if you will of the impermanence of life
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Poets
Fostering Doubts
Author's Preamble: As noted above, this is my 22nd rejection, in my ongoing attempt to win something or have something published outside of Vocal. The following story was written for the 2025 Ligonier Valley Writers' Flash Fiction Contest. The prompt was simply, AI/robots, the light or dark side. 1000 words or less.
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Fiction
The Reflection in the Windscreen
We, my wife and I, were driving along the M8, Glasgow’s main motorway, on our way to Ingliston — a country club fancier than the places we’d stayed before. The journey was pleasant, though for a while I grew inward, distracted. It was only later, after we’d arrived and before a nap ahead of dinner, that I told her I’d had a strange experience.
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Humans
Stars Behind My Eyelids
I held my breath for what seemed like an eternity. As I clamped my eyelids shut, stars started to form in the darkness — kaleidoscopic and mesmerising. Everything slowed to a dreamlike drift, and my heartbeat’s rapidly escalating pace threatened to fling the swollen organ across the dancefloor.
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Fiction
Missing Forever-Afters
Consider the framing of the door as the framing of the story. Trying to reach and pull at the handle — struggling. Swollen wooden panelling prevents it from opening easily.
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Fiction
Lantern Through All My Days
Shadows, darkness form, as dusk cradles the dawn <> Red flags — the buzzword of our age. Only slight glimmers of light ever seen,
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Poets
More or Less
At 10, more or less, masks meant Spidey, Batman, and Scooby-Doo villains— the old man from the fun fair. ~ the mask protects me
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Poets
No Sedation
In the abattoir Die... time to die... die in pain with no sedation
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Poets
The Door Persists
In the incandescent evanescence, my state of existence I hear the drumming of knuckles on sandstone. Every hour, on the hour.
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Fiction
The Bracken Will Wither
What happens when the looking eye notices you? That was a question Donald Finnegan asked himself as he was transfixed, bent over the door to the old cellar of the bar, where a saline-dripping, large iris looked from side to side before focusing on him. Salt crusted the handle as a thin layer of sea mist rose from under the door. As he knew full well the door led to nothing but an old, unused storeroom and then the thick back wall of the bar, he put it down to the whisky. He fell backwards, turned away, and ignored it. Daft bastard.
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Fiction