The Unbelievable Death of Joseph Goldberg: and other stories

By Oliver Franks

A darkly comic collection of fantastical short stories.

Joseph Goldberg is the wrinkled old man you see wrapped up in a fraying scarf and dusty trilby hat, hobbling along the seafront promenade in the dead of winter. He's grizzled, cynical, bitter, and swears like a trooper. In his defence, he didn't lead the life he wanted, and his closet is full of skeletons.  But then, one cold day, something amazing happens. Something so mind blowing, Joseph hardly knows what to do with himself. 

This book includes The Unbelievable Death of Joseph Goldberg, plus three other short stories.

READER PRAISE:

"A seamless blend between reality and fantasy. Franks' prose is evocative and successfully suspends the reader in the ethereal space of magic realism. Things are rarely as they seem."

"Stories lingering in the imagination until long after the last page has been turned."

"A well written and intriguing collection and I will keep an eye out for more of this author's work."

"Short stories that are original, even blow your mind at times, and maybe make you really think."

"Fantastic visualizations, rock solid descriptions, and even better characterization."

"A great journey of a story. I really enjoyed the old man's adventures."

• Language: English
• Publisher: darkside fiction
• Release date: Mar 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386806721

Oliver Franks

Oliver Franks is an independent author from Brighton, England. With a life-long passion for reading, particularly science fiction, he writes a unique brand of dark sci-fi, magic realism and fantastical tales filled with action, amazing situations and larger-than-life characters. His mission is to enthrall readers with unforgettable speculative adventure stories. This book is a small collection of four stand-alone short stories designed to showcase Oliver’s work as he launches his career as an author. Visit Oliver’s website at https://oliverfranksauthor.com/ for more information on the novels he has planned for release in 2018 and beyond. You can also sign-up to Oliver’s fan list to receive free content, interesting updates and exclusive offers.

Book preview

Oliver Franks

The Unbelievable Death of Joseph Goldberg

and other stories

First published by Darkside Fiction Press in 2018

Copyright © Oliver Franks, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Oliver Franks asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Oliver Franks has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

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Contents

About the author

The Unbelievable Death of Joseph Goldberg

The Chair

The Dark Matter of Dreams

Without the Simple Science

Message from the author

Acknowledgements

About the author

Oliver Franks is an author from Brighton, England. He writes a unique blend of science fiction, magic realism, dark comedy and fantastical tales – what might be called speculative misadventure. Embracing the magic of the strange, the dangerous and the vaguely possible, his mission is to enthrall and challenge readers with darkly comic entertainment whilst telling stories with a point, even if that point isn’t always immediately obvious. Otherwise, indeed, what is the point?

Visit his website for more information and to subscribe to his newsletter list. It’s probably worth it for the free stories alone.

https://oliverfranksauthor.com/

The Unbelievable Death of Joseph Goldberg

Joseph Goldberg is the wrinkled old man you often see wrapped up in a fraying scarf and dusty trilby hat, hobbling along the seafront promenade in the dead of winter. He does this for one reason and one reason only, and that is to observe the starlings above the old pier. Migrating in their thousands to roost in the rusty spires of that decrepit structure, the starlings can be seen on a daily basis, rising, falling and swimming through the air all as one. ‘Murmuration’, that’s the technical term, or so some busybody once told Joseph. A random, apparently spontaneous group activity, the purpose of which has long baffled scientific thinkers. Whatever the explanation, it’s nothing short of an endless, transcendent parade of shifting, shimmering, description-defying shapes, all metamorphosing across the sky as easily as the wind blows. As Joseph likes to say, it’s fucking grand .

Sinking his behind onto the usual bench, Joseph was pleased on this particular afternoon to inhale the crisp mid-winter air under a sky brushed with sunset-red clouds, full of starlings out in force (a right flood of them). Not as many as in past years, of course, and the pier was certainly a dark shadow of its former self, ravaged by neglect, battered by the untamed British seas. God only knew how many years now he’d been plonking his arse in that very spot. In good times and in shit. He really had had a long, hard life. Been through a hell of a lot of crap.

And so, with a certain distaste, Joseph realised that a rather dreamy, nostalgic mood had crept up on him. Certainly not something he ordinarily experienced (ordinarily he would much rather not). Sometimes one just can’t help these things.

And so, quite unable to resist, he found himself thinking of Lucy, of his mostly crappy life, of all the things he’d never done.

* * *

Their romance blossomed as the war faded. She loved the starlings too (silly young Lucy). Sneaking past the barbed wire and pill boxes, all for a close-up view. That’s what she told him anyway. They had their first kiss in the winter of ‘45, roasting their bums on the pebbles, arm in arm under the starlings.

Life together soon developed its problems. Joseph slogged it as a language teacher to make ends meet. He hated it. The secondary modern system, students who couldn’t give a rats’ arse for all that ‘Nazi gobbledygook’. Ungrateful little shits, he used to say, though he did sympathize. For his part, he was a crap teacher, making as little effort as he could, being cranky and doling out punishments as often as he could. He sorely missed the flying. Flying is a much better mode, he always said.

After a few years of teaching, for a while things got