Once in a Blue Moon (2003) is the second collection of short stories by Magnus Mills. As in his novels, each is told by an unnamed narrator :
- "Once in a Blue Moon" in which the narrator acts as negotiator in an armed siege between the police and his mother.
- "The Good Cop" in which he is interrogated by one or possibly two identical policemen.
- "They Drive by Night" in which he is picked up as a hitch-hiker by a large lorry in which he sits in the noisy cab between the driver and his mate and attempts to make sense of the conversation.
- "Screwtop Thompson" in which he is a child and receives as a present "Screwtop Thompson" a toy whose head unscrews and which came in several guises. The narrator chose a policeman but received a schoolmaster....without a head.
Famous quotes containing the words blue and/or moon:
“At twelve, the disintegration of afternoon
Began, the return to phantomerei, if not
To phantoms. Till then, it had been the other way:
One imagined the violet trees but the trees stood green,
At twelve, as green as ever they would be.
The sky was blue beyond the vaultiest phrase.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“the broad cloud-driving moon in the clear sky
Lifts o’er the firs her shining shield,
And in her tranquil light
Sleep falls on forest and field.
See! sleep hath fallen: the trees are asleep:
The night is come. The land is wrapt in sleep.”
—Robert Bridges (1844–1930)