Ashley Lazlo

He was walking along the street when I spotted him for the first time, it was morning rush hour on a typical warm sunny July day.  City centre sidewalks were full of commuters and plenty wore a knee length summer dress, strappy sandals, little shoulder bag and a deceiving no make-up look as was the seasons fashion which added up to a real a cute look as the office workers hurried  along carrying their coffees. Pale floral knee length summer dress apart Man in a Dress had a much more individual look, one all of his own. ———//——— I had been sitting in the JobCentre waiting area a few minutes when Man in a Dress took a number from the ticket machine then sat in a seat a row in-front of me. From my seat I had a clear yet oblique view of Man in a Dress and like a French fashion critic I examined him in more detail; thirty-six hour shadow, number 4 possibly 5 buzzcut, mens Adidas classics, black ankle socks. Clearly visible through the thin summer dress material were his striped box...

  “New Old Stock” the shopping site listing said. I had owned and loved one just like it years ago, worn it at every opportunity until purge day…sorry I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll start over at the beginning. I remember my first purge as if it were only yesterday rather than a half-lifetime ago. I remember putting every item of clothing in the black trash bag along with my shoes. All of the things I had built up over the years since getting my own apartment went in that bag. I even watched as they threw my trash bag into the back of the refuse truck. I won’t say if I shed a tear but it did feel like watching a friends coffin descending into the grave as my clothes disappeared into the truck. The decision had seemed right at the time, well of course it did, I was young and Elizabeth and I were in love. Putting my days of sneaking around in women’s clothes behind me was the right thing to do for us, a small price to pay for a life together. Things were different back then, t...

There was a program on our local television channel called My Life one Tuesday afternoon at 16:00 where ordinary people are interviewed. I turn the telly on at 16:59 to watch Countdown then one day I misread my watch and turned it on at 15:59 — I know, how stupid is that and me supposed to be so clever at maths. Actually I am clever at maths and that’s not bragging because it is true. On Countdown players pick six numbers and have to use them to make a random number, sometimes the lady expert and contestants cannot solve the problem even though it is easy. And the random numbers are not truly random because… Enough! Enough about Countdown, I wanted to tell you about the time I watched My Life, there was a group of retired men from some social club saying how men nowadays started off wrong, not the way it was supposed to be when they were young.  One old fella said ‘a man should have a local’ and the others agreed saying that having a local pub where you are a regular is an im...