‘Town please’, Lisa offered her five-pound note to the bus driver. He didn’t meet her eye; they didn’t tend to anymore, except possibly to question why this professional-looking woman in her smart red coat and leather gloves used public transport so repeatedly. Not that long ago a couple of familiar drivers would let her off […]
Departure Gate

When Clare wakes, she’s tingling at the extremities, her ring finger completely numb. She turns and finds a man sleeping on the pillow beside hers. He is barely breathing and doesn’t seem to be the man she picked up last night. Perhaps it’s his bare shoulders, his face exposed without the angles of his designer […]
Waiting for Liz’s Honda

His wife’s hospital room was calm now, and the visitors knew not to visit. Not yet, anyway. He turned to face Greta’s bed. The fresh daffodils he’d put in the vase a few days prior had started to wilt, and the speckled petals looked a lot like her papery skin. The white walls had […]
As a child you had a recurring dream where you took our feet off the ground and flew

All night, I keep watch; breathe in on his outbreath, drawing his air into my body. He stares blankly, focussed on a point above our heads. I stroke his ear, but he doesn’t react. Maybe he sleeps with his eyes open. All of them, including the hundreds in his wings. I pad to the […]