There he was, a priest in the sun; like an actor on his mark. He looked away, effacing, as if to say ‘I have you’, from the start. ‘I have you’, I thought. I had just guided the stylus onto the first track and as the scratchy hum from the speakers confirmed contact I heard […]
Fiction
Telling Stories
‘I am not attracted to you,’ Sonja said one night when they’d stayed behind to drink their tips. ‘Well, thank God for that,’ Ruth replied knocking her shot glass against Sonja’s. ‘I can’t thank God. I don’t believe in baby stories anymore.’ Sonja had left Sweden as soon as she could. It was not how […]
Things I Couldn’t Tell Her
I told this story to my best friend Kelly, that crack-of-dawn morning in her flat, when really there were other things I should have been saying – I just couldn’t work out what any of them were. It wasn’t my fault, I was tired, I’d been up all night. At the hospital, sitting with Kelly […]
Susan Frankie Marla Me
The next morning he’s early into work but I have to get home anyway, because I’m shopping with Susan. Big Asda, not the high street. We like it in here because the wide aisles can contain our conversations, and the ceiling is high enough to cope if she gets the giggles. We put the baskets […]
Lazarus, Hiding in the Chill of a Mountain
A second-grade teacher who thinks herself benevolent writes to Marcus Wing, Inmate #A-04014 every morning for six months before she finally runs down her crime-slimed street to the post office. By then she has accumulated one hundred and eighty-five articles, from decoupage paper cut into the shapes of olive branches and Sacred Hearts to vintage […]