Call me Pinky. My pregnant wife slipped on some afterbirth and fell down the stairs of our Napa Valley bungalow. When she gave birth to our son, William Fontaine III, he had a dent the shape of Mississippi in his forehead. That’s where his grand-pappy, his namesake, is from. We considered it a miracle. What’s
Crammed in a closet with barely space to breathe, never mind move, I’ve managed to manoeuvre myself into the most uncomfortable of positions. My knees are near enough kissing my chin, and with each passing second, the flimsy shelf I’m leaning on is seemingly another step closer to collapse. Nevertheless, I’m stuck in this shoebox
Before I went downstairs to the casino I gave Bill a call because I didn’t want to have to check in all night long. Not that I had to check in, Bill wasn’t that kind of guy, but old habits die hard. -Be safe, he said. I promised I would be safe…if I felt like
The road is a long, straight, certain thing, the sort a teacher might claim was built by Roman soldiers in some benevolent act of imperial charity. One side is lined with takeaways; the other, B&Bs. At the end of the road is the sea. It reflects the clouds with a blank indifference, ignoring me. The
Roscoe was carrying the dead thing. The dead thing was in his possession now, and that was all that mattered. The dogs were following still, but at a wary distance. He’d have felt better if he’d had some sausages to throw them, but he could hardly blame himself for that. None of this had been
The day after her husband’s cremation, Attiya went back to work. Wan pow – the coffin carried three times around the stupa, paper wraps of satang coins thrown to the crowd for children to catch, coconut water poured over the body, the steel maw of the incinerator sliding closed – came at the end of
A tiger chases a baby impala and knocks it down with one swipe of its paw, then sits to stare at it. The impala stands up and turns to look at the tiger. The impala and the tiger differ in size like a human baby compared to a large adult. The impala has that clueless
The road up to Gavin’s house winds through pine forest so deep I squint to make out the way after the brightness of the drive along the lochside. Tarmac becomes a gravel track, crosses a cattle grid and zigzags up through the trees before opening out onto the moor. Huddled beneath a stand of oak,
I’m still rubbing sanitiser on my hands when he catches me from behind. Deep bass notes, arcing vowels, unhurried syllables. He could narrate a mindfulness app with that voice, like a Brummie David Attenborough – though less of a relic. I’ve debated telling him this but decided against. Probably not the best thing to tell
Our father was a big-wig at the Oregon Fish Commission, and the freezer in our spacious mock Tudor home in Clackamas was always chock full with wild salmon and bull trout. My twin brother Jake and I gorged on the rich bouillabaisse and fricassee dishes that our mother served up each evening at exactly seven
