If pushed, Maisie said the TV was crap, the weather was crap, the food was gross and the art gave her nightmares. But Grandad was OK. That was, if pushed. Usually Maisie’s phone conversations were a series of grunts and monosyllables. Her mother let her express her feelings. ‘O.K., talk to you on Wednesday, Green
A story for Ieva We move in right before new year. Glasgow, Scotland, as the Americans say. Top-floor flat. Cold, bare, tall ceilings. I am used to terraced houses in a way I don’t quite understand, and the tenements impress me. They are surprisingly solid, hard – like the first time you punch someone’s face.
“You ok mate? You look a bit down. Everything alright? What’s up? What’s happening? Nothing. It’s ok. I’m ok. Honest. It’s just, well, I didn’t want to put all my problems onto you. It’s not fair. You’ve your own problems to deal with. You don’t need mine too. Come on mate. Don’t be like that.
Doug liked his volunteer gig driving Barney to hospital appointments. The guy made him laugh, the way he flipped wildly from one topic to another like a human pinball machine. A fast talker for a guy dying slowly. Doug had Deb to thank for suggesting that he volunteer in the first place. He just couldn`t
Traditional British nursery rhyme about magpies: One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy. He was out in the back field, shooting at magpies. She heard the crack and echo from inside the house and held her breath until she saw the birds rise, black and white against the
She watched the car pull up to the side of the station, positioning itself noncommittally by the black wrought iron gate that lined the main road. She spotted it immediately. It’s light blue body distinct against the dense, suffocating rain that obscured the other nondescript vehicles; opaque slabs of colour that were sliding in and
Why did life have to be like this? I had been through one relationship after another, mostly parting as “friends,” and I did not get it–on a train to nowhere, stopping at stations. With Jeanne we stopped once a year. I could want her all I wanted, and that was all. I could hear in
For a last meal it was hardly the stuff of legend. The old fella chipped a couple of spuds, threw them in the fryer and popped a chop under the grill, followed by a digestif of Barry’s tea and a smoke out the garden. I was lately back in the family home because me and
The pandemic raged on in blue and red states alike, and our youth watched mountains burn and burn, while the year reigned as a colossus risen from hell: it brought deaths and the cloister of quarantine, riots and protests to ignite and incense bodily fires through sleeplessness and troubled starts. Breathing became a privilege for
When people ask Miri Zestler why she became a stand-up comedian, she tells them about Gill. She met Gill one evening at the tail end of her Physics and Philosophy degree when he performed at the Oxford Student Union. She watched him bewail and thunder onstage, fascinated by this man who had travelled the length
