“ Did you remember to get the milk?” “Yes” “It’s not in the fridge or on the table” ‘Well what happened was … when I went outside, the sky was a beautiful powder blue and the afternoon was wonderfully warm. It reminded me of when I lived in Cadiz. I started thinking about that chord
He is distracted by the empty cigarette case. The room is otherwise preserved as he remembers. The stained mattress. The sunburnt curtains. The shredded carpet, its threads snaking beneath the mouldy bedframe. But the cigarette case. Where did that come from? The smell is wrong too. Staler, but that’s to be expected. Could someone else
First, there was the craving. He could take care of it himself, but it would return by the end of the day. So he made the call. There was always excitement and anxiety in the hour that followed. There was hope that she would look just like her pictures. Maybe she would treat him like
I took no pleasure in severing the leg. It was no fun to dig the blade across the skin and watch blood scurry from punctate pricks in the parted dermis. My stroke wavered above and below the pen line, drawn like a scar already across the skin, Sabapathy’s hand resting on mine, orbiting me around
I look at every little girl I pass on the street. Even though I know that whoever took her would not bring her back here, to the town where she grew up, where her face is most burned on the collective consciousness. I know this, and yet I stare at every little child I see,
Ragged undulations and watery craters define the pockmarked contours of the monster that is no man’s land. It quivers beneath its frost-hardened carapace of soil, scattered body parts and crusted blood, punctured by the ragged quills of the splintered treeline. It is ravening, insatiable and will swallow, without trace, friend or foe alike. But for
We all inch forward and wait. Inch forward and wait. The woman checking out, her face puckers up in baby face rage because of… oh god, who knows? I can’t tell from 6 people back. Something trivial, no doubt. For fun, I look in the surrounding carts. Oh, dear. Condoms and peanut butter? Wow, I
Ice crystals zig-zag their way haphazardly across the cracked window, their fine, lace-like tentacles spreading ever outwards, multiplying, clinging on despite the smoothness of the surface. Wafts of cold, midnight air steal through every chink, hurrying on up the staircase, slipping under bedroom doors, nipping at noses and ears and peeping-out toes. At dawn, Millie
When the Company installed me, it was with a single utility function. The Circus is a place of joy. And as Ringmaster, it is up to me to facilitate that joy. System error Joy outside acceptable parameters Reloading Ringmaster model I held my top hat in one hand and fussed over my processing unit. There
The envelope flutters onto the welcome mat. She restrains herself from polite applause as she appraises it: red on the soft side of scarlet, dusted with glitter (bronze, not gold –not gaudy), perfumed with the peppery scent of geraniums and sealed with a solitary X. Lifting the billet-doux gently, between manicured finger and thumb (a
