Sitting in the campervan staring at the sea she no longer gets in because Ned isn’t with her, Ava feels a throbbing in her lip at the same time as a faint ticking starts up inside her head. She pulls the rear-view mirror round to look and there’s a miniature grandfather clock embedded in her …
White frothing water surges over boulders down the seam of the valley. “Take it away,” she murmurs over the noise. Bitterness has eaten holes in her like moths. She feels spools of ache wound tight within. The woman picks her way down the shepherd’s path, flat shoes and black stockings poking out of a calf-length …
The fragments of their lives settle in grimy heaps like fallen leaves. A ragged pair of football boots, melted DVDs, blistered photographs. They remind me of artefacts from Pompeii or Herculaneum. I say this to the boy, but he simply reminds me that he is dead. I fold the seared remains of his school uniform …
The villagers gather like crimson clouds over the cobblestones, looking up at the Mayor’s gleaming-granite balcony, thirsty for blood. They call her The Eighth, The Pure, The Hope, The Youngest. Anything, but her name. They’ve given their fattest swine, sweetest wine, their life’s harvest, and their wives, waiting to wash the stained sheet by the …
Lealeh’s hair is snow white. Snow white and wrapped in a hair-net. A hair-net that glitters. Glittery studs in her ears. Her ears are small and elegant. Elegance of her fingers, wrapped around the cigarette holder. Her cigarette holder is long and silver—she blows in delicately, then exhales. Exhaling, she says, “I was addicted as …
Look, I know it ain’t much, a bottle of fizzy pop, nabbed after last night’s shift at the Golden Dragon, but your mom’s got foil, paints borrowed from working today’s kids’ club, and paper, all crinkly like, for flames from them thrusters – bog roll’s ours, at least – and I know it’s not the …
The Skipper yells at Gilligan and you know it can’t be good, but you’re okay with it because getting off the island is the last thing you want to see happen. In the background, the Major drops a duffel bag by the door as Sis goes for a new hula-hoop record in the front yard. …
His name was Carl. Her name was—I’m not sure what her name was. She was the barista who worked Sunday mornings. That was all I knew. Helen. Or maybe she just looked like another woman I knew, either in real life or from a movie or a show, whose name was, in fact, Helen. She …
After her husband, Bryan, calls her toxic and walks out for good, Crystal cleans. She dumps stacks of his mail and papers into a huge black trash bag, including his car registration, the one two weeks ago he claimed she’d thrown out. His accusation had kept her from sleeping and at 2 a.m., she’d risen …
Make the paper by hand, sieving the pulp between mesh, hang to dry. When it accepts the ink, transcribe the poem you wrote to declare your feelings as you started courting. Look for a T-shirt – something that reflects you both – but you can’t settle on just one in-joke. Buy an e-gifted sheep for …
Today is Mina’s first day on the new job. She takes more than usual in the shower, lathering and scrubbing, applying berry-scented shaving cream over parts of her body. She follows carefully with a sharp pink razor that leaves smooth bare strips on her armpits, legs, and crotch. She ponders how the head of the …
The man who sits all day in the hot afternoon sun can only see out of one eye. Covered by a thick and egg-white ooze, the eye moves, and the film moves along with it, as he shifts his gaze. When he looks at you, it‘s hard to look back. He fidgets, his hands shake …