He said he was living in his parents’ one-room garage until he could afford his own place, that he’d decked it out like a scene from a 70s movie: red lava lamp in the corner, posters of trippy fractals on the walls, a silkscreen of Hendrix on the ceiling, shag rug on the floor in …
The second-hand Super Sindy Home arrives in our frigid, old house as abruptly as anything arrives when one person wants rid of it, and another wants something for free. ‘Where do you want it?’ my father asks my mother, as if it was not him who had been talked into taking it from a colleague …
The Lion, the Witch and the Super Sindy Home by Charlotte Turnbull Read More »
Toby fired jagged grit into the pond. Watched ripples do the hokey-cokey. Grandad’s precious carp scattered with every splash. Idiots came back though, too stupid to realise it wasn’t food he was shooting at them. Their long strong bodies moved like snakes. Snakes with insect wings flapping. Tissue-paper delicate. Their scales flared against the mucky …
I remember the smoke that night, how it blew across the heaving hillside that rose like a fist in the dark to where we watched from the far shore, far enough away to be safe, but close enough so we could say “we were there” on Monday morning on the school bus, how we listened …
I was the one who welcomed her to my master’s home, and the moment I opened the great oak door I realised that none of our lives would ever be the same. She met my eye for only a second, then looked down, her cheeks colouring, as if I might think she didn’t deserve to …
The devil went down to London to bargain for a human heart. Now the devil may be made up of smoke, deep pressed malice and spite and greed, and his own heart may be quite different to our own, but he still needs the uncorrupted beat of the human organ to feed the hungers of …
In the school cafeteria at lunchtime, hungry mouths of lickspittle children lick salty chip-fingers and belch like milk-drunk babies in each other’s faces. Douglas’s table is empty, his belly too. He stares into the space between the formica tabletop and the linoleum floor, tries to disappear. The other kids call him names, they avoid him …
When I was three, maybe four years old my mom used to sing a Mitch Miller tune at bedtime. My sisters and I would march up the stairs, chirp along with the chorus, and flop into our beds as the song ended: Be kind to your web-footed friendsFor a duck may be somebody‘s mother,Be kind …
Alan next door was that kid – the one always saying stuff, like when he said David Bowie was an old friend of the family on his mum’s side who was forever popping round for tea or just to see how everything was going. I suggested that might not be true and Alan said he …
It’s all bright lights. She blinks and squints, willing her eyes to adjust, but all she can see are the luminous strips above. Susan has been snatched from reality and dumped here. A gate opens and there’s a little focus. Small creatures crawl and slither over glossy rainbow mounds in the distance. Susan startles at …
When I’m not checking for cracks, I like to lie on my stomach watching the earthworms on the other side of the floor. You’d be surprised how comfortable glass can be when you get used to it. You couldn’t see earthworms under our old home — it had carpets and foundations and things. It was …
No Dark Surprises In My New Transparent House by S.A. Greene Read More »
1 sip Hot blend of black and a spot of white. A stroke to the tongue, a hump to the throat, a pause to time. Perfect. A crack zigzags ceiling-to-floor. An insulting cut to the book-page-white wall. 2 sips Warmth, unfit to iron out a frown. Side-eyeing the crack, Juliet calls out, Howard?, immediately wondering …
Juliet Is Drinking Her Morning Tea When She Notices A Crack by Noemi Scheiring-Olah Read More »