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In the new world, we made our homes in the mouths of huge carnivorous plants. They seemed not to notice us. We were like nothing else in that strange country. The plants were good hosts: they dissolved the carapaces of the local creatures and, getting all they needed from those

I set off early to the emotion recycling centre , so it would be quiet. At the barrier a man in hi-vis waved me down. "What have you got?" he asked. "Anger, regret. A bit of old grief. Oh, and some shame." "We can't

Once or twice in the time it takes to wear out a pair of shoes, I might allow myself a small act of destruction. A key dragged along the side of a car, or the last page torn out of a library book. A cigarette lighter held in just the

There are times when it is hard to tie a tie. In grief or in excitement. When the fingers are numb with cold or slick with sweat. When someone is watching. When your neck is swollen and painful. While driving. When laughing. When you have recently had a cord pulled

Julia didn't know anybody at the school reunion. She could make out the shape of the class: who has been the popular kids, who had kept under the radar, who had become unexpectedly hot. But that was any school reunion. Where was Adele, with the chewing gum? Where

There was something new in the little lake by the playground. Something like a seal or a walrus, huge and whiskered. Something you could imagine might let the children ride on its back. It ate the bags of old food that were sometimes fly-tipped in the park, and it left

I am a grown-up now, and I can play in quarries and on building sites if I take care not to get caught. I can't climb fences like I once could, but I can buy bolt cutters with my Screwfix card. I am a grown-up now, and I

Grandad had that drum up on the wall his whole life, and it felt like I spent my whole childhood staring at it. The fading paint, the real hide stretched so taut it looked alive. I imagined all the things it would summon if I played it: friendly genies in

In my parents' house there is a drawer of birds' eggs resting in crumpled paper, perfect and protected and cold and dead. I keep them half from pride and half from shame. Even as a boy I knew better. If I hadn't been told not to