Archive

The Pit and the Sky

Cats big and small, worrisome pastes, and a hole that calls to you.

Celebrity

She was on the cover of all the magazines: those obscure trade ones that lie untouched on a coffee table while you wait for a job interview; the fifty-six issue limited runs where you build a model of the Titanic; the smudged-toner zines that are the only things still worth

Trophy cabinet

When I want to forget a thing I did, I make myself a trophy, and it goes up on my shelf. It sits next to the plaque I got for falling asleep at work, the cup I won for throwing up on my sister's bridesmaid, the foot-in-mouth shield

The unicorn

On the lawn of Safflower House, a unicorn lay sleeping. You could see how it rested on the tips of the grass, barely bending them. It must have weighed little more than a sigh. I wanted nothing more than to go out to it, rest a hand on its nose,

Cat dreams

She was a cat by night, and used to wake with the taste of blood in her mouth, but as her fur greyed all that was too much. In those colder, darker nights, when the cat-dreams came she leapt from her own bed and padded over to the box room.

Eventide

Eventide was a sort of paste, with little crystalline grains suspended in it. You spread it across your eyelids when you went to bed and it kept the dreams off you. Monstrously expensive, but everybody bought it. It was all the more frightening to dream when you were the only

The leopard in the library

The leopard in the library scared people away. There was no pretending otherwise. She stalked the shelves while you were browsing and made it very hard to concentrate. But she had never hurt anyone, and she always had her library card hanging from her collar, and she read and read

Winter fruits

We got one last crop from the garden, those soft white berries that don't grow anywhere else. I put them in boiling water to take off their thin, bitter skins, then cooked them down to a thick jam. Winter air curled in through the open windows, and I

Edith Buchanan's Wonderful Machine

This week's story is about a magic lamp that, as far as we can tell, does not have a genie in it.

Worried

I was worried about the yellowing around my fingernails, a dirty sort of yellow, like I had been smoking all my life. I was worried about the skin cracking at the corner of my mouth, and the taste when I woke, and the way my tongue felt too big by

Doubtful ballot

I spent forty minutes tucked in the little booth, drawing on my ballot paper with the stubby pencil. Nobody can look at you there. It's not allowed. They have to leave you alone to make whatever mark you choose. I drew a different thing in every square, six

A flash

Lightning struck the spire, then stayed, stretched across the sky like a nerve. On cold days it stretched out taut and thrummed in the wind; on warm days it curled lazily around the sky. Before long we found we were navigating by it, without thinking: it framed our space the

Pass the parcel

Jenny always joined in with pass-the-parcel, so I wrapped the ring box up in golden paper and made that the big prize in the middle. Haribo friendship rings in some of the layers, just to drop a hint. Of course I checked with her sister and her niece first. I

Scheduled departure

We had been waiting for the train a very long time. A few of the songs we sang had become favourites: one about the train that would come one day, most about the things we had done while we were waiting. On Saturdays we played a game, throwing coffee cups

A little better today

The dull dread had drained from his limbs while he slept. It must be in the sheets somewhere: he sprang up to go about washing them. Crisp, fresh linen for a crisp, fresh day. They dried double-quick in the sun, and as he watched the low wind fill them he

Paper wasps

I took the little box you made me out to the garage, where the wasps build their nests. Such light, papery things they make. It will take them decades to get through it. At the end of each winter I cut down the empty nest and hang it gently from

Right Through You

It suddenly turned very cold this week, so here's a story about becoming very cold and possibly never warming up again. Also, Uncertain Stories have a little Q&A with me about my story 'All Seasons Sweet'. I'm grateful to them for not

Paragliders

We sat and watched the paragliders circling above us, and I told her what my brother had told me, about how the geological fault that built the cliffs they sailed from was still moving the landscape today, and the paragliders were the only way to monitor the shifting ground. Halfway

Bouquet toss

She must have thrown the bouquet so far. It sailed over the guests' heads, over the hedge, over the horizon. She laughed and flexed her bicep, and there was cheering and laughter. Later, it flew over the opposite wall, looking a little the worse for wear, and slammed into

False starts

but only when— and even if— before we saw— the day after— when she told me— only later did I— by then it was too— they should have known— it felt not sad but— I shut my mouth, my book, my door, my eyes, and began at the beginning instead.