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She had all her broken things arranged on the kitchen table: phones, friendships, hopes, hoover. Clothes and cares all gone into holes. She set to work with needle and thread and screwdriver and solder, one by one, the only way to do anything. By the time the sun went down

I went back to the old church most days. You could find me on my knees, head bowed. I had dropped something very precious there, and in the dim light it was hard to search for. Of course, I knew I would never find it. It had probably been sucked

We didn't have all the pieces, so we had to invent our own rules. Two scrappy little armies, one of them mostly pawns, but the pawns were so battered you could tell each one apart. We gave them names, skills, stories. From time to time they would switch

Glyn did amateur dramatics in his old school hall, under the direction of his old school drama teacher. It felt like a nightmare, sometimes, standing around before rehearsal under those same fluorescent lights but talking about jobs and backaches. But then the run came round, the audience filed in, the

A new way of living. That's what we were promised. That's what we had longed for, all the long days. A way that would connect us. We gave up everything, and did it gladly, because there wasn't anything we wanted to keep. But it&

Flat on my back, spilled beer seeping into my shirt, I was thinking: they can all tell. Everyone can see this is the first punch I've ever taken. They are looking at me on the ground and thinking: what else hasn't he done? My jaw didn&

From the very top of the tree, you could see out across the whole forest, but nothing that was happening within it: the world beneath was hidden under leaves. But some of the creatures seemed to see deeper. Every movement below came together to ripple the branches just so, and

After the wreck they stayed in the lighthouse. It was the only shelter with room for them, and though they felt resentful of it for failing to save them, they were grateful for its strong walls when the winds blew again. Gray spent the days hauling scraps of their boat