Mark Taylor

My father collected the murderous kind of spy gadget. No clever codes or microdots, just hidden knives and poison rings and beautiful things that were guns. All the most thrilling toys a boy could be forbidden. By the time he left them to me, I had outgrown my fascination. All

It grew dark, and they began to wonder what they had done with the day. Not nothing, surely: most of them were sore all over, and those that weren't were sore in the head at least. But when they looked, they couldn't see where all that

My guitar string broke. My shoelace snapped. My belt fell to pieces, and there was a little shred of torn floss stuck between my back teeth. Everything that had been stretched out too tight and narrow had given up at once. For a while I lived in slippers and elastic-waisted

"I feel like my head's turning inside out," I said, but saying it made me think of pictures I had seen and scrolled past quickly, pictures of heads turned inside out that didn't feel like anything any more. It's not my place

I'm stepping on all the cracks, because I know he doesn't want me to and I'm not in the mood for his stupid games. I can feel his little hand pulling and pushing at mine as he dances around them. It's easy

She married in her great grandmother's wedding dress, sewn up from the parachute that saved her great grandfather's life. Something old, and borrowed from the war museum that kept it pristine. They would add a photo of the day to the exhibit, and she would tell

It was a hot day, but it was cool in my hole, with water round my ankles and shade from the walls. I had brought a few things down, book and snacks and water bottle; it was getting awkward to climb out. Hard work, but fun. I rested my head

She opened up the little box of left-behinds. There she kept eggshells and plum stones and the punched-out frames of board game tokens. A milk tooth nestled inside the lost-wax mould that cast her ring. All the little in-betweens, the punctuation of life. She tucked the letter inside, and closed

There was something in the stone. We all knew it: there was something wonderful inside, if we could only crack it open. But it's not an easy thing to break a stone in two, and it's harder still to keep hold of it long enough to