Daily stories

His magic coat grew new embroidery overnight, marking out his accomplishments in threads of green and gold and scarlet. It grew in beauty as he grew in power. Soon his coat was too beautiful to show to his old friends. He took it where it would be appreciated. Where he would be appreciated. The embroidery stopped growing: now she wasn't there to sit and stitch all night.

I spent a happy afternoon in the park, following squirrels and digging up their nuts. They are fast, but they are small and stupid, so they cannot stop you. A snick and a flick of the trowel and the treasure is yours. I piled my prizes under a glass bowl, so the squirrels could see what they had lost. Their little paws skittered on the glass. If one dug under I would break its back. We all deserve a chance to be on top.

I won a year's supply of dog food, which should logically be no dog food, since I don't have a dog. I expected vouchers, but no: they delivered it in one go. It sat in the hallway, taking up more and less space than I expected, the way every year is longer and shorter than you expect, both at once. I wondered what it would look like if you stacked up all the food I needed for a year, or for a lifetime. I was going to drive it to the rescue centre that afternoon, but instead I made space in the cupboard. I gave it away a meal at a time for twelve months, to shelters and food banks and men on the street you could tell always fed their dogs first. It's electrifying, to be rich in anything.

We used to buy liquorice from the shop up the road, all of us except Mae. We would hang around on the road or in someone's bedroom pretending we liked it, all of us screwing up our faces as our tongues turned black and Mae shook her head slowly. Later on we bought cigarettes, and then vodka. Mae just kept on buying ten white chocolate mice and a can of Vimto. We all wanted to copy her, but we were scared to do it. We copied each other instead.

The mouse stares at Mike. Mike stares at the mouse. He has seen this play out in movies: a man sat awake in the quiet of the night, connecting for a moment with a little creature that cannot comprehend him but somehow seems to. Usually the man speaks some pithy quip or weary solemnity, but Mike's mind is blank. He is no better at talking to mice than anyone else. The mouse gives a little squeak, and turns away. Yet again, Mike feels that he is not the hero of the scene.

The Incredible Clockwork Boy wouldn't come out. One too many punters had made a joke about winding him up, and he had stomped off stage as hard as his delicate legs could manage. "Oh, he's ticked off now," a voice shouted as he went. He sat in his dressing room, door closed but not locked, and laid a hand over the keyhole in his chest. They key hung on the wall like a brass skull. Such a difficult thing, always to say: "I want to live tomorrow. Please help me."

The fireworks stood in the air, burning like a migraine, more bursting every moment. Soon it would be so bright it would look like daytime. The sound was constant too, every bang turning to a drone. We screamed out at the night to stop letting them off, to give the sparks a chance to fall to earth, but nobody could hear. Behind a cloud, the moon began to burst.

There are new things in the sky, smooth white disks stacked atop each other, that seem to hover in place. I never see them move, except to rise higher until they are too far away to see. They either don't have lights, or they don't come out at night. And they hum, a more sonorous sound than a jet engine. I suppose you already know about them. I suppose everybody does. By now I'm sure people can't remember what life was like without them. You can forget how fast things change, if you don't look up.

"Wood splits. Concrete cracks. Metal rusts. Why not build in wonderful plastic?" The poster must have been there for decades. We knew we would never get it off in one piece, so we set up lights and took good photographs. We knew that someone, somewhere, would want it preserved. Then we lifted the corner, and the whole thing peeled away, pristine as the day it was pasted up. A moment later the wall collapsed. The photos didn't come out. We drifted apart.

She brought him cake soaked in syrup, too sticky to eat. It made him angry, although he knew it shouldn't. He watched the sugar crystallise on the paper bag, then threw it away, untasted. The next day she brought him gingerbread, warm and fragrant. But that made him angry too.