Daily stories

It had been a sixty-year campaign, and just him for most of that. Him and his chart of constellations – new ones, ones that made sense. He knew when he began that he might get nowhere, and he thought he had accepted it, but now he felt his heart wearing out it all seemed harder. It was the world he felt for, stuck with its old way of looking at the sky. It would be all the same to him when he was gone. He would see the stars close up, and they would look completely different.

It's not your fault, he said to the tears on her face. You know the blobfish? They call it the world's ugliest animal. But it only looks like that when you fish it up. It's the pressure change that does it. You see what I mean? He smiled, eyes artfully crinkling, and put his hands on hers. She wondered how he would look if she dragged him back to the deep sea with her.

He left late, because the cake had taken so long. But the cake was a disaster, too, an eggy, unrisen mess in the tin. It didn't even taste good with his eyes closed. So he was late and cakeless, except for the smear of it unnoticed on his trousers. By the time he arrived he was sweaty and stressed and falling over his tongue trying to apologise, and nobody understood why, because nobody had needed a cake from him, or punctuality. He went into the toilets to mop his brow with paper towels, and saw the stain on his leg, and left early.

In the dream there was wet cloth over her face, and when she peeled it away she found another layer, and another. When she woke, she could still feel it there, suffocating her, blinding her. She lived that way for years, afraid to dream, but hopeful, too, that the next layer of dream-cloth might be the last. Bolts and bolts of it, and gallons of water, until one night she dreamed a different dream, and breathed again.

When the leaves fell, things would feel better. The world would have shaken off its heaviness and he would see the sky through his window again. He knew what he needed. He had everything ready. He was just waiting for one good windy day to strip the branches bare. But the weather was calm and the air was still, all through September, all through October. Every tree he looked at had a leaf or two, just clinging on. He sat like a ship becalmed, until the new leaves came.

Grey-tongued, he braved sunlight and strangers until he reached the bookshop. Shelves and shelves of nothing. He had a pile of library books, five times renewed, and reservations just come in, but he wanted to buy. He wanted perfect corners and the smell of ink. He wanted papercuts, not words. After too much browsing he made his selections: a book on the history of the London Underground, which he had never ridden; and a hardback novel so thin it looked like a greetings card, with a big number on the back to compensate. They would tickle at the edge of his overdraft nicely. He took them to the counter to be judged.

I spent all morning at the beach looking for two perfect shells that my mum could make into earrings. I got one straight away, so I thought I'd find another one quickly too, but then they were all broken or the wrong colour or had holes in. She said we could just make a necklace but she never wears necklaces. Then I found another and it was blue and shiny and perfect all over, but when I brought it back we saw the first one had got broken to bits in my dad's pocket, and it was nearly time to go home and I hadn't even had a chance to dig my hole. But maybe it's good that it happened, because when I was sad they got me an ice cream, and it meant I got to keep the second shell.