Daily Story

In the streets they were calling for impossible things: lush forests unbound by fences, great public halls full of books to read for free, a teacher for every child. Decent enough folk, turned feral by false promises. None of us liked the medicine we had to dispense that day. Myself,

After Mrs Clements' passing, a hollow book was found among her possessions, and in its hand-cut void a silver key and an inscrutable map. Her heirs and their hangers-on spent many years searching for the lock that little key opened, with the dubious help of the map and without

I had forty leaflets left before I could go home and I knew down to the roots of my teeth that I could chuck them all in the bin and the world wouldn't change. They were all heading there anyway. The only difference would be that forty-one people

I wished that somebody would at least turn over the page on the flip chart. It was unbearable, to have it sitting in the corner while we were chewed out. To be asked “What have you been doing all morning?”, when the evidence was right there in red marker pen.

We spent a day on the river. It was changing faster in those days, finding broad new meanders that took us back almost to where we started, cutting through its own banks so that we never saw places we expected to. It was hardly worth planning the trip: you might

I was at the bus shelter with the missing roof, waiting, and I had just sat in gum. I knew that I had sat in gum because a minute before I had looked at the foul grey blob of it clinging to the seat and thought, make sure you don&

The cats stared at each other and I stared at the cats. Slowly, like a leaf towards the sun, one of them turned away. I couldn't say if it was an entente or a surrender. They stayed near each other a while, enemies or friends or some third

The city receded. Cities, like mountains, don't look smaller as you move away. Instead you see the unbearable scale of them, and they look bigger than ever. As we passed out of sight of it, it seemed to grow and grow, a little larger each time we looked

I found him shivering on the balcony. "I had to get out," he explained, "but I should have gone for the front door." Twenty minutes later and I would have found him climbing down the building. I got him a blanket and a cup of tea,

I saw the first hints of blossom, like the branch-tips had been dipped in violet ink. Too soon. I need a few more weeks to hide in the dark, to numb my toes. I am not ready for brighter days just yet. But I saw two daffodils, too, and a