Daily Story

I lived up in that tree when I was a kid. I carved my initials and felt guilty every time I looked at them. I thought I'd cry when I saw it cut down. I thought I'd ask for a little chunk of it, the branch

I bent to pick a snowdrop, but the stem didn't snap. It drew up out of the soil, impossibly long, and as I pulled I felt the earth begin to tremble with the movement. Up came stones and worms and the roots of other plants, up came the

He kept the shavings from his woodcuts in an amber glass jar: all the negative space, the places the ink didn't touch. When he shook it he fancied he could see all the choices he hadn't made, all the pictures he hadn't printed. But

Mr Manscombe told us that the visitors were important. Well, if they so important as all that, why did they all drive such boring cars? Black, black, and black. If I was important I'd get a car in an interesting colour. They asked us all the most stupid

The crew had been carefully selected: no illnesses, no unstable personalities, no physical deficiencies. Caitlin was the one exception, her expertise being irreplaceable: if her glasses broke in the new universe, one of these perfect uniformed men would have to lead her by the arm. They stepped through on a

After ten weeks' journey we came to Skull Island, where we had important business. We found the man we were looking for in a cabin on the hill, the only dwelling in evidence. Our captain took up the matter, pushing through the door without knocking. "You, sir,"

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