The Importance of Fish
The Importance Of Fish By Julia Deery At ten I was not good with fish. They were slippery creatures. Tricky. Slithering through my fingers. “You must be firm,” my mother said. By the worktop near the sink, I watched her with a whole mackerel. Whorls of black, a bright clear eye. On the blue Formica, […]
Coverings
Coverings By Anita Goveas Because I don’t know how to pleat my sari, and YouTube tells you how they do it to look slimmer and how they do it in Bollywood, but not how to drape it to make your Nana smile when you Skype her. Because when I was a shepherd in the nativity […]
Four Left Turns
Four Left Turns By Pierre Perera In ‘79 the hospital tastes like starch and linseed oil. Thanks to the fall, her vision has grown fuzzy, but she can still make out the vague, grey mass of him beside the bed. The silk scent of honeysuckle from the windowsill reminds her of the day they met. […]
Nine Lives
Nine Lives By Philip Ellis The first time he sees her after the breakup, she is a sparrow. He catches a glimpse of her as she flies overhead, and he knows it’s her. He watches her fleeting form soar higher, until she is little more than a dot, then he lets out a pained ‘ribbit’ […]
A Fear Of Ladders
A Fear Of Ladders By Lisa Fransson The step ladder Amy carries tucked under her arm is as light as step ladders come. Of aluminium and one rung taller than her. She carries it everywhere, including up the stairs to her desk on the seventh floor. Whenever Health and Safety prowls past Amy and her […]
The Left Behind
The Left Behind By Die Booth There’s a city where a day has lasted half a century. The sea is still turquoise as a colour-postcard around Kadana’s concrete seams, but armed guards stalk the barrier around the clock. Nobody in; nobody alive in there to come out. If you stand on the wall, you can […]
How To Keep The Hunger At Bay
How To Keep The Hunger At Bay By Jan Kaneen Preheat oven to 180 degrees then go pick apples. In the wet’s best, on the darkest day of autumn, when everything smells of mold and mushrooms and the garden looks like rust and cinders. But don’t let the fruit ruin waiting for perfection. Stand under […]
Arthur Will Be Home Soon
Arthur Will Be Home Soon By Jan Howcroft I picked my neighbour’s flowers and set fire to the house, or so this woman says. She keeps saying she’s my daughter, but she’s sixty if she’s a day. How could I have a daughter who’s older than me? Arthur comes in from the greenhouses and says […]