Jan Steer The spherical woman sat at a table adjacent to and just below the raised wooden platform at the end of the village hall. Constructed to make a stage for visiting acts, it was now all but redundant. Acts rarely visited. The village was too remotely placed and so removed from decent roads that entertainers seldom gave any Read more...
All 10 Minutes
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Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou On the first Sunday in November, at six o’clock sharp, as visiting hours at the retirement home ‘Peace’ begin, kyra Efthalia’s daughter arrives. She works as an administrative assistant at the hospital of Patras, two blocks down the street, but she usually visits once a month. She’s wearing a plasterboard-starched beige suit and bright red stilettos, which Read more...
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I’d been badgered for a while by mum to get a Saturday job but this time the threat felt real. Dad was kind of on my side, but he also was adding the pressure lately. ‘You have to get a job, Michael. We’re not going to pay for another computer game, and that’s that,’ my mother said. ‘Your mother’s right, Read more...
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It was 2.56am when it occurred to Emma that she could not remember the name of her childhood friend’s cat. Lindsey had been her timid next-door-but-two-neighbour, and her cat had been completely black with an incongruously bright pink nose. Emma’s daughter had reminded her of the creature that evening. ‘A kitten got stuck on the gym roof today!’ Lucy’s voice Read more...
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DINNER ‘Happy birthday, laopo.’ Emmeline beamed, her soapy fingers trying not to drop the phone into the kitchen sink. Such tiny things, the phones these days! ‘Thank you, dear.’ ‘I’m sorry I can’t come home early this time. New boss, you know…’ ‘Of course, it’s okay. We’ll have dinner tonight.’ ‘The kids are back, right?’ ‘The kids…’ Well, they Read more...
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Alex Learmont My father said that he could hear them coming long before they arrived, long before they burst out of the bush, surrounded by villagers, the engine of their truck screaming, everything dipped in noise. He was twelve years old when they came – the same age as his father, my grandfather, had been when the old white Read more...
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Strong boots stomp the tarmac and stop right next to Geoff and me. Wet leather and sheep muck leap up my nose. There’s a strange hand in my fur, big-fingered. I lick the palm – urgh, tastes of engine oil. And the voice that belongs to the hand shouts over the beast in the sky: ‘That missing girl… I saw Read more...
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A well-aimed kick winds her; gasping, she bends double. Late afternoon, deep-dark February, and on the snaking branches of the common limes outside, snow sits tight, a vanilla crust ready to drop. She knows it won’t fall. There’s not a breath of winter wind. The air, it’s freezing. Another, insistent kick, a dense heel to her soft stomach, and now Read more...
