Fiona Murphy-McCormack The first act of thievery took place when I was still small enough to fit all of myself inside the toddler seat of the trolley, and when I turn this memory over in my mind, I can still feel the metal bars pressed against my back, keeping me intact. It was my mother’s thin fingers feeding me Read more...
10 Minutes
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Christopher Farris Day 1 ‘Your coffee molecules cause too much noise. It is totally messing with my harmonic sensitivities,’ she said. She held a plastic cup of boba tea in her hand. Her nails were chipped and black. The unburst beads rested in the bottom of the cup like Russian caviar. ‘I’m sorry,’ the boy replied. ‘Why were Read more...
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Rachel Beresford-Davies ‘Happy birthday. It’s not much but I didn’t really have any time to shop. It’s just been so busy at work and, well, you know what it’s like. Well, you don’t actually, but anyway… happy birthday.’ I regard the hastily wrapped parcel my sister is offering and manage a weak smile. I know without opening it Read more...
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Zoe Swenson It arrives in a long, plain box, spattered with raindrops. ‘Are you going to open it?’ ‘Later,’ Thom says. ‘Let’s enjoy lunch.’ ‘Don’t you want to see it?’ ‘I’d rather spend time with you.’ That means: I’ll open it when you’re not here. Last week, he said, ‘If we’d had a son, I would have let Read more...
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Maggie Ling In my perverse mind it’s summertime: that hot summer of 1976. Which it could not have been, since Lukey was born in January. Even so, I persist in seeing it this way. Seeing my mother, in bikini and tie-dyed sarong, drifting from shaded bedroom to sun-scorched balcony, a whiff of coconut suntan lotion wafting through time to Read more...
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Omar Sabbagh Amr was cogitating on Time – or to be more precise, timing. Like most gamblers he had a very large and capacious mind, and could think his way round to the latest cutting-edge research, say, on unicorns and UFOs. The way he figured it, standing there in the small, square, white-walled kitchen, was as follows… The roulette Read more...
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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...
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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...
