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Short story category: 10 Minutes

Hammer toes were something she’d been born with. Her grandmother had truly awful feet – toes overlapping, varicose veins, bunions and all sorts. Summertimes, when she set them free in sandals, were grim. ‘Don’t look down’ was the collective agreement at family get togethers. Chloe’s w

The couple ahead of Stevie and Peter slipped on facemasks and boarded the cable-car. He wore a suit, and she wore layers of linen. Under the couple’s weight, the car rocked, and the woman grabbed the man’s arm. He guided her onto the bench facing the mountainside, and a lapdog emerged from her l

The car, an old black Vauxhall Corsa – here called an Opel Corsa – was much lower to the ground than she’d expected and she’d landed too heavily in the driver seat. She went to check it was in neutral before turning the key, only to find that the piece indicating the numbers had fallen off t

October floated like a glacier into town. Abigail remembered the chill from her childhood, but memory alone could never summon its sensate richness: the sawdust-dry air, the biting wind that snaked up your sleeves no matter how you held your arms and the leaves that crunched like brittle insecuritie

Staff Notice Above all else, maintenance of the Plate Policy is critical. It is imperative not only for the smooth running of the breakfast service but also in setting a moral standard. When moral standards are allowed to slip in any group of individuals thrown together through necessity rather t

Her car glides around the bend and suddenly the colours change. The light sky is swallowed by a darker cover and the yellow fields of barley and oats become bottle green and mud brown: land for livestock, not crops. A flooded field shines silver: a reflection of the slate-grey sky, the sun gleaming

‘Do your parents know you’re here, El?’ ‘No, I told them I had exams, so they think I’m in Dublin.’ Orlaith gave a fish-mouthed Wow from the backseat, which only Declan could see in the rear-view mirror. El’s practised mendaciousness impressed him, even if it was unclear why her

If they knew we’d gone there, our grans would’ve tanned our hides for us. As they’d say. One of our mums had a brown leather bag she called ‘tan hide.’ Our mums were too busy, and too tired with work, to do more than yell at us. And our dads would’ve taken their belts to us. If they’d

Something on which we have always prided ourselves is our broad appeal. A Certain Regard draws submissions from all regions of the country, from villages and market towns as well as cities. Back when all this happened, we only accepted physical submissions, and only one per poet per issue, but in re

I look up at the clock on the wall. A quarter to nine. I wait for Miss Flood’s light knock on my door. I listen but hear nothing. I continue to wait. The world beyond my office is a muffled, soft-carpeted silence. My eyes have settled on the photograph of my mother and father. It stands by itself