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Short story category: 10 Minutes

Wednesday ‘So, what do you think?’ Sink, taps, bench, cupboards. All shiny and new. Rick surveys the kitchen. Yes, it has everything he would expect to find. He’s not sure what Monique wants him to say. ‘It’s, uh, very nice.’ ‘The benchtop is Italian granite, the appliances

He loved Rose, he married Myrtle. The seeds of the latter event were sown in that period towards the end of his final year at university when the accumulated disappointment he had suffered at the hands of Rose had made him particularly vulnerable. Myrtle filled the vacuum which we are told nature ab

I hadn’t heard from my mother for a month. Normally she left a voicemail once a week, informing me of her and Stanley’s whereabouts, occasionally asking how I was and even more occasionally asking after my own husband. Then, all of a sudden, she announced she was in London. Could we meet for bre

At 8.20am every day, a woman with church hair climbs astride a bicycle. Not an ordinary bicycle, but a strange, fold-up contraption, built for the commuter of the 1980s to whip from a raincoat at London Bridge and zip over cobbles to the Strand. It labours heavily now through the leaves, its tiny wh

The window was open just enough to let in the cool night air. ‘Bring me seed.’ ‘Make me blossom.’ ‘Fly to me along a moonbeam, oh thou winged marauder of the night.’ The figure on the bed cast off a duvet and emitted a moan – it was unclear whether of discomfort or relief â

I pull my long black woollen coat around me. Lennon lies quietly at my feet, the cold air teasing his fur. My sister told me it was disrespectful to take a dog to a funeral. I didn’t see why. It’s a woodland funeral. Dad’s in a wicker coffin. She didn’t like that either, Jasmine. God knows h

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 unwash

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 sorr

‘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

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