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Short story category: 5 Minutes

It was the cold that woke Alma up. The stove must have gone out. She poked her nose out from under the furs that lay heavy on the bed. The window was covered in hoar frost, the layers of swirls and fronds turning the glass into a fantastical forest of white. This must be a good omen. She smiled and

This was the first time Gavil had failed to be the first to produce a cigarette lighter at someone’s request. The lighter that had been successfully found and offered by someone else caught his eye. ‘Where did you find that?’ he asked, checking to see if he still had his own in his pocket.

Eve of D-Day They were so, so young, but to Sheila, squinting out from the stage into the bright lights rigged up in the tent, they looked already old. Every show she did, they looked the same. It was hard to make out faces, peering through the dust-speckled beams of the spotlights, the generato

When he asked me if I was the writer I just laughed. You know the laugh. You once described it as drier than a corked bottle of Chardonnay and no less unpleasant. But he persevered, told me he had a story for me. What is it about people and writers? Would they tell a painter that they had a picture

‘I think you’re so brave, travelling alone.’ Lily-Mae’s accent was warm. She’d already asked if my daughter Aaliya had siblings and told me ‘Oh, that’s OK,’ when I said no. I was occasionally told I was too young to be a widow. Four years ago he hadn’t survived a head-on collision

Loveday stretched and turned over in bed. Treve snored gently beside her, not even stirring. Through the window, the moon was in its final quarter and clouds were drifting across it, thick enough to cast a shadow, but not enough that the light was completely extinguished. She got up quietly and p

Tara sat in front of the washing machine. She looked at the way the clothes moved in circles, sometimes showing a little bit of colour but mostly just black; she listened to the machine, a constant hum that echoed in the room where she waited. She thought about the way the clothes resembled a hurric

My father bought paperweights for her all the time. Every birthday, wedding anniversary and Christmas. When he died I continued to buy them for her. She became a collector. They sat in a teak display cabinet in the hallway, each one a strange planet in a human solar system revolving around her, its

Edge of town, near the sandy beach that stretches for miles. Here, in an area of wasteland frequented by alcoholics, wastrels, drug addicts, homeless people, rats and stray cats, stands an old door, propped up against bricks. A white door, almost-new door, what-is-it-doing here door. Not a door,

The afternoon sun hit the terrace at a one hundred and thirty-five-degree angle. The shadow cast on the wall by a figure about halfway through a yoga routine suddenly straightened up and stood motionless, silently observing. The figure continued with its routine, oblivious, until, reaching the floor