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Short Stories

The waiter brings their order after ten minutes and Anna immediately begins picking the ham off the ham and lettuce sandwich. Meat finally moved to the side of the plate, she takes a nibble. ‘At least the dressing’s low-fat. I can’t even swallow full-fat,’ she says. ‘It’s so cloying.’

Recently I asked my father when he stopped believing in God. This is what he told me: I was at university by then, and the familiar faces of our household had grown crooked and grey. Sometimes I was away for prolonged periods, in summer camps perfecting my long jump or doing social work under the

‘That Henry James. He knew a view when he saw one,’ said Mrs Gilfeather to herself as she looked out from the campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore. She was on her own up there because Raymond had flatly refused to accompany her to the top. ‘I’m a feet-on-the-ground sort of bloke,’ he’d s

The composer prefers to address the choir with the manuscript laid out before her, as if she were a priest. She bends over the sheaf of papers, examining the first page. She must have done this a thousand times, but she still worries that one day she’ll turn up and be unable to read what’s in fr

I ring the bell and wait at the door alone today. Tung said he was feeling achy and needed to lie down. That sounds grand, really, what with this humidity. And yet I cannot bring myself to stay away. Our grandson doesn’t care for us, but he knows us. If we do not come, who knows how soon it will b

Hi Leo, Damian insisted on having his Blanche DuBois moment, on a streetcar named ‘crowded’, which brought on one of his nosebleeds. I’m typing this in a café, while he stems the flow with an ice pack provided by an attentive barista. On our travels, I’ve gathered lots of ideas for th

Rosie runs along the path, both arms as wide as they can go, fingers brushing the bamboo leaves on either side. She likes the way the leaves flutter against her fingertips, like butterfly wings. This is one of her favourite paths, lined with bamboos whose trunks are as thick as her neck, as tall –

‘I can’t believe you kept it.’ It’s an ugly thing – a Year 8 woodwork project. Unevenly circular, almost egg-shaped where I over-planed to make tiny unnecessary adjustments, erroneous hour-increment markings where my chisel deviated around the grain. For some reason I painted a black ca