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Short Stories

It looks excitingly modern. Its keys are white, except for the first one in the second row, which is red. I turn the round black handle and the cold plastic sends shivers down my spine and at the same time ignites a warm feeling in the depths of my stomach. Yes. This is how I will roll them out. The

It wasn’t as if he really minded, after all. Well tried to convince himself he didn’t mind that much, anyway. It was only a pond for heavens’s sake. Although given the size she wanted for it, he would lose his tree. He loved that wizened, unapologetic apple tree; sitting under it reading, ther

6:30 a.m. Alina wakes up, brushes her teeth, applies unobtrusive makeup for school (a dust of powder and lipstick in a soft brown tone). On her way to the kitchen, where she will make the coffee, she wakes Liviu up with a soft caress on his arm.   Nothing has changed.   7:25

‘Hiya Margery,’ the young woman called over the back-garden fence. ‘How’re you feeling?’ ‘Morning Tracey. I don’t feel too bad today. The pills help. I must be taking so many now it's a wonder the pharmacy has any left for anyone else.’ Margery paused, took off her gardening glove

If there’s a dingier, grottier pub in all the British Isles, I’ve not found it yet. The Nun’s Purse boasts fly-strewn windowsills, walls the colour of a tobacco addict’s teeth, and table-tops so sticky that old Bill Jones lost a shirt sleeve to one this afternoon. Even the most iron guts can

The snow started on Friday around four o’clock. Small flakes at first, fluttering half-heartedly in a light breeze. Eventually, it began to lie and in the tapering light the sky became grey and threatening. A silent darkness followed and I could no longer see Braithwaite crag on the moor top. B

I drive. You said you were tired, hadn’t slept all night. The journey to the Lakes takes longer than I remembered. There are more cars on the road, the lorries are bigger; they conspire to keep me in the slow lanes, and new underpasses baffle me. Between the shrug of a shoulder and a sigh, you

I’ve slept badly again. The farmhouse is unearthly cold. Alive, too, in the still of night, with ticks, groans, intestinal gurgles. The fridge, juddering to a halt. Alice was restless. Shy of dawn I heard her get up, potter about downstairs. She’s left a note on the kitchen table: can run you