Two storeys, upper-level balcony, separate entrances. He might have to do something about that, Harry realized. Bird Palace, the box read. The word palace had caught his attention. Surely this was what he needed. Plus it was only £29.95, which was a good deal. – The cashier grunted as he heaved the heavy cardboard box…
Category: Fiction
Nights
It is my wife who always gets the phone. When she is not in, I just let it ring until it stops. “It is Paula,” she said as she slapped the receiver into my hand, and then, “Leo, who the fuck is Paula?” * This was nearly four years ago and she was very tense…
Do Something Amazing Today
A blood van has just parked outside. Don’t look surprised; you’ve let the summonses pile up over the past fortnight or so. A man and a woman get out. He checks your house number. She opens the boot and gets the equipment for taking blood and, where necessary, bodily restraint. Whichever one’s knocking, they make…
Nest
Not far from the university campus, an elderly man walking his small dog turns into an underpass and finds a shopping trolley, alone in the tunnel. The sight of it, suddenly there, a skeletal shadow in the empty space, makes him jump. The underpass is a regular route for students returning to campus from the…
With Compliments
We are the hotel of the lost. There are no maps on the front desk, because none of you would read them. There isn’t a street sign on the wall outside. The door has no number. You found us anyway. Welcome. * Sinead has been running. Two minutes late is okay. Five is a problem….
Our Trailer in the Woods
Our trailer in the woods was held up by trailing ivy that fed on the rust. It had a flat roof and slatted panes that trapped droplets of water between them when it got warm. Orange and brown chintz curtains swayed at the windows. The door was always open in the spring so that the…
The History of New Venice
1. Stanley Kubrick, old and mottled, wakes late at night, alone. He envisions a film about Venice, its beginning, its middle, its end. Compelled, he begins. * 2. The year is 2093 and the real Venice is gone. It is the Atlantis of that time. In April, Kubrick starts scripting. He plasters his study with…
Raw Vegetables on the Go
Previously published in The Golden Key We’d been in the kitchen a long time and the food was all gone. Burckhardt found me in the corner where I’d appropriated a chair and was defending it with my life. His lips were raw steak below blueberry eyes. “You always do this,” he told me. “Pretend you’re…
The Girls
There are three of them today, the blonde, the brunette and the new one – striped pink. Not that their hair has anything to do with the quickening of Gina’s pulse. So she tells herself, as she turns the corner from the bus stop and sees the girls loitering on her street. Gina doesn’t think…
This Blasted Horse
Shhyes, all of younosey parkerslurking behind trembling lacepottering in perms and dowdy dressesbutt outdon’t say itI don’t want to hear a word not a peepthing is, this blasted horse he doesn’t sleep and I’m not sure what he does when I sleepif I…maybe he squeezes into the lift, goes for a canter round the streets,…