fiction

Fiction. Ice Cream, by Harry Dobbs. Image: the silhouette of an ice cream with an American flag stuck in it. Inside the ice cream are silhouettes of a couple and three military jets.

fiction: Ice Cream

Ice Cream Reading time: about 10 minutes I turn and see Blake struggle up the pot-holed street. Directly above him, an old woman smokes on a balcony, her bare arms resting on its metal railing. Blake looks like a tourist. An American tourist. Which he is. Basketball vest, baggy shorts, battered trainers. A back-to-front baseball

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Fiction. Dances, by Robin Harker. Image: in silhouette, a man sits in a chair with one leg crossed over the other. At his feet, a young boy reads a book with a toy aeroplane next to him. Behind the man, like a shadow, are two men standing intimately close. One of the men is the same as the man in the chair.

fiction: Dances

Dances Reading time: about 15 minutes He had always known the line of his life: to be as other men of his like and station.  How that was to be achieved was far less important than the fact that it was achieved; that he had maintained what needed to be maintained until early middle age

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Fiction. Palermo, by Jill Craig. Image: the silhouette of a woman looks out sadly over a wrought iron balcony. On the other side of the balcony are a couple with their arms around each other. In the sky is an aeroplane.

fiction: Palermo

Palermo Reading time: about 25 minutes The summer months are coming to an end and the town is emptying. Students go inland to the city; tourists return home; the doors of the many second homes are locked. In the calm harbour, the ferry has docked and buoys pock the surface of the water, bobbing lightly.

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Fiction. Journeys by Jill Craig. Image: the silhouette of the map of Greece.

fiction: Journeys

Journeys Reading time: about 10 minutes Summer is winding to a close, and it has been three weeks since Eleni returned from the city hospital. She contacted them yesterday, postponing going back for her next placement. A polite, rational email which did not match how she felt.   Her mother has sold the small patch

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