One Step at a time Early morning, the dawn weaker than milky tea. At the bedroom window, mug in hand, Dulcie watches the cars and buses creep—slow and stop, then creep—slow and stop, brake lights reflected red in the puddles. Soon, the season will slip; summer bending to autumn’s sway. Ice will blossom on the […]
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Dances 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 was to him a source
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.
The mating ritual of the 3d printer Bailey woke, her heart strobing in her chest. There were muffled sounds from the door opposite her. A muted wail came in through the open window. It sounded like a baby crying, but Bailey knew it couldn’t be. She hadn’t heard that sound for months. You
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Journeys 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 of farmland – no sons,
raleigh 500 I saw him in the Aldi checkout queue adjacent to mine. He must have been in his late eighties, very large framed, in a childlike striped tee-shirt, a large man all hunched over. There was a sallowness about his eyes. Onto the conveyor he placed a twelve-pack of green 500 ml bottles of
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corvey versus padell ‘Corvey Versus Padell’ is an extract from the forthcoming novel, Human Tragedy. Inside the cafe are two youngish women with lots of teeth and a pair of tureens and a glass counter full of rolls and loaves. One of them’s poking a ladle into a steaming mulligatawnyish thing. Each time a chunk of
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