Raymond hadn’t phoned anyone or asked an outside agency to intervene. He’d elected to look after me himself.
Raymond hadn’t phoned anyone or asked an outside agency to intervene. He’d elected to look after me himself. I’d been pondering this, and concluded that there must be some people for whom difficult be...
Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don’t find very funny, do things they don’t particularly want to, with people whose company they don’t particularly enjoy.
My hair was mousy brown, parted in the center, straight and not particularly thick. Human hair, doing what human hair does: growing on my head.
Janey was planning a short engagement, she'd simpered, and so, of course, the inevitable collection for the wedding present would soon follow. Of all the compulsory financial contributions, that is th...
I’m not sure I’d like to be burned. I think I might like to be fed to zoo animals. It would be both environmentally friendly and a lovely treat for the larger carnivores. Could you request that?
It was too hot inside the hospital and the floors squeaked. There was a hand-gel dispenser outside the ward, and a big yellow sign above it read Do Not Drink. Did people actually drink sanitizing hand...
Ignis aurum probat. ‘Fire tests gold.’ The rest of the phrase: ‘… and adversity tests the brave’.
If I’m ever unsure as to the correct course of action, I’ll think, What would a ferret do? or, How would a salamander respond to this situation? Invariably, I find the right answer.
I'm responsible. I chose to put myself in a situation where I'm responsible, wanting to look after her, a small, dependent, vulnerable creature. It's innate and I don't even have to think about it. It...
I talk to her sometimes, I'm not ashamed to admit it. When the silence and the aloneness press down and around me, crushing me, carving me like ice, I need to speak aloud sometimes, if only for proof...
I stared at the floor, my mind racing. Did I . . . did I look like the kind of person who ought to be avoided in a game of bus seat selection? I could only conclude, in the face of the evidence, that...
I have always enjoyed reading, but I've never been sure how to select appropriate material. There are so many books in the world--how do you tell them all apart? How do you know which one will match y...
I could not solve the puzzle of me.
Her home was so...shiny. She was shiny too, her skin, her hair, her shoes, her teeth. I hadn't even realized before; I am matte, dull and scuffed.
Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high. The
Before and after the fire. One day I was breakfasting on watermelon, feta and pomegranate seeds, the next I was eating toasted Mother’s Pride smeared with margarine. That’s the story Mummy told me, at...
Aye well – what is it that they say? – try everything once, except incest and morris dancing. Maybe we should add death metal to the list, eh?
Music. It was a cacophonous din, with too many guitars and not enough melody. It was, I thought, the sound of madness, the kind of music that lunatics hear in their heads just before they slice the he...
Felt a warmth inside, a cosy, glowy feeling like hot tea on a cold morning.