'Two Birds' by Tim Warren

"We're banning guns, will you let everyone know?"
"Do I look like an idiot?" said the messenger. “Send someone else.”

*

"It's a shame," you said to me, once, as we watched two doves squabble on a branch, "but you never hear anything about carrier pigeons these days."

'If that happens ...' by Irene Lofthouse

She said it when I was little. I thought it was rude, that mum’s shouldn’t say such things and definitely not in company. I’d blush each time she said it ciggie in one hand, Babycham in the other, gossiping with her cronies in our parlour.

Lipsticked, perfumed, powder-blue crimpolene two-piece, black court shoes, fake pearls, she was a different woman. Floury apron and hairnet hung up for ‘a good night visit to the club’. The ‘coven’ were loud and raucous, Mum cackling her ‘If that happens, I’ll - ’ refrain in response to comments.

Who knows where the years go? In a blink of an eye she was eighty, no longer able to rub butter into flour, hands bent and gnarled. Her memory wasn’t as sharp, but her delight in a ciggie and Babycham was undiminished. On a trip to Leeds we’d wandered into the new Victoria Quarter and were browsing cosmetics, when Mum was offered a makeover. Praising Mum’s ‘youthful complexion’, the assistant said she should be modelling for them. Mum laughed, ‘Aye, if that happens, I’ll -’. I cut her off, knowing what was coming. To distract her, I suggested we have a nosey in the clothes department.

I was searching through the Per Uno section when I heard a kerfuffle. Looking round, I saw a crowd around the nearest window display, many of them sniggering. Turning back, I began to talk to Mum, only to discover she was nowhere in sight.

‘Madam, please!,’ a woman boomed. ‘It is most unladylike. Come out of there.’

I felt my heart plummet. I wobbled over, hearing a piping voice address her audience.

‘She said I should be a model. And I said, “If that happens, I’ll show my bum in Lewis’s.” Well it has, and I have.’

And she did.

'Let Sleeping Dogs Lie' by Abi Hennig

Let sleeping dogs lie they said; don't poke them awake, even if one eye seems to twitch, even if they growl under their breath; don't stroke them to calm them when their exhalations come hot and heavy, limbs convulsing in spasms. When the whimpering starts, hold on to your headphones.

Let sleeping dogs lie they said; no good will come of waking them; they’ll rise dribbling and barking, red of eye and sharp of tooth and come for you pinning you to the floor and breathing hot and heavy into your face as you screw your eyes shut repeating this isn't happening this isn't happening this isn't happening this isn't happening we told them to sleep we told them to lie down we told them to lie we told them to close their eyes and lay their head down and leave it to us and everything will be OK.

Let sleeping dogs lie they said, but no one thought about the children, the children poked them and woke them and now they are no longer lying, they're awake and they're angry and the box is open and the darkness is flying out and the truth is everywhere and it's loud, so loud that the headphones are not working and we screw our eyes shut but the light crawls in through the gaps and at the bottom of the box fluttering its tiny wings, like at the bottom of the heart of every one of the children, like at the bottom of the heart of every one of the dogs, like at the bottom, the very bottom, deep, deep down so deep it's almost suffocated but not quite, of our hearts at the bottom of all of this is hope. And now it's awake.

'Every cloud' by Jo Putt

       Quickly rallying after the sudden violent deaths of my parents in separate, freak accidents, I faced up to the daily indignities and cruelties meted out to me by my remaining family. I took immediate steps to overcome my illiteracy and inherited stupidity and, to finance my intellectual betterment, elected to sell the organs and limbs I would not need. Liberated from so many bodily concerns, I achieved unimagined academic heights and rose, like a child’s balloon, above and beyond the institutions that had nurtured me, floating high and free on great silver-lined clouds of pure and untainted thought

'Thinking Out Loud' by Zoe Critchley

There’s a man that sits on the corner of Queen’s Square. He’s always there. I hear he likes
the Queen; says that she has a familiar face. He occupies the same bench every day, thick
coat and deerstalker hat and a scarf to keep him warm. They call him Mr Change.

Mr Change’s cup is always filled with coins. He just has an aura, I guess. People actually stop
for Mr Change.

I pass his bench as I walk to work. I hear today’s cluster of people from several metres away.

“I think my wife hates me,” says a man in a sharp suit. He looks stunned as he’s saying it.

Mr Change reaches into his cup to take a coin and hand it to the man. Mr Change then says
something. I don’t hear it, but I don’t have to. I already know his catchphrase.

“I think it might rain later,” says the next person, a closed umbrella in hand. A coin from Mr
Change and his usual words follow.

“I think I might start looking for a new job,” says the next, before glancing in horror at the
man beside her.

“I think I’m offended that Sonia wants to leave her job,” says the man. Her boss, I guess.

A coin is given to Sonia and her maybe-ex-boss, followed by Mr Change’s mantra.

Finally I draw close enough and Mr Change looks at me.

As always, my confession spills from my mouth before I even have a chance to think about
it: “I think I want to know more about you, Mr Change.”

Mr Change just smiles knowingly. He reaches into the cup and takes out a coin. He puts it in
my suddenly outstretched palm and says in his soft voice, “Here, a penny for your
thoughts.”