'Golden' by Kate Simblet

She watches by streetlight. Listens. The wind snarls down the back alley.  She knows the teenage burglars are out there, prising back-gates with practiced fingers but stops herself yelling - out into the blackness,

‘There’s nothing left to nick - I’ll tell yer Mam about you!’

Glass, broken-heart jagged, crowns the walls of her redbrick yard, keeping out the alley. Winter moved into her heart last year. She fears it will never leave.

Later this year on an open-windowed summer’s day, the stench of dog shit and rubbish will mingle with Lynx on the T shirt she finds amongst old love letters in the dusty underbed. She will discover he did not take everything.

That same day she will be startled by the pounding on her door - loud as the drums from the metal music that used to blare through that house, making her ears bleed, making her scream for it to stop. She will open that door, forgetting first to look through the spy hole.

Today, she’s still looking out when the pigeons arrive. The beating wings a short, sharp flutter of applause. They come every day for the man who shuffles past the dustbins and back-gates. As he scatters the grain - tosses it high into the pale sunlight, she sees how it glitters. It makes her think of gold.

'The Rollercoaster' by Amy Wilson

“I’m not sure,” she said. “It looks like a big drop.”

“I’ve heard it’s fun.”

She squinted. “Do you think it goes upside down?”

He followed her gaze. “Might do.”

The couple behind her in line coughed and she waved them past.

“Is it ok if I stay here a while longer? I’m still not sure if I want to ride.”

“Take your time.”

Ahead, people cheered and whooped as the ride began. She watched them until they vanished behind the curve.

“Do you think it’s silly?”

“To be afraid? Of course not. Most people are afraid, if they’re being honest.”

She bit her lip. “Everyone seems so excited about it. I wish I had someone to ride with.”

She looked so hopeful that he felt his heart stir for her, but he shook his head nevertheless. “I can’t. It’s against the rules.”

She nodded, looked out west to where the sun was dipping into a perpetual sunset. “Have you been here long?”

“Forever.”

“Have I been here long?”

“Longer than some,” he admitted.

She took a deep breath. “I think I’m ready.”

He smiled and held out his hand. She placed a small, silver token in his palm, and he let her through the turnstile. 

She settled herself in the carriage, pulled the safety bar down over her lap and raised her hand to him in a small, uncertain wave.

As the ride jolted into life, he kept his eyes on her face and ignored the small, stylised logo on the carriage, the one that read ‘Styx’.

'A Lay-person’s Guide to the Spirit World' by Audrey Niven

I woke up once and there was someone at the end of the bed, sitting reading as if they were keeping busy waiting for me.  I didn’t recognise them, but I’ve come to learn they were some relation of my grandmother’s I’d never met before.  That was the first time.  They read to me for a bit, a diary entry from some time in the eighteen-hundreds, but I don’t really remember because I fell asleep again and when I woke up, they were gone. My mother said it was a dream.

The day I got married, I saw someone at the back of the church, just as I came in on my father’s arm.  They had on a long-sleeved dress and were carrying flowers, just like mine.  By the time we reached the altar, I looked back, but they were gone and the minister was waiting. 

See, there’s no need to be afraid of the ghosts.  You just have to let them be.  That’s all they want.  I keep telling people:  I’ve seen them so many times: in the ICU, eating breakfast, a few times sitting on the crash barriers on the motorway as I’ve sped past.  I like to wave. Nobody believes I can see them.  My kids think I’m nuts.  

But we are all passing through, that’s what I know.  I’ll be gone myself soon. And when that day comes, I hope they’ll see that it’s true.  

'Fossil' by Adele Evershed

She sits in bed looking at the circle of frosted trees—it would be beautiful in another time. Trunk, branch, twig, she runs through the words—a thesaurus of remembering. She flicks off the blankets and studies her toes; dredges her memory so she can put one foot in front of the other. Foot, heel, ankle, calf, cow, milk, baby. No, not baby. There is no baby. She swaddles herself back beneath the covers. There is no word for a woman who once grew a baby for thirteen weeks, and this seems almost too much to bear. How can anyone move through this world without a label? 

In that other time, she was a lexicographer, studying words she knew what she was; female, daughter, sister, wife, expectant-mother. Now she is made up of what is not there—a negative space.

She curls in on herself, stuffing her hair in her mouth to muffle the sound of her; fracturing, crumbling, collapsing. She will bury herself deeply in the middle of this bed and become a pearl ammonite, rippling around the core of herself and growing shell layers to bind her breaking. Her teeth will become stones, and her hair will become rarer than feathers. Her bones will fall like a pick-up-sticks game, and all her empty space will disappear into the waiting arms of the trees.

Years from now, she imagines the bits of her being dug out of the milky sheets and weighed in hands so they can finally understand the gravity of her shattering. And that you can mourn for someone you never knew. They will hang a shelf with rope and place her there, writing out a label—her world fell through her, and these are the remains, remnants, rest.

'The words of men' by Rachel Canwell

 

It was Midsummer when she came, to stand under arching, aching Fenland skies. A place where the land truly met the clouds. Where slated marsh, churning river and open fields collided, suddenly as one. A trinity of folklore. 

From nowhere she appeared and would sit alone each balmy night, as dusk cast it’s mothy shadow over cottage gardens and sleeping babes. They asked her what she wanted, she stroked her burnished sunset hair and simply said, ‘Tell me a tale or two.”

From one village to another they talked of her. Whispered about  the strange elfin girl, cloaked in silvery rags. Who seemed to want nothing. Who seemed survive on spoken words. 

Each evening the village green came to life, was lit by bobbing lanterns, held by eager men. Each competing to tell a tale, a tale that would be The One. The story to make this woman laugh, and dance. To lift her eyes and bind her heart. A tale to make her theirs.

But the girl, she merely listened. Quietly receiving tales of copper eyed hares, dancing beneath a harvest moon. Of river gods and nets filled with monstrous enchanted catches. Of gold spun wheat and magic beans. 

And as she listened her fingers twisted posies of weeds and pungent herbs. Bunches that she tied with ribbon pulled from skirts and quietly laid aside. 

Just once, from the shadows a young girl tried to speak. Attempted to add her voice to the chorus of rough male voices. But the other women, touched her arm, held her back and shaking their heads, stilled her eager tongue. 

Then one morning it was over. The girl had simply gone. 

But each women found in their beds a spray of herbs, a head of tales and a silent man beside them.

'Guest Vegetable' by S A Greene

Mr. Evans brought ‘guest vegetable’ for Christmas dinner one year, and afterwards we always called creamed leeks guest vegetable, even after Mr. Evans became Uncle Alec and Dad moved out into the shed. We knew that other Dads went to work and didn’t drink and weep and sleep in gardens, so we never let the other kids come to our house, but we were mostly happy because Uncle Alec peeled oranges for us, and cooked us dishes with meat and onions and paprika, meals that made our house smell like the inside of a casserole dish, and even Ma grew softer, and once Uncle Alec took us in his car to the beach for the day. 

Uncle Alec packed up his car and left one day while Ma was at work and we were at school. Dad moved back into the house. Ma got scrawny again. 

That Christmas there was no ‘guest vegetable’ at ours; no Christmas.

'Under the Circumstances' by Tim Warren

“Do you mind if I join you?” I asked the bank robbers. “I only came in to withdraw £20 but under the circumstances I'd be open to changing my plans. I can pretend to be a hostage if you like?” 

They looked at each other as if weighing it up, which encouraged me to go on. 

“That way, you don't have to take a real one and I'll feel like I've earned the cash. All the benefits of a real hostage without any of the risk. Think about it.” 

“Can you act?” said the ringleader. I shrugged. “Right now, I'm acting unafraid,” I told him. “With a side order of nonchalant.”

“OK, you're in,” he said.

Everything went swimmingly, apart from one sticky moment, when one of the gang forgot his lines. Thankfully, one of the tellers was also a prompter (for a local amateur dramatics group) and just couldn't help herself. 

“My compliments on the costumes too,” she whispered as we left. “I do them for my group. Convincing but not too 'stock'. You know what I mean?” 

An hour later, we were celebrating in the pub.

“I'll get the first round,” I said, pulling out a twenty pound note.

*

It's been a few years now, but the gang and I still stay in touch — we'd bonded, like people so often do under stress — but they've been a bit down lately, what with the covid and all. It's hit them hard. 

“We tried home working,” they tell me over Zoom.

“Hacking’s harder than it looks.”

“Course then we remembered we are criminals. So we just broke lockdown.”

“Have you ever tried robbing a bank when literally everyone's wearing a mask, though?”

“No, I certainly haven’t,” I said.

“Don’t. It was a disaster. We've totally lost our gravitas.”

The rosy-faced lovebird smells like bleach and coffee by Eleonora Balsano

 Dr Ramsey comes to see me with one of his pals. They both smell like bleach and coffee.

I know the man in green scrubs and green clogs isn’t his pal. He’s carrying a sponge parrot on his right shoulder and I don’t ask if it’s a rosy-faced lovebird.

When they come in with the toys it’s going to be real bad.

 

The pediatric surgeon— they both flinch when I use the right word—feels my left leg, squeezes the upper part, near the hip joint, and lightly touches the swollen knee. It’s darker than Mum’s lipstick.

 

Humans, like trees, sometimes need pruning to grow stronger, the surgeon says.

‘I think you can lose the metaphor, doctor’, I say.

‘Well—We need to remove a bit of your leg, Francis,’ he says. ‘If we don’t, the cancer will spread beyond it and—’

‘Metastasize,’ I say.

We make eye contact and for the first time he sees me.

 

My mother weeps, my father stares at her. When that isn’t enough, they fight, both desperate to find someone to blame for my poor luck, so that they can stop blaming themselves.

 

At night I dream of climbing trees, even though I am afraid of heights and bark beetles. I know, bark beetles are rare, but still. They do bite.

 

When a scan shows a spot on my right lung, Dad gets up from the plastic chair in the hospital’s corridor and says: ‘I promise—I promise that as soon as you’re well we’ll leave.’

‘To go where?’ I ask. My parents never go anywhere, and I doubt Dad could place countries on a globe.

‘Anywhere you wish. Just name it.’

I say Namibia, because of the dunes. I can definitely climb those, even now

'Seen, Not Herd' by Dipika Mummery

The sun is high and the elephants are passing through once more. 

They stop at the ever-shrinking lake. I watch from behind the gnarled columns of a banyan tree as they huddle protectively around two tiny calves. They drink their fill and whip up dirt with their trunks to fling onto their backs. When I was small - smaller than the calves - Ma told me that this cools them down. 

I tried it myself, once. It doesn’t work for human girls; you just get a smack and some furious scrubbing in the bath.

Some of the elephants wade into the water. Two stay behind to watch the calves as they trot tentatively into the shallows, ensuring their young are always surrounded by adults. A sharp pang: what is it like to be watched over at all times? 

I glance back at the hut. It looks lonely and vulnerable.

Trumpeting swings my attention back to the lake. The babies are safely back onshore. I want to throw my arms around them and squeeze them gently. Then perhaps I could travel onwards with the herd, surrounded by the safety of many giant craggy legs as we move towards our destination. Eating and sleeping with them. Never alone.

I creep out from behind the tree. Why not? No one would miss me but the occasional traveller seeking shelter and answers to questions about my parents, my friends, my herd.

An adult fixes its dark, inscrutable eyes on me. I halt, heart thudding. Will it let me in?

It turns away and trumpets to the others. Time to gather the young and move on. Then it turns back and keeps looking at me as the others arrange themselves around the calves.

I stay by the tree long after they leave, restless, alone.

Words of Mischief by Stella Turner

 

Every day she scanned the death announcements in her local newspaper for a suitable man, right age, and nice name. Until today no one had been vaguely suitable.

Robert Quinney, aged 62 beloved husband and father. Here he was, Mr Right!

She bought a beautiful sympathy card and chose her words carefully.

Bob, thank you for all the special times we had together. The stolen moments, the weekends away, the furtive glances of love. I was privileged to be your bit on the side. She laughed. The last sentence was completely wrong. She changed it to privileged to be the love of your life. – Sophia xx. Perfect!

Hours after the funeral Sarah, widow of Robert, was opening the sympathy cards given to her by the kind funeral director. They were so comforting. She’d even managed to smile at the one from Sophia, the love of his life.

She was pleased Bob had found some happiness in his final months. She presumed Sophia was a member of staff or a patient at the Early Onset Dementia Unit.  

'The Unknown Place' by Jan Simpson

THE UNKNOWN PLACE

TONIGHT

 

The management team acknowledge you did not arrive here willingly.  They hope this dinner is restorative.  All decisions are final.  Your happiness is of no consequence.

 

To begin                            The opportunity to protect every receding glacier

                                                                                    or

                                           The opportunity to halt deforestation

                                                                                    or

                                            As before, to do nothing

                                               

 

To follow                            To have interfered less on your sister’s wedding day when you discovered her spouse was a cheat

                                                                                    or

                                            To have intervened more when you saw a homeless man brutally attacked

 

                                                                                                             

Palate cleanser                  Forgive your parents

 

 

 

The main event                   The opportunity to share this meal with your beloved late partner but lose 50% of your memories of them

                                                                                    or

                                              To have never opened that third bottle of wine which directly contributed to your sister killing a child

 

 

To finish                               To have always told the truth

                                                                                    or

                                              To have never lied

 

 

On completion of your meal a member of the management team will escort you to the final stage of your purge.

 

THE UNKNOWN PLACE

 

'The Hermit' by Salvatore DiFalco

 

The tortured landscape looked forsaken. Smoke billowing from a wood cabin by the black lake suggested habitation.

            “Why’s the water black down there?”

            “Why wouldn’t it be?”

            We trekked down to the cabin, comprised of rotting planks and old rubber tires. I knocked on the door — a rectangular slab of particleboard, splashed with white paint.

            After a moment someone fiddled with the door lock. It opened and a dead-ringer for Jusepe Ribera’s Saint Paul the Hermit stood there in a filthy brown tunic and rope sandals.

            “What d’you want?” he asked.

            “We can use fresh water, and any viands you can spare.”

            “D’you have horses?” he asked.

            “We don’t have horses.”

            “I don’t like horses. You can take water from the trough over there. But I can’t let you inside the house. The missus has a raging fever.”

            “Nice you don’t live out here alone,” you said.

            The old man squinted and tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

            “He meant nothing,” I said. “We’ll just get some water and leave. Thank you.”

            “Now just a second,” he said. “Do he mean I’m too old and ugly to have a wife? Or that maybe I had one and we’d been drinking all weekend and had us a fight and after she clobbered me upside the head with a frying pan I stabbed her in the neck with a steak knife and she bled out all over the kitchen floor and she’s been in there untouched for three or so weeks?”

            We retreated from the door.

            “Where you boys going?” the oldster cackled. “I changed my mind about y’all meeting the missus. Come on inside right quick. I’ll introduce you, hahaha.”

            We hastened away. These were uncertain times. We heard cackling long after we lost sight of the cabin.

Passing through a book store by Elle O'Keefe

 Lily walked around the table of new releases careful not to spill her coffee. She counted each step, 22 since she left the café and 85 since she entered the store. One day she would take steps without counting. One day she would eat without counting the number of bites, the times she chewed, the tines on her fork over and over. 

One day, but not this one. 

Hiding it was second nature and exhausting simultaneously. She picked up one book, scanned the back cover, placed it back in its spot and casually picked up another. Eight books so far; she needed to choose carefully so that she’d have the book she really wanted when she reached the 16th; she could make 12 work, but 16 was better.

 She pushed a stray section of dark hair behind her tiny ear and picked up book number 9. A pale blue cover, hex code #a6d0d1 probably. The author photo on the back cover looked back at Lily with eyes she hadn’t seen in 20 years. Miss Malloy kept her after school to meet the social worker away from the other 6th graders. She never went home after that. She’d forgotten her mother’s face a long time ago, but she knew it when she saw it. The blurb confirmed that her eyes and memory weren’t playing tricks on her. 

    Rose Jones didn’t just survive mental illness and addiction, she thrived despite them. Her debut book details her heroic battle… 

   Ms. Jones lives on the coast with her husband, their two young children, and a bossy French bulldog. 

Lily dropped the book and her coffee and walked out of the bookstore as fast as she could on needle thin heels. She forgot to count her steps.

'Relief' by Julia Smith

In the middle of the dry spell it rained and our noses twitched at the news.  

A dog cried for seven long minutes. A cat bulged against the screen. A neighbour opened his door and shouted, “Okay, yes!” The washer cycle droned to its ridiculous end. 

The city was piss and tingly green grass, burst kisses and running for home. Summer tattle rose up in steam. Umbrellas frolicked open with a shake. A man opened his mouth to amaze and coffee hissed from his lips.  

When it was over, a child shouted, “The sun, the sun!” and it was too hot.