Joe waited until he was home alone before opening the bag. He dropped it on the kitchen table over a touristy place mat and scattering of unopened envelopes. His sweaty fingers gripped the zipper and the canvas spilled apart into a loose yawn. Neatly wrapped bundles of cash clumped in a corner. Joe had never…
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, And pretty maids all in a row. The car pulled up outside the entrance and three siblings stepped out into the hot sunshine. Sharp light glared off the glass door and bleached white the surrounding wall. There was a woman…
The Promotion Interview room 341 is very small and dark, like a segment cut from a corridor. Harry notices the odd ratio of wall to door to window as he automatically moves towards the one empty chair. An inspector sits opposite behind a small desk, staring down at a screen. He’s thin, suited, with short…
I am The car jolts and rocks along the track, as though dragged by chains to a chased beast. I am the beast. The indistinct greyed-over bogs and swollen rivers coming down the hills whish by the windows I am the window. Father is a good driver, but sometimes an angry driver, and now he…
The Mistake (a very short story) Wasn’t like the daydreams at all. They chased me up Taylor’s street and left down St. Kilda’s Avenue and over the grassy wall into Finny Park where the trees were just beginning to leaf and for a change nobody was walking a dog. I had my heavy work shoes…
Dr Malthus and Dr Richards were very excited about something. They leaned over each other to get a better look at the microscope. The film crew, squashed along the other side of the capsule, paid them no attention. They had already broken through several ceilings of boredom. At first, the jerking motion of the T79ix2…
“It’s the wrath of God!” cackled wiry old Mrs Deacy with a smack of her stiff walking stick on the linoleum. “Settle down please, Mrs Deacy,” said Frank McDonagh. “It’s the same spring tide as every year, just coincident with a severe low pressure weather system.” Mrs Deacy persisted. “It’s the Good Lord’s way of…
After washing my hands with warm water I squirt disinfectant gel on them from the plastic dispenser that hangs on the wall, and stand looking in the mirror while I rub them dry. Looking older? Surely, but it’s so hard to notice, day by day changes, cell by dying cell. Show me a photograph of…
When the branch of the beech tree broke Morris fell down in a heap next to the trunk. He lay there and stared at the sky. “Stupid branch!” he cursed upwards. The tree was unmoved, its leaves shivering in the early autumn afternoon. Morris struck its mottled trunk with a lunging kick. The rugged bark…
Burgundy. Cabernet Sauvignon. Merlot. White, red, rosa, bubbly. Brian bought 500 grams of dry fusilli pasta in Dunness Stores before going to the Dole Office to sign on. He should have gone earlier; it was overflowing when he got to the doors. Now he was back outside looking at a display of wines through a…
Jamie works in one of those offices down on Abbey Street. It’s a call centre or something: the European office of some American tech company. Anyway he’s been there over a year now. Most of his gang are in Australia, though Tommy O’ Rourke is home next month. I’ve been living with him since he…
Rainy Day in Renvyle Rain sweeps across the wide open, Clouds rolling in from the west, Tears from the sky set in motion Blown by a wind that won’t rest. Ceaseless the changes chase over, The shelterless landscape at speed. Soft underfoot grows the clover. Soft as a heart full of need. It’s hard to…