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New story: ‘In Your Arms’
The flickering illusion of hot tarmac, a sorcerer’s jape … An octopus, with such chameleonic skills as to appear like the devil out of a puff of smoke.
Story: ‘The Only Lasting Beauty’
I’d painted this unwed couple as being unromantic, matter of fact. Their partnership marred by sickness and alcoholism, itself diseased. Their memories of each other made bitter by grief and remorse.
Story: ‘Metamorphosis’
As Genjirō Shinzo looked out of his window one morning he found that everybody he had ever known had transformed into monstrous insects.
Story: ‘A Dictionary of Our Time in the Wild’
Once we were in sync in the wilds, we thought in the same wordless language. We spoke in footfall, we thought in day-cycles and seasons.
Story: ‘Through Brittle Grass’
They are ignoring him out of pride, but he can sense their fear; of him and his pale fur, and his spots. Above all is the pervading, infectious fear that they will develop spots.
Story: ‘A Good Match is Hard to Find’
Their frailties showed through their expressions, like light through a split lampshade. The few people I was drawn to were distant, disinterested … The abundance provided by the apps highlighted the astronomical unlikelihood of my ever meeting someone who wasn’t broken, weird, attached or my polar opposite.
Story: ‘The Destination Before Next’
He took a photo just as something changed in the rising thermals of the city, and the countless birds settled into a calm, strangely silent gliding formation. The only noise then was the riotous play of arrow-shaped shadows that flew over the street and walls, a cacophony of moving darkness.
Story: ‘Silverfish’
“On wet nights they climb into your ear when you’re asleep and drink your memories. That’s what makes them silver.”
Story: “Vanilla”
...your searching eyes that seemed playfully coy were one of the things I loved, one aspect of our superficial love that was both the undercoat and the gloss on the deeper love of years.
Story: “Head Under Water”
I feel the light like another layer between my skin and the water I float in, like something painted on me to make me brighter, make me thoughtless and better.
Story: “Follow the Sun Underground”
Ix sat on one of the flatter tree stumps and watched the tourists climb up and down the pyramidal temple. The terraced stone was a special sort of grey, sometimes green-looking, sometimes silver or black. He couldn’t remember from his research what stone it was, but it felt rich with history, as though made of concentrated memories.
Story: “On the Line”
In Kathmandu the valley is full of light during the day, but at night is darker than anywhere else in the world … It wasn’t really an argument. Our conversations went like this sometimes.
