There was a firebird in Bangkok, two days after Valentine’s Day. The first sighting of the bird was at 4:57 pm: a woman selling fake iPhone cases on the street near the Tesco Lotus at On Nut called 191 and reported that she had seen wings in the sky, just above the Skytrain – wings bright red and orange and crackling with fire. […]
Over in the eastern sky, the large yellow disk of the sun was making an appearance. A gleam of light shone through the narrow gap of the olive-coloured curtains at No. 47, a modest house in typical suburban Surrey, a place where the same events occur each day and change is unwelcome. […]
Smoke obscured the view for a moment as Oksana searched for a sign. She squinted but there was no platform, only the wide blurred plain, covered in mist. This was nobody’s stop. […]
Remembering gets easier with practice. Practice by pulling out the yolk of nostalgia, feeling for the overdue residues. The cardboard cut-out birthday cake from kindergarten class, with paper candles, icing, and painted flames. […]
I was supposed to be at Corinna by now; they were expecting me at the pub, but the journey had taken longer than I thought. […]
Growing up, I saw Princess Diana a lot. In newspapers, on TV, smiling from photo frames. Suspended, headless, in the centre of porcelain plates on plastic stands never intended for use. […]
Content warning: sexual content, domestic violence, psychiatric treatment. Noelle had promised she would write. She was different when she said it. She was the straight-backed, empty-eyed Noelle I’d come to loathe in our last weeks together. […]
A scruffy valley of fields lay behind me. I had lost my path and stumbled along amongst the cabbages for the better part of the day. Before me I found an impenetrable snarl of shrubbery. Then, surprisingly close, the clang and grind of a heavy metal lid being moved. […]
Content warning: child abuse. The Headmaster scolded him for burning and biting his skin, and all he could do was apologize to his stepmother. […]
Content warning: racial slurs, violent imagery, miscarriage. On the Thursday Bowman and Carmen had a party, they ordered Sukhothai and Bowman made a playlist for the occasion. […]
