Fiction

  • I DON’T EAT MY FRIENDS, by Jude Whiley Morton

    13th May 20– Went in for our meat license today. Never been so excited. Two years since I last ate meat and I still hate the substitutes.

  • OFF GRID, by Deirdre Shanahan

    A sky-blue day. Fern leaves spike as I wade in. Strands of grasses and stray ears of wheat weave. Nubs of rose-hips bristle on hedges but the flourish of nettles sting my ankles, bunch at my knees.

  • THE LAST CANDLE, by Lucy Palmer

    We bought our last candle on the coldest day of the year. I remember because the weather man warned not to travel that morning, but we went anyway, wrapping up warm and praying we wouldn’t be stranded at the end of the line.

  • THE CORMORANT, by David Lloyd

    I lean back on my elbows catching sight of the cormorant, poised and ready for the first mackerel of the day. It takes off called by a voice I can’t hear, then dives, disappearing into the sea.

  • BEING GIDEON, by Penny Simpson

    Gideon walks out of the house, an army kit bag slung over his shoulder. I wonder if there’s someone just out of sight, pleading with him, or maybe even cursing, but the doorway is in shadow and it’s impossible to tell.

  • WHERE THERE’S BREAD IS MY COUNTRY, by Christina Carè

    It all started yesterday, with the burning.  Smoke rose in great plumes overhead as the men took to the fields with torches. They tied handkerchiefs over noses and lips; sweat rained down from their foreheads. Afterwards, they washed ash from their eyelashes and inside their ears. Sweetness and smoke filled their nostrils.  This, the great…

  • THE JOY OF LIVING, by Alexander Hewett

    09:37. A late start. Water on his face, quick brush of his teeth, and he’s escaped the room. Walking down Old Compton Street to Charing Cross Road, through the entrance of Foyles. 

  • VINCENT’S LOST LETTER TO HIS BROTHER, THEO: OCTOBER 13th, 1873, by Craig Smith

    My dearest Theo It has been several weeks now; how are you settled into your lodgings? I have been in correspondence with the van Stockum-Haanebeeks. They pass on their kind regards. It makes me glad to know they are thinking of me, but you are my preferred confidante. I have much to relate. Dark nights…

  • TOPSY, by Daniel Crute

    Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York. 1902. “I ain’t got rickets sir, no. Nor the pox.” “Yet,” he said, taking hold of my jaw in a hand that was cleaner than any I had yet seen in America, “show me your teeth.”

  • TEMPO RISING, by Alia Halstead

    She smokes a rollie whilst blasting hot air up her jumper with a hairdryer. The smell of fresh paint lingers through the smoke. The pangs of pre-menstruation tighten.