Short Fiction: “Grief takes different shapes they say. At times my imagination wanders as I lie awake in the early hours. When a tree branch taps my window I believe it’s Stephen out there, waiting to come in so we can lie once again, safe in each other’s arms.”

Short Fiction: “I get out the car and walk up to Gideon. His bag is lighter than my tote. In addition to his black eye, there’s a dried blood stain on his paisley chiffon blouse.”

Short Fiction: “’It all started yesterday, with the burning.”

Short Fiction: “’He looks across the café with searching eyes. He’s fairly certain the manager fancies him.’”

Short Fiction: “’Dark nights have come to London. Away from the lamplight, there is danger in the corners of the city.’”

Short Fiction: “’I ain’t got rickets sir, no. Nor the pox.’”

Short Fiction: “It wasn’t a baby, but an idea travelling into nothingness. A secret until the doctors told her emergency contact.”

Short Fiction: “We reporters roamed the capital, stray dogs hungry for political meat.”

Short Fiction: “It’s important we set the scene. In 1201, war appeared in the sky clutching a guitar.”

Short Fiction: “Church is, I’m sorry to say, a mixed blessing.”

Short Fiction: “They used the same picture of Meggie in all the newspapers, back in 1997 when she first went missing.”

Short Fiction: “The funny thing about the night I bump into her is that I’ve got some cracking power ballads going on in my head.”

Short Fiction: “Needle the thread, do not thread the needle.”

Short Fiction: “He can’t get back to sleep once he’s awake. Besides, there are things to do.”

Short Fiction: “…I realise I’d completely forgotten you, for all these years.”

Short Fiction: “She wanted to eavesdrop, to join in, to ask them if they’d seen the crocodile everyone was talking about, but knew no French…”

Short Fiction: “Olive felt like a robot penguin that had been embedded in the huddle by the team from Frozen Planet to record their goings on.”

Short Fiction: “If you ever come looking for me, you’ll find me sitting in my car at the Kisementi car park, listening to Radio One.”

Short Fiction: “The tavern is only half full tonight, a crowd of beardless students daring each other to one more ale…”

Short Fiction: “You are tied to an ancient rattan chair. Your guts are full of splintered wood…”

Short Fiction: “The first time I saw Brentford I was thinking about the Roman invasion.”

Short Fiction: “Born early, writhing and screaming at 11.17am.”

Short Fiction: “A shock of sunlight pierces into the cabin, turning his eyes the colour of polished timber. The eyes that tell me, I need you; told me this last night.”

Short Fiction: “The vial of semen in the breast pocket of David’s denim jacket bounced against his chest as he walked down Harley Street. The heat pack next to it warmed his heart.”

Short Fiction: ” …angel was back, fighting Dad in front of the flat, just really kicking the shit out of him.”

Short Fiction: “The body was clearly a body, although it didn’t look like a person; a formerly alive thing.”

Short Fiction: “I’ve practised with a dildo and a tube of KY jelly. If my mother knew, it would disgust her.”

Short Fiction: “The endless chorus of middle-aged men trying to understand and keep up, eating from plates of carved fruit, hoping sugar will break their desperation.”

Short Fiction: “I found the fruit bushes, by smell as much as by sight, because they grew in front of a strew of Himalayan balsam.”

Short Fiction: “when our party halted with a sunlit panorama below us, and I said, ‘I can’t describe how that makes me feel’, and he didn’t say a word, just smiled and nodded.”

Short Fiction: “The orchard belongs to the Vasdekas family. It has been with them ever since that first olive shoot defied all laws of botany.”

Short Fiction: “When it comes to men, I am currently sitting stoically in a vast kingdom of disappointment.”

Short Fiction: “Nobody had liked her uncle’s wife.”

Short Fiction: “From the fires of hell,” I inform him. “Or perhaps the blood of Christ?” His uncertain gaze returns to scrutinise me

Short Fiction: I wonder fleetingly whether I have ever been sexually attracted to her. It’s not a real thought.

Short Fiction: …I know it’s just his way of telling me he’s sad to see me go. I slip my hand into my pocket and run my fingertips over my ammonite.

Short Fiction: Before I could stop myself, I had him in swimming trunks, kissing me. Next thing I knew, we were lying on a beach, gazing into one another’s eyes.

Short Fiction: I can see him holding on to the far buoy with his head leant back, staring out to the horizon. I watch his bright red cap bob between the waves as I sit in my lifeguard Kayak.

Short Fiction: Get a cab. Don’t walk. The party has started. Little Mo is on the decks, he’s wearing his Moondance T-shirt from the millennium, swaying, can in hand.

Short Fiction: Whistling, I gaze through my reflection. This plexiglass doesn’t look strong enough to hold all that water.

Short Fiction: I was sorry for trying to kiss her if it’s not what she wanted. Hey, it’s OK, she replied. It’s just I’ve never been with a woman. I’m not a woman. You know what I mean.

Short Fiction: Vision and colour crowded in. She was awake too; he could feel her wakefulness through the mattress.

Short Fiction: It’s well known that there’s always a crock of gold at the end of a rainbow. What isn’t so well known is that a double rainbow’s different, and at the end of that there’s simply a big ruckus.

Short Fiction: In lime green flares and a marigold shirt that set off her conker-brown skin, she waved her arms as she described the kind of beasts into which our enemy could transform…

Short Fiction: We knew they would come; it was only a matter of when, so we responded quickly to the alarm.

Short Fiction: Lana’s thoughts drift back to the strange call. Who was asking for help? Why did they call this number?

Short Fiction: You reach for a book and blow the dust off, watching it fly around the dimly-lit room. It’s the story of the Baobab Tree.

Short Fiction: The first time the man arrives at the ballet studio, the girls ignore him. An embarrassing father come to watch a class, probably, or a friend of Miss Maisie.

Short Fiction: My father left Damascus like a lover creeping from his mistress’ bed in the dark of night.

Short Fiction: Johnny Pulp used to be a girl. It’s not his favourite thing about himself, but that’s the deal.

Short Fiction: This morning I imagined breaking up with Alice.

Short Fiction: …we had appendicitis flapjack (my cousin Mary), banana bread broken leg (me), lung cancer linguine (Aunty Joan), heart attack hummus (Grandma Phyllis)…

Short Fiction: …we had appendicitis flapjack (my cousin Mary), banana bread broken leg (me), lung cancer linguine (Aunty Joan), heart attack hummus (Grandma Phyllis)…

Short Fiction: If someone broke into your house now, how would you get out?

Short Fiction: Whoever named this town Prosper had a sense of humour, and no one was laughing anymore…

Short Fiction by Jane Idrissi