from Miles and Mabel, a novella ___ Tate Britain was crowded. Mabel and I weren’t the only citizens that had come out to look at an artwork the artist described as possessing the qualities of nothing. “It’s more powerful than I was expecting,” I said. The room was shady, as though […]
Fiction
8 posts
from The Santa Parade, a novel ____ Christmas is a good time of year for whores. Office parties. Late nights shopping in the city, presents galore. Men find shopping particularly stressful. They’re not good at navigating present lists and department stores. They arrive at the parlour in the evening after […]
___ The Michael Jackson Quintet first performed in Rome to an audience of stray cats. The Quintet had painted their faces white, as the mime incorporated several events from MJ’s later years, including his death, which the group expressed as a communal convulsion. The cats were languid and meowed loudly […]
Lily arrived home after 3am, heated up a ready meal from Marks and Sparks and threw her keys on the bench. The microwave beeped. She peeled off her thigh high platform stilettos and left them slumped against the rubbish bin and wandered into the lounge scooping drool warm pasta into […]
Landfall, Autumn, 2006; The Roads Ahead (Tindal Street Press, Birmingham) 2009 ____ “Is she blonde?” “No.” “What colour’s her hair?” “Black.” “Oh well, she might like to dye her hair later.” Hugh smiled. “Does she speak English?” “As far as we are aware she doesn’t speak at all.” “Oh.” Hugh […]
____ On Friday I saw a unicorn in the shopping mall, its mane flickering beneath the florescent lights. The unicorn was drinking from the wishing fountain. Gold coins glittered on the bottom like teeth. I flung in a fifty-cent piece and then the unicorn appeared, lapping the water with its […]
In 1992 I lived at number 81 with two hippies, one cat and an abundance of large rats that were rarely seen but knew how to shake the fridge in the dark. The rats were fed on the compost heap the hippies kept at the back of the garden, a […]
___ On the last day of our trip we came around a corner and there it was, spread out before us like a mirror set into the grass, its surface covered in a carpet of water-lilies. A curved wooden bridge arced over the pond like something out of a Monet. […]