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The Stories

"Baggage Claim"

by Bob Merckel

Stragglers from the last flight drip through the double doors. Those still waiting crane their necks, but no one recognizes ten-year-old Sarah.... (more)

A Memory of Marta

by Rebecca Stonehill

Standing opposite the mirror, I held it up against my body and twirled around so that the long skirt billowed outwards... (more)

A Piece Of Cake

by Maire Cooney

He woke scared, cold to his bones and sick. Off the stuff four days, off the script too, all of it, and too late for his appointment, way too late. But he got up, pulled on a pair of jeans... (more)

A Question of Taste

by Paul Blaney

Our first and, it would seem, final disagreement took place in that lovely baroque café at the Neue Galerie... (more)

A Real Poet

by Chelsey Flood

He said he was a poet and I believed him, fool that I am.... (more)

A taxi driver touches his steering wheel more than his wife

by Justine Shaw

He’d been working since ten the night before and had, for the last hour, been fantasising about Lucy’s cooked breakfast... (more)

A Tea Party

by Maria McCarthy

The baby smells of the milk that Mum leaves on the windowsill to go sour for making scones. Mum takes the nappy to the bucket in the bathroom, scrapes the poo into the toilet with a knife then sticks it in to soak.... (more)

About a Boat

by Agnieszka Dale

At thirty-three most men in his village had bought houses, cultivated land or produced pink screaming babies.... (more)

Africa – a Love Story

by Michael Spring

It was only when she was sick over my shoes that I was really sure who it was.... (more)

All downhill from here

by Guy Ware

It is said by those who know (and denied by those who only know what they believe) that whales are descended from a hoofed land mammal rather like a small wolf with a long, thick tail and triangular teeth...... (more)

B & I

by Colleen Becker

When I lived in Chicago I shared a house with five other people: four Scorpios and a Pisces, all artists. Our place was spacious, but we spent most our time in separate bedrooms to avoid conflict.... (more)

Back Fat

by Laura Williams

It is the first day of summer in London. I am in Brockwell Park with the hordes blinking into a forgotten light.... (more)

Birdman

by Mark Lewis

There was once a man, who was once a youth, who was once a star, who was once a brave champion... (more)

Birthday blues

by Menaka Raman

It was her husband’s 43rd birthday. Yet somehow it was she who felt older. He had just called – brusque as ever - and informed her he would be late.... (more)

Blowing in the wind

by Tamsin Cottis

The first time I ever heard ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, I was sitting in assembly, four rows from the front of the dining hall, with the rest of Mr Stephens’ class. It was 1970 and I was 9 years old. A lady had come to sing to us.... (more)

Boots and shoes

by David Bausor

My father married into money, or at least into the remains of money... (more)

Caught on the wing

by Guy Ware

Sam said, “Do I make you happy?”... (more)

City Of Hearts

by Rachel Castell Farhi

I had never received a love letter so I paid an old man sixty francs to write me one... (more)

Closing Time

by Jim Risner

CRACK! “Shit!” yelled Milan as he threw himself down onto the living room floor.... (more)

Coffee

by Adrian MacLeod

The smell is overpowering. Acrid. And it is humid in here. Noisy: steam vents, machinery grinds.... (more)

Conviction

by Guy Ware

I hear evil is back in fashion, but I still don’t know what it means. Am I evil? I don’t know. Half-hearted maybe, but it’s hardly the same.... (more)

Cosmic Arboretum

by D C Jeffreys

The café in the village square was once a well-known haunt of agitators who, in my youth, scribbled polemics on the backs of napkins.... (more)

Crash

by Farah Reza

I was seventeen on the day I got married. It was August, and the sun slanted through the windows... (more)

Crashing

by Jonathan Attrill

Sheri looked at herself in the mirror. Deep green eyes stared back at her from a pretty... (more)

Danny and Sarah

by David Gill

Danny thought: Brendan won’t notice me. He made himself small, opened the door of the block of flats and walked quickly across the forecourt.... (more)

Departures

by Zsuzsanna Ardó

The endless green woods pulsate with life. The sun travels through the intricate foliage into the increasingly dark depth of the forest.... (more)

Electricity

by Christian Walsh

Paul knew all about plumbers, electricians and roofers. Estate agents and carpet layers. People with... (more)

Everyone is having a word

by Nicola Field

Dad’s popped over the road to have a word with Auntie. He’s gone without a jacket, even though it’s freezing dark December outside;... (more)

Eyes on the Horizon

by Katy Darby

He’d known there was something wrong all week. Something she wasn’t telling him. In between the dark and sweaty sheets of his college bed.... (more)

Family butchers

by Guy Ware

Although he would never have used the phrase aloud – it would have sounded too much like his father.... (more)

Fear of foals

by Adrian MacLeod

Katie plonks her brush on the paper and creates a line. A single, vertical splodge of a line in an uncertain colour.... (more)

Flowers and Candles

by Nadine Grieve

There's an interview with a Chinese author, single and childless, living in New York.... (more)

Fontanelle

by Anna Hope

The curtains had pink flowers on a white background.... (more)

For Sale

by Andrew Lloyd-Jones

Dan’s flat was in the window of the estate agent. As far as he was aware however, it wasn’t for sale.... (more)

Freecycle

by Claire Munro

I’m becoming addicted to Freecycle, which is a sort of lonely-hearts column for stuff.... (more)

Ghost Story

by Guy Ware

He knows there are no ghosts.... (more)

Gifts

by Heidi James

It was the gifts that gave us away.... (more)

Going Home

by Matt Barnard

The bus sped past and the raw power of it made him shudder... (more)

Going up to get down

by Sally Foote

Jack is on his way back to his desk to, as they’ve put it, “have a think about it” and the foyer of the 6th floor is unusually crowded...... (more)

Grandmother's House

by Bob Merckel

I hadn’t been to Grandma’s in nearly a decade. I never meant to stay away, but life along the scenic route doesn’t bring you over the river and through the woods as often as you’d like.... (more)

Gravitas

by Miranda Bowen

It is a wet day. A nice day for ducks day. A girl sits at a kitchen table sucking on the end of a purple felt tip, feet swinging above cold tiles.... (more)

Half an hour

by Peter Higgins

Sally would laugh at him when he was on “Top of the pops” and they were round at hers and they were supposed to be doing their homework.... (more)

Happy New Year

by Richard Tyrone Jones

I was down the Wetherspoons meeting some old friends...... (more)

Heart Trouble at Christmas

by Lander Hawes

Doctors advise that heart attacks often occur at Christmas, and George Carter’s was no exception. His son, Dale, a recruitment consultant in London, abandoned his schedule to visit his father.... (more)

Hector Gets 100%

by Tracy Maylath

Normally, this is what happens... (more)

Held up in the waiting room

by Lou Reade

The clock chimes midday, twelve long notes, so I'm half expecting their cars to start pulling up outside. Mrs Potter popped her head in a few minutes ago. I was in the middle of a breathing exercise - in through nose, out through mouth, eyes tight shut -... (more)

Home Sweet Home

by Sasha Smith

That neighbor, she didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. I knew it all... (more)

How Claude Romarin Lost the Buttocks of Celestine Bigorneaux

by Vanessa Gebbie

Claude Romarin shuts his eyes. But no buttocks can he conjure.... (more)

How do I Get An "A" In This Class?

by Paul Laffan

On top of everything else, Ann had the cubicle next to his. Her phone calls floated over the chipboard and fustian divide, undiluted, uncensored.... (more)

If Only

by Kate Hoyland

“If only,” said the man in the yellow hat. “If only things were different.”... (more)

Irene

by Helen Bailey

She's walking down the slip. Coat buttoned up to the neck. It's windy. Her lipstick... (more)

It's Your Call

by Frank Goodman

I hate it when the phone begins to ring. I hate the sound of it. I hate the idea... (more)

It’s Good Round Here.

by Justin Small

It’s good round here. I can’t remember. Was it today or yesterday. I don’t remember as it makes no difference really round here.... (more)

Jesus, this is heavy

by Farah Reza

Neither us of noticed it getting dark until it was night. The pub had filled with a group of men in pastel coloured office shirts, talking and laughing too loudly for us to hear each other comfortably anymore.... (more)

JJ's Secret

by Jonathan Attrill

Some people say I am stupid or thick but that is because they are ignorant my mum says and I go to college so I can’t be that thick. I do courses for people with learning difficulties which is what I’ve got and it means I am slower than other people in so... (more)

Kites

by Alex Fleetwood

Cold tears hang on the rear windscreen of the car as I arch my back and turn my head to see... (more)

Kwik Save

by Tracy Maylath

You wander into Starbucks. What are you doing here again? The statistical possibilities of all... (more)

Lantirn

by Tracy Maylath

The nature of the death list changed after the Queen Mother kicked the bucket. By... (more)

Lauxes Esuba

by Emma Henderson

A child sits on an old man’s lap. Is that child me? The old man loosens the flap of his belt, undoes the buckle, some buttons, adjusts the child. Let’s say that child was me.... (more)

Letting Go

by Adam Elston

... (more)

Life writing

by Guy Ware

Begin with a picture, a close up.... (more)

Lobster

by Paul Blaney

Silence settled between them like a fresh tablecloth.... (more)

Look at Me

by Bobbie Dahdi

My bedside table holds my bedridden world. On the top are the t.v. remote, phone, Teasmaid and a framed picture... (more)

Loose Thread

by Mickey Feather

"Saw your muchacha yesterday, you ole dog," said Ralf's senior colleague Pete the Poke on... (more)

Love and War

by Elizabeth Rutherford-Johnson

... (more)

Madame Malabar

by Fiona Ritchie Walker

Madame Malabar, Lindisfarne Court. The first time I read it, I knew it didn't sound... (more)

Marie's Death

by Katherine Craft

Marie searched for death ceaselessly.... (more)

Marketing

by John Braime

“How many other things have you lied about, Stephen?”... (more)

Meet The Builder

by Alan McCormick

‘What are you then?’ he asks. ‘A writer.’... (more)

Mi Argentina Querida (My Beloved Argentina)

by Amanda Schiff

His shoes were what I noticed first. They were still beautiful, made of oxblood leather... (more)

Mudchute

by Jane Eastwood

He watched and marvelled at the potential. He loved to see the powerful growth, the success, the rise of man.... (more)

Neighbourhood Watch

by Jules Gibson

"I'm truly sorry I stabbed you in the eye, Mrs Stephens. I swear, I thought you was a big... (more)

New Born

by Fiona O’Sullivan

When the squatting man rose to hold the bundle towards her, the doctor felt a wave of irritation. She stepped back involuntarily, her feet crunching the gravel.... (more)

No Gift Enough

by Marek Kazmierski

Talking hasn’t helped her. Not even a year of therapy. Our holidays ending in sad fiascos. The piano lessons I arranged for her cancelled, the keyboard I bought dusted over soon enough.... (more)

Notes For A Play About Some Family

by Dariush Alavi

Allow me to pin myself down.... (more)

November

by Patricia Debney

She is standing there next to the fence, her hands deep in her pockets. She... (more)

One Too Many Geoffreys

by Andrew Newsham

The boss had whittled down the applicants to just two suitable people from a field... (more)

Oona and Len - The Method of Modern Love

by Lee Nelson

Oona and Len met via a mutual acquaintance that they both fancied and that fancied them both, apparently.... (more)

Out Of Dukinfield

by James Aden

I thought I'd treat myself, have a short day out. Well a big afternoon really. I'd finished my little job... (more)

Out Of Ten

by Alex North

I moved into my flat on the Saturday. Started work on the Monday. Woke up... (more)

Passing the Leek

by Steve Smithson

Steve Smithson... (more)

Penalty Shootout

by Chris Murray

Okay, so it’s 3-3 on penalties and me and Billy are sitting on the edge of our seat in the corner booth of The Kings Arms... (more)

Perfect Size Nines

by Sara Hiorns

During the night Artie Norman began to moan and twitch and they came in and wheeled him away. The way the nurses worked on his bed... (more)

Perfect.

by Jo Horsman

Ron’s found bruised pears in the supermarket again.... (more)

Phyllis Partington Dances Naked in Dodge City

by Hilary Wilce

Phyllis Partington, spinster, but not of this parish, pauses outside the hotel lobby to take in the evening. It's beautiful.... (more)

Picking Flowers

by Heidi James

‘Hold me Gold’, she takes a step back and hands me a divot of cheap metals. I hold... (more)

Plain Useless

by Kit Whitfield

When she was sixteen, my mother saw a freak show for the first time. She wandered the dust paths... (more)

Plenitude

by Rachel Wolcott

A feast, and all it implies—indulgence, abundance, copia—is but a prelude. A luscious meal is in itself foreplay, a period of anticipation and desire, to a succulent coupling.... (more)

Porpoise, Whatever

by Anna Packham

This is the worst day of my life; friggin’ family daytrip to London. It’s sunny, so we have to GO OUT though we’d rather watch Wimbledon. Well not me (tennis is vile).... (more)

Post-Leading Man

by Ashley Stokes

The glow on the horizon could have been sheet lightning, but as Blue focused on... (more)

Pretending to be france

by Julie Mayhew

We are on holiday in a place pretending to be France.... (more)

Pulling in

by Kate Henderson

I pull my handbag closer in towards me, feeling a need to keep it safe... (more)

puppybunny

by Mark O'Neil

It wasn't that I didn't like coming home, just that it felt like part of me had never left... (more)

Quilt

by Thomas Kendall

Things to do when you know you’ve really been dead for five minutes:... (more)

Rabbit's Foot Ralph

by M L Stedman

I can see all the way to the Heads from up here. And way past the cliffs to where there’s just ocean – just like it must have looked to Captain Cook.... (more)

Rather milk in first

by Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

The Dover’s house was different. Unlike the other teachers, the Dovers had spent time extending their 3 roomed breeze-block.... (more)

Reading The Signs

by Leslie Mapp

Around the railway station, words in a landscape – Burger, Chicken, Take-Away: each painted big to catch the eye, and coloured sumptuous for the appetite.... (more)

Recycling

by Tara Gould

Jonathan sits down opposite him. There is something brown on his moustache, shiny, coffee or marmite. Jonathan looks at it and his dad wipes it away.... (more)

Rock

by Maire Cooney

“Mind,” she says, “I only want dolphin-friendly.”... (more)

Rock Pools

by Catherine Gingell

I have always been suspicious of the sea. The way it swells and rises, dropping without warning, spitting stones and jellyfish at bare feet.... (more)

Rousseau

by Zoe Green

Madame Boulot bustles through the large panelled door, paper bags jostling in her fat arms like a coop full of chickens. Her musquash she moults onto the coat stand and her hat she roosts on the shelf above... (more)

Satellite

by Alessandra Sartore

Stephen sat alone in the restaurant with a drink. He didn't bring a book, partly... (more)

Say Something

by Tracey Gilbert

Sean stooped, staring sideways. Sighing, Sarah said “She’s stolen something. She’s surreptitiously stolen souls.”... (more)

Seven Takes on a Nice Guy

by Paul Blaney

He was a nice guy. He seemed like a nice guy. Or he was a nice guy. Certainly he seemed nice. To whom did he seem nice? To everyone he seemed nice seemed like a nice guy.... (more)

Shaded Out

by Judith Taylor

They moved into the house as soon as they were married.... (more)

Shanty Town

by David Christopher

I get back from work and go into my stuffy little bedroom and there she is, in bed, as always.... (more)

Shaping Me

by Tracy Alexandra

There’s only one bit of her body that she likes. If there was only one part of my body I liked it would be a useful bit like eyes, or hands, but Mum’s bit isn’t much use at all.... (more)

Shelly Finds A Film

by Sally Foote

On the way home, Shelly found a film. A yellow cased, Kodak, Elite Chrome 36... (more)

shirageshi

by Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

Hirunobu still had the hair of a schoolboy. Soft, like the fluff of a baby chicken, his black hair stood... (more)

Silver Jubilee.

by Tara Gould

Dusk made the bunting glow. Plastic cups rolled along in the road like lost sheep and a group of women murmured on Mrs Frazer’s front drive.... (more)

Smoking Down There...

by Vanessa Gebbie

Kath said she had a brother she’d rescued from a bucket of water.... (more)

Something in the water

by Julie Mayhew

Before the hollow interior of the house had been filled, and before the removal van had revealed its whale belly insides, the woman who lived across the street called to see Alfie.... (more)

Spurs fucked your Mum

by Danny Birchall

I’d just flown in from Iceland on the night of Martin and Clive’s party, and caught the train from Gatwick straight up to King’s Cross, heading up towards Highbury on the Piccadilly Line, getting off at Arsenal.... (more)

Stigmata

by Henderson Downing

Whenever I went around to Cooper's we downed a lot of cider and talked a... (more)

Sushi Shop

by Anthony Cox

Kimura addresses the portrait of the old man above the main door to his restaurant,... (more)

Table for Wonder

by Bob Merckel

You're sitting at the no-really-it's-okay-I-enjoy-eating-alone bar in the window of Wagamama... (more)

Tale Ends

by Diana Mitchener

Death. It's such a serious subject. So dramatic. So final. Most people avoid talking about... (more)

The Beginning

by Imogen Salt

I have an idea that I want to start something. I take a walk then. Take a walk along the canal... (more)

The Beginning Of The End Of The Pier

by Katy Darby

Stage fright is a funny thing: it's not fear of the stage, of course, but fear of what you might do... (more)

The Boifriend

by Adam Bala

The shop assistant was wrapping dildos when I arrived, and the Four Last Songs, the definitive Elizabeth Schwarzkopf rendition, playing at full volume over the sound system- ‘Nun der Tag mich mud gemacht'.... (more)

The Builder

by Nick Rathbone

“I wouldn’t mind so much,” he went on, gesturing weakly at the drizzled kitchen window, “but it’s June."... (more)

The Cardboard Woman

by Heather Williams

Gina's invading my personal space: her shoulder brushes mine, a staticky strand of hair tickles... (more)

The Dead Boy at Your Window

by Bruce Holland Rogers

In a distant country where the towns had improbable names, a woman looked upon the unmoving form of her newborn baby and refused to see what the midwife saw.... (more)

The Four Stages Of Shrugging

by Dariush Alavi

The first thing that made me fall in love with Martin was his shrug: he used it as a total replacement for the words “I don’t know.”... (more)

The Jogger

by Stuart Green

I haven’t always been a jogger. Although I have jogged infrequently, I became a jogger in earnest when I moved to New York from London... (more)

The Joke

by Justine Shaw

But the infection had spread; cars had come to a standstill, people had dropped their shopping, children had been released... (more)

The Laws Of Retraction

by Anthony Malone

Charlie, what the hell are you doing in Nuneaton? Go home, for God’s sake. Look, if you’re stuck in some hick village ring me and I’ll send the Buick but don’t slum it in a doss house with the proles. You'll get lice. Remember Hastings.... (more)

The Little Soldier

by Yvonne McDermott

Nothing seemed to have changed in the last five years: same pictures on the wall, same carpet on the floor.... (more)

The Lost Soul

by Tadeusz Deregowski

I had that feeling of dislocation that you get when you realize that you have forgotten something somewhere.... (more)

The Miracle Of Breasts

by Linda James

Miss Adam-Jones' breasts always walked into the room first. Enormous and conical like embroidered traffic... (more)

The Night Mellor Went Mad

by Peter Higgins

It was an hour and twenty minutes into the concert before Mellor realised he was going mad.... (more)

The Night Sky

by Maire Cooney

It isn’t there. He had a right to some of it; of course he had, but the tin opener? Unbelievable.... (more)

The Occasional Table

by Sara Hiorns

The thing that Louise wanted more than anything else was an occasional table made to... (more)

The Sculptor of Woolwich

by John Galloway

Once there was a sculptor from Woolwich who loved working with all manner of materials. Whether it was the cold, hard, dignity of stone, the fraudulence of plaster, or the compliance of plastics.... (more)

The Shop

by Emma Clark

Anticipation builds as I approach my goal: an elderly green shop front...... (more)

The storm

by Maire Cooney

The bin men hadn’t been for seven weeks. You couldn’t see the bins with the bags piled so high, ripped open, stinking.... (more)

The Terrible History of Two Dachshunds Belonging to Mrs Jemima Green

by Kate Ansell

Jemima had a Persian cat called Syphilis, she'd inherited it from her only son, who'd... (more)

The Waiting Line

by Natasha Mirzoian

‘What have you got in there, friend?’ A gruff voice called out to a man walking past clutching a crumpled bag.... (more)

The wheel-clamper

by Richard Tyrone Jones

Ben worked for a wheel clamping company which went bust.... (more)

The Whole Wide World

by Guy Ware

The last thing she said before she went the last time was, “no one has the shit to deal with I have to deal with”... (more)

The Woman Who Walked in Straight Lines.

by Sarah Davies

The circumstances surrounding Mary Jones’ death had been almost as suspicious as the woman herself.... (more)

These Dying Days

by Adam Elston

Jenny was struck, as she gazed upon the sleeping form of her father, by a curious lack of feeling.... (more)

Tight

by Sarah Butler

‘Spare some change?’ The words rolled into each other: a mantra with the faintest lift of a question remaining. Suzanne let her eyes flick over him: an uneven growth of beard peppered with grey; eyes sunk into tired packets of skin... (more)

Too Cold to Snow

by Christopher Smith

It’s the Saturday before Christmas at the Lottery kiosk on the station, and my regular customers are consumed by panic and desperation.... (more)

Transparent Man

by Sarah Davies

Simon was like water. Sliding and sliming over every surface that he touched. Lacking substance. Insubstantial, only full of himself.... (more)

Turf

by John Braime

... (more)

Underneath the Masts

by Frank Goodman

Clive lived out near one of those radio masts that you see from the trains that run up and down out of London Bridge station. I can’t say now which one, but I remember looking up at it during his parties... (more)

Valediction

by Julie Tomasz

Mother has left the window open, just a crack, just as always --- enough to let... (more)

Walnuts

by Leslie Mapp

On some days, the snow across the marsh was frozen, and, in order to avoid accident, the express train for Helsinki stopped at Borsingors overnight.... (more)

War Games

by Hedva Anbar

George introduced me to some of the others, all British as far as I could tell, but as usual I caught none of their names... (more)

Water

by Carlie Lazar

Sometimes, the hero is trapped in a room that begins suddenly to fill with water.... (more)

Weather is Here

by Tracy Maylath

Maxwell lingers over the plastic racks of postcards for an hour. Sunsets with palms, naked, obese women in semi-dignified poses, skylines, these won’t do.... (more)

What Do You Think?

by Paul Blaney

‘Truly’, I told her, ‘I don’t know what I think.’... (more)

What We Know

by Liz Rosen

Richard is telling his snake story again. He waves his bourbon and water through the... (more)

Where did it all go?

by Michael Spring

“I wonder if their pies are home made?” she said, adjusting the menu experimentally to get it in focus. “They’ve got beef and ale, chicken and bacon, or Cornish pasties.”... (more)

Where do you go to my lovely

by Justine Shaw

Sam went back onto her front and glanced down at the sandy bottom of the sea, she noticed a starfish and lots of clear white sand.... (more)

Where Were You When the Bombs Went Off?

by Maggie Womersley

I stand at his window in yesterday’s underwear and watch a dozen white trucks tear past on the road below. With their fat red crosses glittering in the morning sun they are a cavalcade of newly minted toys, joyous to be out of their boxes and ripping the... (more)

Why Iris Won’t Eat Custard Creams

by Kate Ansell

In an hour, maybe two or three, perhaps in the early hours of tomorrow morning... (more)

You're Dead

by Tom Williams

Then the first black square comes spinning down through the inky-blue sky. It looks like a UFO crashing out-of-control, and explodes on the path showering the lawn with stones.... (more)

“Hurts”

by Kelly McKain

If I was going to change my mind, it would have been then, wouldn’t it?... (more)

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