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‘Call me Cindy.’ She tried it out in the mirror; off-hand, with a bored sideways look, then coy, then direct. She wasn’t especially convinced by any of them. Would he be? ‘Hi, I’m Ella. Nice to meet you.’ Ella. Cindy. Cinda. Rella. Should she just try her full, over the top, embarrassing name? ‘Cindarella’s myContinue reading “Glass slippers”

She stood in her kitchen in the low light of a winter morning, waiting for the kettle to finish. Outside, the world was waiting to be formed. River mist filled the valleys. The sleeping hills were still. Dawn crept, silently, towards the horizon. In her bare feet, she felt the cold of it entering herContinue reading “Wild and precious”

My grandmother once told me that she was homesick for the past. It was before I was married; I didn’t even know what homesickness was. The past is like a place, she told me. There are people there that you love. Your body feels familiar, there. The air smells like home. No-one is missing andContinue reading “The Trap of Time”

Detective Johns arrived late to the scene. Evening had come and gone sometime during his last interrogation; he’d entered the dusty grey meeting room in daylight but when he walked out again, the streets were dark, and the sky was the colour of a fresh bruise. Another day over. How many did he have left?Continue reading “Crime scene”

Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Yoko Kinoko – Yoko because her father liked the name and Kinoko because her nose was a cute as a little button mushroom. Yoko lived in an apartment on that street near the temple. You know the one – it has a big red gatewayContinue reading “Yoko Kinoko”

Quintana woke at 4:00pm to the sound of their father in the bathroom. Dad always left the door open. It had disgusted the rest of the family when they were kids, but now that Quintana was the only ‘child’ left at home, there was nobody to complain with. Mum had long since struck Dad’s bathroomContinue reading “Quintana”

She avoided eye-contact because it was so bright. Not glowing bright like the joyful sheen of a shiny coin on the path, but sharp bright like the sun poking straight between your eyelids. When she locked gaze with someone, she felt pinned in place, dug into, pushed at. It panicked her. She liked the spaceContinue reading “The sounds between”

Once upon a time there was a little boy and his name was Jack.  She paused, and looked appraisingly at the small child in the pyjamas. Was she ready to hear how her father had died? Her daughter looked back at her. She was so small, still chubby, with fluffy white-blonde hair like a newlyContinue reading “Beanstalk”

His hut was built in a cleft of the mountain between the trees and the lava flow, where the hot springs steam and hiss, and mud forms a thin dry crust over the boiling, melted earth. His neighbours were the phoenix, the dragon and the salamander. His name was Fire, pronounced, in his tongue, likeContinue reading “The Phoenix the Dragon and the Salamander”

He lurked. He slouched. He was self-conscious walking alone. The full camo gear that, on another man, would indicate soldier, on him suggested shiftiness. He had run-ins of the ‘What you lookin’ at?’ variety and although his arms were skinny, his fists were like sharp little walnuts, so he mostly held his own. Only hisContinue reading “Camo Man”