STORIES ON THE BACK OF A POSTCARD…
Andrew Gillespie
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There, in the howling green of the woods with golf balls cracking intermittently through the upper branches of the trees above her like distant gunshot, Cathy did not scream, but calmly and with no little contempt for her newly awakened ovaries, thrust one peacock velvet glove down inside the waistband of her pants and stood, eyes closed, imagining the browning velvet so close to her and choking back something new in her throat; something between tears and laughter; something that tasted like swimming pool water.
Orlando Whitfield
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What Emma really wanted to do was crawl into the showers and curl up in the corner. Communal bathrooms didn’t really allow for that. Communal bedrooms didn’t really allow for lying in bed all day but Emma figured that – to a casual passerby – her catharsis would pass as an innocent siesta.
At five she would go on a long walk so that when she got back it might feel like bedtime. That is when the tears would start rolling, down her shins and spine and the middle of her chest. The door cracked. Emma turned to face the wall.
Amy McLeod
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No. 3, bleaching styrofoam box under fuschias; 6, curlicued table legs on spongecake flags supporting a pair of bonsai; 12, scrunchie like an offset blowhole hoofing a plume of blunt, grunge-blonde curls out wavering as, having tripped on the lip of the decking a box of balled newspaper and vari-patterned ceramics spills and lands obliquely with a granular crunch, a treasured mug kiln-fired in a friend’s teenage art class years back pinwheeling newly handleless along planks spotted with intermittent guano to butt the doorstep and rattle to a stop.
Rob Gallagher
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Lee (as in León) perched on the steps of a fountain, water drooling from lion mouth, and, twisting the lens, spied Jay ahead – snorting with every step downhill, camera thudding against tum. They’re mirror images, people said. Well, Lee had cracked, ran, leaving Jay with a dish of boquerones and hoping the crowd would stare him – snooping bitch – into the ground.
In fact Jay had run out straight after, but cut a left against Lee’s right. The pair drew a figure eight with their footprints around neighbouring squares.
Dorothy Feaver
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