All Stories

Gareth disappeared on a Saturday in March. My first thought when they told me was who would fix the leaking tap now, which I immediately regretted because that’s not the sort of thought any loving wife should have when she hears her husband is missing. But the tap had been dripping for weeks. Drip drip drip. Not particularly loud, but the sort of noise you can’t unhear once you’ve heard it. He had stood in the kitchen that morning, tying the laces of his boots, already halfwa

Shirley arrived at the office early. She needed to make a good impression. Three weeks off sick and numerous polite but increasingly insistent phone calls from HR asking for a return-to-work date. Her doctor had wanted to sign her off longer. Her nerves still weren’t right and her left hand still trembled, but once HR casually mentioned formal interviews Shirley had started to panic. Now, back on the floor, even the fluorescent lights felt accusatory. The office buzzed with t

There was a crow in my book club. Not sure who invited him. Someone might have suggested we read The Crow Road and then someone got the crow to join for the first session. We probably laughed. Well not Hilda, she never laughed, she took book club very seriously. If you hadn’t read the assigned chapter and come prepared with notes then you were put on tea and coffee duty. l used to do it on purpose. Not read the book, not prepare any notes. I preferred doing the tea and coffee

At first, I was quite happy when I noticed the face in the mirror didn’t match my own anymore. I had become very tired of the same face looking back at me day after day. Well, I say the same, obviously, my fifty-three-year-old self looks nothing like my ten-year-old self. My skin was different then, dewy and plump. “Peaches and cream,” my old neighbour used to say. And then there was the accident, well, I like to call it an accident, and my nose was never the same after that