Inching closer to the heater, the winding roads in her mind became streaks of fire in the sky, like those left behind by sparklers waved around on Bonfire Night or the fireworks that accompanied them, cutting through the heavens like a knife. Closer and closer still, the heat washed over her in waves—like the waves… Read more

Wiggling those scorched toes of hers the way she wiggles like a caterpillar in her dreams, the light of the fire sends her into a trance. Like the headlights of an approaching car, the two logs glare at her like eyes, beady at first and then as bright and as whole as sibling moons. Occasionally,… Read more

Nibbling the cookie like a hamster, Gretchen banishes the pain of never having her own Christmas tree by focusing on how good the cookie tastes. It tastes good indeed, and her smile is as wide as the thread of time that passes between the two versions of her that exist in these pages. It’s a… Read more

Grabbing hold of the packet of cookies the way a monkey in a zoo might snatch a bag of peanuts from the hand of a child, Gretchen shimmies back along the counter the way she came. The drop to the floor wasn’t huge, but one wrong step and she might land face-first, smashing her teeth… Read more

Gretchen’s parents knew all about the chair trick. Anything sweet and sugary had to be hidden out of sight the best they could manage, and yet the two of them knew it was a thankless task. Other than locking the food in a box, nothing was safe from their only daughter’s insatiable hunger. This time,… Read more

It wasn’t unusual for her father not to be in bed early in the mornings; even during the week when he had to be up at the crack of dawn for work. For one, he was a restless sleeper the same as her. Secondly, he had a penchant for falling asleep before the TV in… Read more

She remembers the rain. It seemed to pour forever. There had been no snow that Christmas. Only rain. The streets outside were flooding by the minute, and each time she sat at the window in her bedroom watching the world go by, the water crept so high that in her tiny mind, the threat of… Read more

I am a crustacean; a variant of a strain of flu found in a bog on Old Woolworth Lane. The bog is no more; they filled it in many summers ago and erected a shiny shopping arcade which is now overwhelmed by an abundance of vacant fashion boutiques full to the brim not with the… Read more

Moving in for the kill, she growls and huffs in excitement as the droplets of paint inch closer to the canvas. Any second now, they’ll hit. She’s excited to the point where she’s getting wet. She knows she’s getting wet because she feels the waters from her womb seeping through her panties and dripping down… Read more