Sam Szanto

      After a Stillbirth He had been told the trolley would be in the corridor at noon. He could get sandwiches. It was normally for mothers only but they’d make an exception. His wife won’t eat anything. He has to do something. He cannot sit and be...

Tess Jolly

      Fish and Chips When I went round the next day with a bottle of wine, his wife said he was bruised down both sides from squeezing through our upstairs bathroom window. He’d been on his way to get more fish from the freezer at the end of their...

Jenny Mitchell

      Poison Takes the Place of Food   There’s no one in the flat when I come home from school, my dinner in the fridge – poison on a flowered plate, covered with tin foil, surrounded by full shelves of poison. I warm mine up, dust with salt but it...

Sarah James/Leavesley

      A mouthful of stones The sister I don’t have has pockets bulging with silver-foiled chocolate and popping candy, rustling- wrapped strawberry surprises and infinite packets of unopened love hearts. She leaves me the pocket full of stones, ones my...

Andy Humphrey

      Cine Reels On screen, Dad was the radical – the introverted pen-and-notepad kind, donkey jacket, beard, betrayed. Another time he played a photographer eyeballing Liverpool – statutes, pigeons, couples out to lunch. Thieves snapped in the act. Our...

Nigel Pugh

      My Story Will Be Perfect  Rain like it was Biblical. Sidewalk empty, just me and a happy drunk with the weather-hardened look of a rough sleeper sauntering down the hill from Victoria Station in my direction, shouting out his joy to the world. As...