by Helen Ivory | May 5, 2022 | Featured, Prose
You’ve got a pop belly, mama. Like when you had that baby. It’s a pot belly, she said. And there was no baby. I thought it was pop, because babies just pop out. She didn’t say any more, though when I was very little she said I popped out like a...
by Leah Jun Oh | Apr 28, 2022 | Featured, Prose
The List In The Brain This was a special day, Rabia knew it. She had to wake at least an hour earlier than usual. It was special for her too, because today, Saleema had promised to give her salary along with arrears. She gulped lukewarm...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 9, 2022 | Featured, Prose
Pulling together Yasmin and Josef lived on Laburnum Avenue, an unremarkable suburban street where the bins were emptied on time. Yasmin and Josef felt at home but when the form from the Be a Better Neighbour! campaign arrived, Yasmin didn’t quite...
by Helen Ivory | Feb 6, 2022 | Featured, Prose
The Ominous Sweetie-Jar Ever since he was 17, Angus had been saving the tiny hairs shaved from his chin by a succession of electric razors. Now, aged 67, he had one of those old-fashioned, large, glass, sweetie-jars almost full of his own tiny...
by Leah Jun Oh | Jan 21, 2022 | Featured, Prose
Zina I remember your laugh, a cackle, irrepressible and sometimes never ending, echoing down the stairs. Wooden stairs, or were they covered in lino, scuffed by hundreds of feet up and down in that damaged old house. There were eight of us living...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 9, 2021 | Featured, Prose
Stefan We did foster care. We took in this kid. He was eight and his name was Stefan. His dad had recently died, his mum had severe mental health issues. There was a step-dad, we were told. But he belonged to us, for now. We met Stefan a couple of...
