Read the stories from our authors below. The authors featured online also have work published in our magazine.
The Gardener of Eden
Richard Owen Collins
The gardener of Eden walks up to them, the dumb happy couple, with the flower in his hand. He nearly stumbles as he approaches them. Neither of them notices him until she speaks, until he blurts out the line he’s been half-practising in his foggy head.
F23
Rick White
It was only when its petals started to drop that people began to look at it properly. How could it have been real all along? It looked far too perfect. Had it always been next to the photocopier? There were some who claimed to have seen it elsewhere in the office. Maybe it had moved of its own accord?
A Beautiful Proof
Rick White
Bright, shiny girls with their ticker-tape smiles. Once they leave these gates they will oxidise and tarnish. Time will dull them. They’re already beginning to disperse, marching bovine into some spongiform future…
Free to a Good Home
Rick White
‘Care to have some wine?’ asked Henry.
‘She’s eleven,’ replied Kelly…
Crab Bucket
Rick White
No Cruelty I think. Besides tricking them with bait and dragging them out of their underwater home into the terrifying alien world above…
No Non-Swimmers Beyond this Point
Rick White
I knew having a baby at thirty-nine meant there was little chance of everything snapping back into place as it seemingly does for women in their twenties, but I was not prepared to feel like an entirely new species of mammal…
Dog-Face Malone, Meet Linda
Rick White
I told Helen all about Linda of course, drunkenly blurted it all out and what does she do? Tidy up and make tea. I could be swinging from a noose or lying in a bathtub full of my own blood and she’d still be rearranging my crockery in the most efficient and space-saving manner…
Ahead of Me in Time
Kim Chinquee
Since he’s been in the army, until now, he’s mostly been in warm places. First Hawaii, then Tennessee. Then, where his wife is now, at their new home in Georgia…
Amen
Kim Chinquee
When the pastor says Amen, people blow out candles…
The Red Cover
Kim Chinquee
The book with the red cover read ‘You Can't Threaten Anyone’. After my dad died, I found it on his table. I found a lot of things on his table – every card I sent him, along with all my letters…