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Short story category: 5 Minutes

And I can tell you, Commissioner, I also had notice of this Englishman’s offences against the state. The concierge at the Leanne Aura Hotel reported his arrival, tired from travel, yes, but already bad tempered at ‘how you do things here’, as he put it. It seems he misread signs at the central

In rain, sunshine, mist and high winds we tottered through the fields as fast as Elspeth’s little legs and my dodgy knees allowed. Both of us breathless, we rushed up the hill – more of a hillock really – that Elspeth had named The Big Mountain. The vista from the top encompassed the sweep of

You’ve to follow proper etiquette, or demons won’t give you the time of day. It only takes six things to reach them, and number one is the book I had from my auntie, along with dire warnings not to use it. Demons are surprisingly easy to reach; I wasn’t even trying properly, just having a r

She came from a wealthy family, she said. Her father owned a string of cinemas and a newspaper. But somehow things went wrong after her husband died, and now all she'd got left was this house she wanted to sell. 'Won't you come along and look at it? I'm not asking much. I just want to be rid of it,

I once lost something of mine, and it was nowhere to be found. Problem was, I didn't know what it was that I was looking for. I searched through my whole house: under the couch cushions, in the kitchen cabinets, under my bed. I rifled through countless documents − taxes, old schoolwork, art − in

'Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.’ Albert Camus   September ‘Gail, dear, you can’t hide cards up your sleeve.’ The nurse points out my mother sitting at the far side of the room in the games corner, but I had already heard her voice, high and shrill. The

I woke up that morning, knowing she had gone. Left in the middle of the night. She didn’t sleep well, so it never bothered me when she awoke. She would usually just get herself up, grab a book and go into the living room and curl up on the sofa. I never sensed it was anything to do with me. It

Kimi broke sticks just for the fun of hearing them crack. Dry sticks, thick as the fingers of old men and crooked and brittle. And she’d tread on them in the wood or flex them in her hands or across her knee, and the sound of them breaking was like small gunfire. Everything quiet then and all the