(Unpublished)

I was in my third year of high school – just studying for my college entrance exams – and there was this kissaten called ‘Brazil’ near our house, and you know, the name! It just sounded so likely. I walked past it every day on the way home in my school uniform, and it was always full of students from the university – intellectual types, you know, all dressed in black and smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee from little porcelain cups. Sometimes the door would swing open as I went by, and jazz music would tumble out – a piano phrase, or a trumpet. There'd be a hiss of steam, and the fragrance of the coffee would float out all the way along the street. I’d breathe it in and hold it in my nose all the way back to my house.

First published by LITRO Magazine in October 2011

There is an animal which exists - apparently, it was once found only in the very North of China, up past the nuclear deserts of Xinjiang, though now, of course, it is very much more common and known in virtually all the cities of the world. Like the foxes of England, it has expanded its domain, abandoned its natural habitat and become a willing emigrant to the cities, where now it has become an effortless transplant, perfectly situated to the apparently artificial environment in which it finds itself.

First published by OPEN PEN in June 2015

I hate Florida. I really do. I used to pass through it so many times, on the way to and from the States. The girl I thought I’d marry used to live there, though I’m not sure if she’s living there anymore.

Published in the OPEN PEN ANTHOLOGY in January 2016

My dreams were drenched pea green, as if saturated with the blood of some mythical creature. The snapping turtles exploded from the poisonous mud beneath Newton Creek and went for the tender white soles of my feet with their razor teeth, again.

In days gone by there were oysters here, two hand-spans wide. Elk came down from the forest at dusk to dip their heads and drink from the clear tributary streams. Water washed in and out – in and out the cleansing salt came. Time and tide flowed up and down, gushed and gurgled, never pausing, never waiting. Why didn’t you wait for me?

Published by WRITER'S HUB in December 2014

I met the blind man after I left University, while I was living in South London. I was unemployed for a time – it felt like a long time. I had no money, and the days had become a dreary succession of ashen grey and lamp lit black, smudged at dawn and smeared at dusk. Autumn was being silently bludgeoned into winter. Half way through the afternoon the sky began to haemmorhage light. It crept back in the morning, but slowly, as if on sufferance, unwilling to stick around. The rain came down and as the season dwindled, day became unsure, and night unrepentant.