a literary journal

FICTION

Skeusen: A London Boy to a Cornish Man

He grasped the picture tightly to his chest, a tear trickling down his cheek. A sharp wind prickled the tips of his ears, turning the end of his nose a soft crimson. Wiping his nose with the back of his hand, he jumped off the wall, kicking a rock across the sand. Ahead of him, the tide moved in a constant rhythm, moving backwards and forwards.

Read More
A Life Unfinished

I put my pencil down and hastily washed away the graphite from my hands. It was their anniversary in 2 days, and the drawing was supposed to be a surprise. So I thought, naïvely: There’s always tomorrow, I guess. 

Read More
Kai ReyesNelson LyleHome
Cloth Monkey

I looked at the peeling paint on my ceiling, a faded mural of flowers mom had done when I was little. I pressed my head into her chest so I could hear her heartbeat, and tried to imagine who she could have been. 

Read More
Dinner, Actually

The day, far buried in the past, which started - and ended - everything. They remember the pain that followed in the days and years afterward, the pain that still rolls through on the first day of spring and cold winter mornings and September nights spent on park benches.

Read More
Something Inside

Soon the stage would fill, Kathleen thought, soon the lights would change and with this change of light the tables would turn. The watchers would be plunged into silent darkness, taciturn anonymity, and the authoritative, organised, silencing cacophony of the opening overture would reign in the hall. 

Read More
How Green is Your Valley?

I need to be alone. I need to be on my own with my ghosts. I can feel them around me now, shifting among the streetlights, dancing across the faces of deserted windows. I can hear them whispering too, confirming half-truths that I am desperate not to believe. 

Read More