Liars' League

Decongested seeks heirs to the story throne ...

Our good pals and fellow live literature promoters over at Tales of the Decongested are retiring - oh noes! But if you fancy taking up the reins and stepping in to event-manage one of London's longest-established short story nights, read on ... it's a great opportunity if fiction is your thing, so email them if you're interested.

THEY SAY:

"Dear Short Story Lovers,

after five fabulous years of Tales of the DeCongested, Paul and Rebekah feel the time has come for new faces, fresh energy and ideas to take the event forward. We are seeking a team of two or more people interested in taking over the event.

If you think you might be interested in running this high profile event at a leading independent bookshop, please email us at tales@decongested.com. Think of it as a proposal, of a rather informal variety. We'd especially like to hear what new ideas you have, what you like about the existing event, and what you think you might change.

We'll give careful consideration and respond to all and any proposals. In due course, we'd also like to meet our potential successors. After five years you tend to get a bit possessive. We'd like to be sure we're passing the baby on to the very best of new parents!

Rebekah and Paul"

Lab Rat by Diane Payne

Read by Will Goodhand

Monday
To Do:

• Buy tea
• Renew GQ subscription (although screw it, now Sophie’s gone I might as well get Nuts instead)
• Tidy sock-drawer
• Buy humane trap

8.45am

I never can find a matching pair of socks.

The Painter and the Physicist by Tania Hershman

Read by Susan Crothers

The curtain is pulled back.

Yes? says the assistant.

I've come ... to see. To see the painter.

And you are ...?

I ... I'm the physicist.

One moment, says the assistant and the curtain falls back again.

Bob, Justbob by Liam Hogan

Read by Silas Hawkins

My friend Bob, Justbob, has a spaceship in his pocket.

He got his name the day he wandered onto the building site. He stood watching one of the YTS kids slapping bricks and mortar together, and then, in earshot of the foreman, Mr O’Reilly – he doesn’t much like it if you call him Malcolm, and he doesn’t much like it if you omit the Mr – he said, “I can build walls.”

The Kandy Kottage by Joan Osbaldeston

Read by Suzanne Goldberg

The Patels had given up the lease on The Kandy Kottage sweetshop in June. In July it was taken over by Alfred Cole and his son Kevin. At first glance it was possible to think they were twins, so alike were they in their battered jackets and corduroy trousers. Even their hair was of a similar length but whilst the father's was a steely grey, the son's was a light brown, the colour of mouse fur. Although Kevin was thin and stooped like his father, customers who bothered to look could see he was still in his teens.

They had been there for two months when Greta first walked in and Kevin Cole fell in love with her. Quite what it was about her was difficult to say. Two more dissimilar people would have been hard to imagine, but he fell in love with a bang and the noise echoed through the jungle of sweet jars and bounced off the sherbet lemons.

A Single Bullet by PJ Carnehan

Read by Sabina Cameron

It was on the afternoon of October 17, 1923, that a large Ford motor car passed through the village of Madderdown. Its passengers were men of distinction: a scientist and an artist. They could afford to smile at one another, as such men often do, though neither understood what the other one really did; both enjoyed a full measure of society's approbation and confidence in the value of their own proceedings, without needing to interest themselves in those of other men’.