Read by Lin Sagovsky
Pepe waited on the street corner in San Antonio, a small Mexican pueblo. He held a long stem red rose and knew la cita, the date, with senorita Lucinda Sanchez was under control. Lucinda’s mother was a problem, but he had a plan for her too.
A moment later Pepe knocked on the door and knew he was the matador going into the ring and Lucinda’s mother was a wounded bull.
Continue reading "The Sacred Duty of Mexican Mothers by Michael McLaughlin" »
Read by Adam Ganne
There was not much time. Soon the edge of the water would push its way against the rocks that ran along the opening of the cave; that would be the first breach. Then the water would halt for a moment, or that’s how it would seem, before it found the line of least resistance. Simon had spent many happy hours imagining how it would happen, from the bottom up he thought, the water lapping its way, gently at first, making little fjords from the spaces between his toes, straddling the lines of his tendons, seeping through the gaps of his buttocks till at last it would find the little hollow beneath the bow of his chest. He smiled again. If he lay down, Simon knew, it would be over sooner, the pleasure more intense but then again, more fleeting. Simon pushed a hand into his pocket and laughed; memories of her... God, he was a lucky man. It was still only six o’clock but the sun was already at the crown of the cliffs. Drowning was a gentle way to die she had said as she turned. Simon closed his eyes. Yes, he squirmed, that was good. It made it even stronger when he thought of her like that, remembered the way she looked when she said things that way.
Read by Paul Clarke
London, August 2009
‘Hello stranger.’
I was expecting her, I knew her voice well, but despite people around us rushing to catch trains, I jumped at her greeting.
She gave me the kind of hug you give at a funeral.
‘You haven’t changed a bit, Joe,’ she said.
Even after all these years, the heft of her body was second nature to me.
Read by Silas Hawkins
They say that in the City of London, you’re never more than 6ft from a rat.
Mine was called Boris.
When people said there was a rat following me, I didn’t believe them. I assumed it was an elaborate joke, the sort of thing my brother would orchestrate. I’d laugh, and they’d shake their head and swear that they were sure they’d seen SOMETHING.
Then I saw the SOMETHING they’d seen running along a countertop. I only glimpsed it out of the corner of my eye, but it was fast, and brown.
Read by Susan Moisan
Friday: lunchtime. In the pub, getting drunk. Goodbye drink - have another - leaving work.
Sitting crushed into the corner of a table-for-ten at the Tiger. Feeling slightly sick. Always hated leaving dos. Two too many gins.
Been here over an hour already, the others come and go in shifts - someone has to keep the office open. We'll all be ill by half past three.
Not really listening to their chatter; no need, they aren't talking to me, as though I'd already gone. Anticipating freedom, my pulse is racing, waiting to be on the train, waiting to go home, waiting to leave.
I have a dream in which I am looking down on a settlement of small thatched huts, arranged in a rough circle with a ditch and ramparts at the perimeter. It is late evening. Through the blue fug of woodsmoke, I can see an old man in dirty, tattered clothes standing at the gates of the village. Two figures, both dressed in loose, hooded robes, stand either side of him.
The man makes a gesture with his arms, and they depart. One walks to the east. The other goes west, into the red glare of the setting sun. The figure heading east walks with a stumbling gait. It diminishes in size as it goes, as if it were melting away. The other is more powerful. It moves with purposeful strides, and in its wake it leaves a thin red streak along the centre of the road.
This is what I remember.
The bruising rain pocking my face, the torrent in my ears. Opening my mouth to drink, stinging the back of my throat- the metal-sour stench of the machine – opening my eyes to wash pain from my mind.
The dark mood still snapping around me, though I had done my best to break it – and it had done its best to finish me.
Despair: most of all despair…
If I had realised that Dr. Hemstitch had been dead for several years by the time I met him I would have been less enthusiastic about allowing him to kiss my hand. In fact he seemed remarkably active for a man of what I took to be his age, and it never crossed my mind that I might be saying hello to a corpse. He seemed so cheerful, which of course, in hindsight, was no surprise.
The foxes may be rooting around in the bins again, but a Kalashnikov? Is that really, as they say, proportionate?
