The Talk Show Host
they wait there in the long fluorescent hum of the evening, motorised chairs whining low and plastic seats creaking under the weight of old bones. some have stalks of shiny steel rising like chrome antennas above balding heads and thinning silver hair, clear bags of saline, dripping slow, intravenous pricks taped to blue-veined arms. they
The Reunion
forty years on, and still I have my small spoon and small chipped cup from Trinity College, Cambridge — sacred little relics, warm in my hands like talismans from another life. last night the reunion surged through me: red wine dark and heavy, escargots glistening in garlic butter, and a rich bloody fillet of lamb.
Uncle Patrick
the bar hasn’t changed, neon still bleeds red down the walls, smoke hanging in the air like it’s got nowhere better to be. and I’m on the stool next to the one nobody’s sitting on, where Uncle Patrick used to sit with a Campari and soda glowing in his fist like something he’d cut out
The Landlord
I let myself in on Monday evening with the spare key on its green plastic tag. Three months of unpaid rent had passed, and the smell in the hall already carried what waited on the other side of the door. and there you were, in the centre of the room, suspended from the rafters, toes