Barry Lee Thompson

extract from Trophies, a short story

The night before I travelled home, Sioux asked me if I’d confirmed the taxi to pick me up and take me to the airport in the morning. ‘No. I’d better check,’ I said. He watched as I dialled the cab company. The call was very confusing to me. They were too quick to say that…
Melissa

All I wanted to do was lie in the thick late-afternoon light and watch the spider in the corner of the ceiling, and listen to the cars passing outside the window, and drift in and out of sleep. But of course I couldn’t. Not while Melissa was there, threatening to talk about every little thing…
It Used To Be Our Game

I try to change the subject. I talk to her about the beach – a place she likes to be. She once told me she’d like to die on the beach, in the sun, as people walk by. No one would really be sure if she were dead, or just sunbaking, she said. I told…
The Long Lunch

Sam had an extra hour for lunch, so he went home, and he took off all of his clothes and sat on the couch, and he massaged his aching feet. He lay beneath a throw and stared at the ceiling. He managed to think of his life as if it were a thin dark line…
Junked

No matter how many ways he tried to look at it it had been an awkward moment. They hadn’t exchanged phone numbers. The boy had said there was no need, that he was usually at the same club. Most nights he was there. ‘In that room downstairs?’ ‘Sometimes in that room.’ ‘I don’t even know…

extract from Trophies, a short story