writing
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A tall glass, clean and sparkling, smelling of linen from a warm tea towel, is rinsed in cold water, then placed, wet, onto a rack in the freezer. A lime is quartered on a wooden chopping board. Limey fingers are licked. The freezer is opened again. The glass is surrounded by ice-smoke, which billows and…
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‘What do you think I’m looking for, Steven?’ she said. She turned to face him. ‘Do you think I’ll find it spending my nights at Junk? Don’t worry, I’m just thinking out loud. Unless you have any answers.’ He said nothing. ‘Let’s go and get some air,’ she said, and in a few minutes she…
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When he woke it was light outside. He looked at the time on his phone. It was early. The house was quiet. His curtains were open, and the lamp was on. He stared at the ceiling. There was a network of small cracks radiating from the ceiling rose. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want…
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He took off his shirt. He dropped it onto the floor. He opened his laptop. He lit a cigarette. He opened the window. He poured two fingers of gin into a tumbler. He sniffed it. He put the glass on the ledge. He looked at himself in the mirror. He sucked in his stomach. He…
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It wasn’t that his mother had ever been less than honest with him. She was open about everything she did, as far as he knew. But about the motives in her life, she only told him what she believed to be true, and he’d come to realise that her self-reflection had become flawed in some…
Barry Lee Thompson 