Artwork by Tim Judd.    fb.me/Quillhook Day One I see it for the first time on New Year’s Day. I only get up at two pm, and even then it’s with a crawling, plodding sensation that I haul myself out of the bedroom. I’m musty and warm smelling in my pyjamas. The lie in wasn’t even…

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She has a small, pale face, with large blue eyes and absurdly long eyelashes. Her skin is so white it looks painted, and yet it’s flawless. She never has the bruised shins and scraped knees I see in her classmates. Perhaps she doesn’t play the way they do. Perhaps, like a perfect porcelain figure, she…

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The first time the snow-creature multiplied, it managed to spawn a different species. I’d made a rabbit the day before and it was a particularly good one. I’d got the nose just right, and I’d fluffed up the outer layers of the snow just enough to give a passable impression of fur.  The whiskers had…

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He opened his eyes and saw stars. They were falling down the side of the canyon, landing softly on his skin. He was covered in them. He must have dislodged them as he fell. Above him, he saw the walls of the canyon. They glowered down at him, those bitter old rocks, hunching their shoulders,…

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This is Mary. Mary has brown hair and brown eyes. She lives in a house with windows and doors. It has one bedroom and one bathroom. It has one lounge and one kitchen. In the kitchen there is some mould around the taps which Mary cannot get off, even when she tries really hard. Mary…

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I watch her. I watch her all the time. I watch her pour milk on her cereal. I watch her stumble out of bed. I see her wince as she crushes her feet into heels. I see her curse at her laptop when she’s working from home. I know she’s steered clear of wheat since…

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The nights are the worst. Lying here, shuttered into the automatic darkness, it is the only time I know I am lonely. Twisting about in a bed grown tacky, sheets peeling off me like second skins, the night-time hours are slow and gruelling, fat with fantasies and corners and fear. The door casts a long,…

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