Long before the lunch bell ever went on its clamorous circuit around the linoleum-clad school hallways, my heart was already down in the snooker club. 

There isn’t long for this. There isn’t much time. They’ve just gone back out. For the next act.

The key to this job is knowing.

Now, you’ll say to me,’well, that’s obvious’, but you are not following me correctly. You’ll say to me, ‘sure you’d have to know the route’, and that’s true, but its not what I’m meaning. You’ll concede that...

Tape Begins.

This is a strange thing for me. I’m not used to talking. Not into one of these yokes anyway. It’s not a natural thing to converse with yourself. Not out loud. Well… not indoors, at least. There might be something to be said for the open air of a cold morning. But that’s a very different thing.

She turned around to me and said plainly, It’s not death that I’m afraid of, you know. Not exactly. It’s the dark that comes after.

Myself and Lilith each had a crisp, cold ice-cream cone clasped in one hand...

When did they get like this?

I turned my hands over and looked down at my stained knuckles. They were thick, coarse and hard, riveted with deep cracks and lines. I’ve never felt old but every time I look at my hands I get a small shock at how much life has passed through them.

Tuesday 7th of November

I forgot the ribbons. For Maria’s thing. It isn’t for a few days yet but I was supposed to have brought the ribbons with me this morning. Cursed myself for a stupid moron for most of the day.

The work here was done, done well and done long ago. It was time to leave. Billy splashed water over his hands, dried them with the small square hand-towel... READ MORE

I dug my fingers underneath the navy-grey slate tile and tried to pry it up. A shrill screech was unleashed from a nail I’d failed to remove, piercing the night sky. I froze. Three shadowed heads whipped in my direction from their huddled positions across the roof...

A soft grey rain flecked the glass between the cheap plastic venetian blinds.

‘I’m no Casanova. I don’t mean to suggest I am. But I have lived my life. I have. And every woman I’ve ever known. Intimately, I mean. Do you get me? They make up parts of me...

 I was sat beside the open window when the letter finally arrived. I had my tools in my lap. They were spread across my knees, pillowed in their rawhide bundle, the compliant, bored and weary instruments of my trade. I was working on the heel of a leather business shoe. It was burnished brown and conservative in nature. I imagined it belonging to some frigid bank-clerk or repressed civil servant, you know the type...

It had been a strange day. The snug was packed with people I didn’t know and outside the sun glistened off damp city streets. People hurried along with their shoulders hunched and their collars up, eyeing the blue sky with distrust. The snug’s wooden window-screen kept most of this from the souls huddled within. They sat around their low table on squat stools, elbows up and backs bent, constructing the conversation to plug the gaps...