Secret Attic -

One final check round the room.

Three o’clock on a Thursday was an odd time for a visit, but it was the only downtime between my part-time jobs that suited Jo. More unusual was the one-to-one rendezvous in my bedsit with someone about my age and attractive.

It had been a jokey idea at first. On Friday, a big group of us - mostly staff from the pub we both worked at - were queuing for …

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I am sitting in the window of a café, in Norwich, nurdling the dregs of a cappuccino. The framed notice on the wall next to me, its words digitally printed in a swirling calligraphic script, tells me that this place is rumoured to be haunted.

I look out onto St Stephen’s Street: cluttered bike-racks, bus stop, Argos. It’s Saturday, a decorated December mid-morning. The bright …

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I dreaded Christmas. The lights, the decorations, the gift-buying, the social events, all of it felt like a burden, a set up for disappointment, a confusing morass of sadness and depression. Nevertheless, I played the game, especially when my kids were little. I gave and gave, only to arrive exhausted on that special day of celebration, watching them rip into their presents, then trying to make a …

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The wan autumn sun bounced off the rain-splattered asphalt leading to the large lumber and hardware store entrance. John steered his Toyota pickup down the ramp between the lines of dark-haired, dark-eyed men who positioned themselves as work supplicants, attempting eye contact with the incoming drivers who aimed for parking stalls in the large lot. These workers-in-waiting were not always …

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My heart has been tilted off its axis and it’s free spinning and I have not yet calculated if it will land in fear or excitement but I know that I need to walk faster or I will miss this train.
Legs scorched in the cold air, I wonder if the houses that face the main road recognise me as the lady that runs for trains. I hope they do. I hope they would notice if I died or moved away. If a …

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Sitting in a cafe by the Serpentine with a gin and tonic should have been the perfect way to end the week, but there was a problem. The call heralded trouble.
Cynthia, my lab assistant, had found something odd in the samples we’d been sent from the Institute of Developing Deadly Diseases. Could I return to have a look?
‘I know it’s Friday but...’ I could hear the concern …

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After school, I have to play outside. Mammy’s at the factory and Daddy’s in England looking for work. I’m not allowed in the house on my own because I can’t be trusted.
Me and my best friend, Rosemary, sit on the pavement, poking sticks in the soft tar. It’s getting all over our hands and we’ll be in trouble, but we’re bored.
“What would you do if …

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Julian Rama Mayson did not imagine that his holiday to Malaysia would end up with him having an incestuous fling with his cousin, but the fact was that it happened and she had allowed it to. Amy was seventeen and she was a girl of the tropics, slender with a sharp face and an athletic body. She was like a gazelle with golden skin and she wore make-up with a flick on her eyelids.

Rama had not …

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Another day at the office.

Another fine day at the office.

I am in the office kitchen, making a pot of office coffee. Office coffee is the finest coffee because it is free, and because the smell or it overpowers the smell of the mouldy washcloths that live in the office sink. Sometimes, I will wait until I get to the office to have my first cup. It is a thrill. On those days, the bus ride into …

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