In the courtyard, at the entrance to the bookshop, an egg smashed on the cobbled ground – albumen, yolk and the bald outline and bulging eye of an almost-bird.
Tag: fiction
Hoop — Harriet Sandilands
There is an unspoken rule in a therapy group that you are not going to go out for a beer afterwards. It’s the same way that no-one actually tells you that you shouldn’t have sex with someone you just met on the third day of a meditation retreat, but you still know it isn’t a very good idea.
Porridge Books of the Year 2022
Discover the books that the Porridge team enjoyed reading this year.
Cures For The Common Cold — Sarah de Souza
Thinking about this, they grow wide-eyed and speak so fast that the windows become flecked with child spittle. How can they have made themselves so ridiculous by dreaming?
Three from Color Wheel — Salvatore Difalco
Underscoring the onset of nausea on the pier, feelings of self-loathing
also bubble up to the surface. “I get seasick in the bathtub, man,”
declares a ponytailed dude in Plymouth pink.
Good and Beautiful — Laura Eppinger
Henri is at least good for catching the scent of socio-political turmoil in the air.
The Sea People — Euan Currie
I often fantasise about tipping the cabinet forward until the plastic drawers slide out and spill their contents in a wave of plastic. I tell myself they should be recycled or reused. But in the fantasy it all just spills out and keeps on spilling.
Something You Can Feel in Your Teeth — Hannah Stevens
Neither of them talk much in the morning. Somehow things are more difficult in the early hours. She feels more fragile, more lost, more oppressed by the narrow confines and the lack of light.
Right There — Lily Blacksell
‘Your place or mine?’ he typed, adding then deleting a winky face and pressing send.
‘Neither,’ she replied very quickly, adding ‘obviously.’
Midnight Games – Madeehah Reza
It’s not that she wasn’t happy for her sister, far from it. Nadia only wished she could hold on to her for a little longer.
FLASH FICTION – Kirsty Crawford
I sway and I spin, I smile. Sometimes even in perfect moments, you begin to feel the cold creep in.
The Piano Man – Frances Green
That night that the piano man and I first slept together was the night we discovered the pleasure of talking aloud about murder.