He was a big cheese.  Thicker skin than Edam, punch like Farmhouse Cheddar, bite like Stilton.  Broke the mould.  You know, he never saw it coming.  Ended up with more holes than Gorgonzola.  Time we arrived it was a feta-compli.  Churned me up to see it.  Fondue.

When she wiped her nose on her biscuit I could tell things were heading downhill.

She read her way around the library, hungry for journeys, adventures, laughter and passion.  She took each new book to bed like a lover, savouring every chapter, going too far some nights until the letters danced like insects and she was groggy next day at work.  But still she’d sneak away for lunchtime trysts, her eager fingers fumbling for the bookmark.  In between times, in the worst of times and all alone, she would graze on safety notices, cereal packets, logos, the small print on tickets.  In museums and galleries she read the plaques, barely glancing at the exhibits.

When she died she had never travelled more than thirty miles from the small town of her birth.  But between the covers she’d been all round the globe:  a queen, a mother, a spy, a murderer, a general, a slave, an alien.  She died just before the last chapter.

*Originally published by www.the-phone-book.com (now archived)

Kelly was hell on legs from the word go.  Born breech just to be awkward.  Wild, always went her own way.  If it hadn’t been the drugs it would have been something else.  But I can’t help picking at it.  Over and over.  Sifting the blame like handfuls of sand.

*Originally published by www.the-phone-book.com (now archived)

 

To the ends of the earth, he whispered.  To the end of all time.  But she was at the end of her tether.

The glass wasn’t even half-empty.  It was smashed.  And he’d trodden on it.  And a bloody great shard had gone right through his foot.

*Originally published by www.the-phone-book.com (now archived)

She watched the plane climb, sexy lights, loud roar.  Dreamed of beaches and someone else cooking tea and funny pillows.  And pegged the next load of washing out.

*Originally published by www.the-phone-book.com (now archived)

It hit her one day: middle age.  Watching a circus parade, she realised she would never fulfil her lifelong ambition of tumbling hands to feet to hands all along the street.

Land south of the city was going for a million pounds an acre so the chances of a decent youth centre were a bit slim.

 

The snowdrops and the blossom and the uncontrollable urge to clean the windows.