’Judy baby, Judy baby, Judy.’ ’I tolt ya nah ta call me dah.’ ’Ah love, me love, ya’ve goh me babby in ya.’ Gilly’s eyes are sun burnt bloodshot, his hand tight on a can of fizzy sedative. Judy’s concentrating on Little Britain, mouthing the repeat’s stale dialogue, feigning a laugh. ’Did ya noh hear [...]

A big beautiful car. Dark green and full of muscle. Chrome and dark walnut trim. Alloy wheels. Cream handmade leather seats. A car anyone from a senator to a pimp would drive, if only either of them had the class. It, the car that is, was powering along, damn fast, with the top down in [...]

Twelve long angry days of rage and drink had done nothing but lighten his wallet and alienate some more friends. As he fell backwards into his apartment and listened to the wild African drums blasting on repeat from the stereo, he felt at home. The dirt, the despair and the decadence and wanton waste of [...]

Jim fell and fell, and tumbled over, head over heels. Below him clouds and above him blue sky, and these images followed one another in rapid succession as he fell. Wind rushed in his ears. He punched his leg to make sure he was awake and this movement sent him tumbling again. He was on [...]

Across town, in an office above a shoe repair shop, Joe McSavage lit another cigarette and ripped the yellowed nicotine patch off his shoulder. He sat sweating in his vest, his shirt and jacket were on the other side of the room, hanging on the same hook his hat was propped on. The walls were [...]

Times wus hard. Real hard. When I had ta sell Molley, I made sure and promised her I’d take care a tha kids. ‘Steve’, she said, ‘Steve’, tears collectin’ in her eyes as some mother gunned a muscle car, readin’ to take her away. ‘Take care a little Suzie and Steve Jr. You’ll watch em [...]

In the quiet of the basement, Garvin readied his machine. It was round and flat, shelled in hard plastic, with a thin wide gap like the mouth of a clam. High up on the wall, half open skylights let drizzle through to wet the basement floor. On the old steel work-bench his calculations sat, twinkling [...]

Butterfingers perched despondently in his highchair. His slick, waist length hair cresting the seatback, a brunette film. His dirty face was streaked with tears. Once more the voice came, dulled by the heavy oaken door. ’Choody? Choody it’s me’. Butterfingers shivered, and not for the first time, or the last, wished he still had a [...]

Cooth, uncooth, cooth, uncooth. Hello, whats this? It’s been a while since I’ve witnessed such brazen fuckwittery at the ministry of chum! ’Jenkins’, I yell, levering the machine to a screechy halt. Out he trots from some unionised cubby, round maw loose and crabbed with gammy din. ’Jenkins, you pillock’, I bellow, checking him short. [...]

Squeeky. Squeaky clean? Squeaky Fromm? What does that even mean? Squeeky, in foot high letters on the ridged steel shutter of a doorway. The building’s blue, and long, with a clockface missing handles in between two tidy windows. It reminds me of the buildings in the Yellow Submarine. A couple wander down the street, quiet [...]