When our son tells us he is getting married, we’re in the kitchen, preparing dinner for the neighborhood party. George looks up from the table where he is slicing lemons, knife in one hand and half a lemon in the other, the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up.

The torrent of words left her breathless and tears were welling up in her eyes. Mascara running. Colours seeping along the wrinkles around her eyes and down her cheeks. He turned away as she moved towards the door and waved a vague hand.

Jayden stopped in the stairwell and sniffed the air. Someone had mopped the steps with bleached water, but it wasn’t enough to hide the sweaty sock smell of Mrs Nowak’s corpse.

The last time I dreamed of Enver Hoxha he was opening a new exhibition of Socialist Art at the National Historical Museum in Tirana. 

It was late. I was too cold and too spent to barter with midnight. Pointlessness was at my throat. The only parking bay was next to a row of black wheelie bins.

Lean in a bit closer can you, son? I can’t turn my head to find you, and these rheumy eyes see you much better in close-up. Put that mobile phone aside for a minute, and listen to me.

by Jim Steinberg In line at a polling place in Chapel Hill, an older man stands sideways four people in front of me. He waits and watches with a patience and curiosity no other early morning voter matches. His eyes are clear, observant, interested. I watch their dark pupils dance around the room and decide he would talk with anyone. But this crowd is impatient and inward, as if remaining aloof will hurry the procession through lines, registration tables, and voting booths to cars and freeway journeys. Like them, I came here enclosed in my cocoon, incubating myself for the…

The van winds up the hill swinging round one broad S-bend after another and Perran’s stomach lurches at every one. It’s partly motion-sickness, but it’s nerves too. He’s been doing this for more than a year but his intestines still get tangled before a flight.

The new washing machine had arrived two weeks earlier. Mary still marvelled at how handy it was compared to the old manual one. She was the talk of the women’s guild and only Rosie O’ Shaughnessy had “an automatic” before any of them.

I do not why I have such a fancy for this little café. I have never been there, of course, and shall never visit unless my present circumstances take a dramatic and unexpected turn.

Jack stopped his tractor at the end of a runway to watch a salvage crew pulling an airplane from Lake Ontario.

Both feet firmly planted, my right arm crept forward so slowly the muscles in my shoulder cramped. The skin on the horse’s neck twitched and rippled with nervous energy. The heat from her coat reached the palm of my hand even though it was still six inches away.

At night, the wind rose to a high-pitched whistle and thrust, hot and dry, through the cracks at the edges of my window. “It’s the Devil trying to get in,” Bobby would tease when I was little.