She’s standing with her back to me when I come out of the Folk Café in St James. On her T-shirt, between her shoulder blades in faded lime-green capitals, I read: Unlock the power of clothing.
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I was five years old that spring. The clacks and scratches of twigs landing on and then sliding down the roof tiles woke me, as they did every day, and I listened as the pre-dawn winds flew their last sorties. Light gradually appeared in the cracks in the shutters.
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I had been to this restaurant once before on a previous date that hadn’t really worked out, but I had enjoyed the food and it was affordable.
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Transubstantiation. Quite a mouthful, isn’t it? More than enough for Lancelot Pritchard to choke on, though the coroner won’t be giving the official cause of death until this afternoon.
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The chaplain nods, and we look down at the bed. The chintzy, chrome-peeled frame floats at the end of a long hallway, then my tunnel vision clears and it distills into a regular hospital bed, the kind with fancy foot pedals along one side. Hospital beds are like church organs nowadays; they’re meant to be played, fiddled with.
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by Philippa Green Ali pulled her hand through the tangle of her hair and scowled at the bathroom mirror. Sand specks trailed the bathroom floor. The mingled scent of pine and sunscreen hung fresh on the sarong laid out to dry on the balcony. Sea salt clung to her skin, crusting her hair after a day spent half in half out of the water. “More sunscreen tomorrow,” said the mirror. “Factor 50 please.” “Of course.” Ali smiled. A tight weariness creasing her forehead. It had mostly been a day of sandcastles, moats collapsing as the tide pulled in. Squealing, laughing,…
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On the top floor, Lily’s rattling away at her sewing machine, hemming the wedding dress her cousin will wear at the weekend. She deftly removes pins as she feeds silk into the machine, swearing under her breath as one drops from her grasp.
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I dreamt I was in the dark wood. The trees reached up and blocked out the sky. I was walking beside my father. He was stooped over, holding himself up with a walking pole.
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Every week, Nina asks if I want to come to the arts workshop. She noticed the bowl on my windowsill on her first day and picked it up, holding it lightly with brown fingers. She asked how it was made and why. She was curious but couldn’t stay long enough to hear my answers.
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When the Queen died, Daddy put on his for-best suit, with the anniversary cufflinks and stiff black shoes, then wouldn’t take it off. Even as it crumpled and creased, as the shirt yellowed and the shoes scuffed.
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Brush and palette in hand, Vinia is waiting when he arrives. It is their first lesson. Yesterday, he received her in the drawing room for an interview - brief. He knows already everything about her. Knows she is her father's daughter. Today, their appointment is in the studio.
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You remember before. Your soft shoed feet resting on your father’s boots, your chubby arms holding his legs tight. He would sing a waltz in a confident baritone, moving to the rhythm and taking your small body with him.
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She was the storyteller. Not me. She had an ability, a facility, a knack for making a story out of scraps, the way that a natural cook might put together a feast.
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by Ian C Smith I rationed precious pencil, notebook, checked the tideline, garnered flotsam from sea-wrack to supplement my meagre conveniences. At dawn, arcing that cove, sliver of sunlight blessing water, wave-beat at my back, upwind of them shielded by giant rock stacks cloaked in orange, I shivered in slipped time. Behind a bark windbreak they squatted, wallaby hunters sharpening stones, wrists slender, eucalyptus smoke in the cove’s tresses, incense waft evoking ritual, piercing me – my beloved so distant so long – with memories, loneliness. Gutted ormer shells, mussels, glistened, tea-tree trembling in this constant offshore wind. A woman…