Issue One:
What Scares You?

Outshone all evening by the brand-new lamps, at bedtime it glares in through the uncurtained windows.

It was only after we’d arrived at the beach that I realised I’d forgotten to pack my son’s swimming shorts.

Chulem’s over there on the Always Rock. It feels bad to leave such a cunning and brave raccoon on the side of it. 

Mother asked to be buried with the quilt. 

Selfish, Lindy thinks, as she peers into the cedar chest – they'd sewn it together, the two of them, fifty-fifty. And Mother doesn't need it anymore.

I peered into Mr Percy Prickles’s eyes through his hollow, gold-wired spectacles.

“I never knew Aunt Sarah hated me.”

Dear God, 

In your eyes, being reincarnated as a cat is a fitting fate for being a dictator in my former life. 

“Daddy!” Her voice yelled through the baby monitor on the bedside table. 

“Daddy!” I want cuddles,” Bella whined.

Tomas ran a finger along David Dart’s spine, nodding as he traced the raised welts beneath, his rasped exhalations quickening slightly

When we visited she lay in bed, her favourite childhood stuffed toy, the worn out almost furless Wolfy, resting next to her. 

First of all, the guys working for VeriTech in Lab 14b kept sneaking these little wasplike things into our lunchboxes that would screech out towards our faces...

“I hate this fucking job!” the disgruntled night security guard muttered to himself...

Truth be told, health spas are the last place you’d go for a good time, but you have to admit they reap rewards. Never mind the self-sacrifice; it’s all about identifying a need.