Cherrypicked stories

This story is dedicated to my friend Yohannes, an asylum seeker who was deported to Ethiopia on Tuesday 16th January 2007, while this story was being written. Details of this story are based on real accounts of Yohannes and others like him. It is called closed country and the country it refers to is never mentioned, in the style of many missionary news reports which never mention the name of the country or the name of the Christians as this would endanger them.

The basic principle of Soliciting is this ' you call up whatever you can boss around. Lickspittle imps angling for promotion, Painsmiths, semi-sentient stuff like organs, tentacles, noxious mists, animals sometimes, Dwynes, Styxpigs, Wolfcopters¦ anything small, anything starved of attention and desperate for an innings in a coat of meat. There are bigger fish, of course ' 'personalities', if you will ' but it takes a certain force of character to keep them under control, and for the most part I prefer my insides to stay true to type, thanking you kindly. And then you find yourself in a pinch, and you wheel out the four-word affirmation that's dad to a trail of snapped necks and surprisingly grievous puncture wounds ' I can handle it.

When no one was listening we were cavalier with sound quality. played the moog synth in the bath

I bought the nature dvd's wanting you to see, before the flat magic of cartoons where no one hurts, dies, just lies plastic, smooth, as throw away buys in landfill sites forgotten yet unrotting

I wonder if salmon taste whisky A dead sheep melts into the sand

Mum stood at the door looking anxiously, first at the clock, next at Gillian's hemline. I think it was just starting to dawn on her that perhaps there was another kind of party after all. 'Have fun,' she said with a shakey voice, her hands clasped tight by her navel. I waved goodbye and we headed up the road.

Wake like adrenaline

Teach me please, the theology of fingertips

200 words.