Cherrypicked stories

So¦ Christmas Eve at the pub¦ ¦heaving like a blouser's bed-springs on pay-night at a poontang palace in Perth. So many people that you couldn't see the gaps between. Smoke. Booze. Heat. Sweat. Lights. Noise. The craic going at 140 beats-a-minute. Hieronymous Bosch on benzedrine. Beautiful!

No-one I knew.

A reworking of an old story. Beware, it is 3,800 words long.

In the fields the red heifer hangs her dour head.

You have been hit by a bus again.

The ink flows down my page, my parchment, my vellum.

Tuesday Night at The Hippodrome. By invitation only. Me, Sherlock, Yoyo, Billy, a 4-pack apiece, Billy's cock-eyed snooker table, a couple of Sherlock's funny fags, Bruce's Lucky Town in good crackly vinyl on one of Billy's old stereograms¦ ¦tonight I'm steppin' lightly and feelin' no pain¦ Cookin'.

I pound my plush pillow until I feel cosy enough to lay my head. 'What are you doing back there?' my mum asks, turning to examine me again. 'You nestle like a kitty.' I wonder if there is anything I can do without her comments. The air in the car is already stuffy and we just begun our journey. I'm trapped in the car and will be trapped for the whole night -we will arrive in Croatia in the morning. So I accept my fate and decide to get some sleep. I'm still small enough to outstretch my legs on the backseat of my father's car. He drives, mum sometimes releases coffee steam from the thermos. The smell nicely ousts the frowst for a few moments.

I moved home, bleakly packing my belongings into blue bins and black garbage bags. He met me at the corner, his picked-clean arms grabbing the bins' handles and slocking them into