Cherrypicked stories

Taproot Several hours walk outside of Bakau, dirt track after dirt track and any tarmac hissing with heat mirage. I pry past the prop-roots of mangroves into rusting wire and diamond

It all began the day the hanged man said 'Hello' to me. ------------------------------------------ Back in those days I still lived at the church. I wasn't training to be a priest or anything of the sorts, to be honest it was far from it. I was only there since nobody else didn't care or didn't want to be burdened with the load and shame of being bestowed to the town orphan. It's because of that I was shoved into church under the watch of the ever present, Sister Caterina. It was Sister Caterina's self-imposed duty that she made me of my burden to her everyday, and fairly recently she has also tacked on new lectures about my neglecting the available work force for me. From the stories I've heard in town my father was much the same when he was my age. I guess that's where I get it from.

Do you know how long it takes to dig a six foot hole? All day. And it wasn't even six foot by the time I'd done. Five, more like. It had already got dark so I took the bike and picked up a Chinese, a treat to end a hard day. Not like yesterday. Yesterday there was Carly. I had her before I got up and had her again before I went out. Sweet Little Sixteen. 38-24-34. I cut her out and stuck her in pride of place, right next to the bed.

A rose blooming from bad seed?

I came back, didn't I? And I drank in a cafe that got stuck in your throat

Of roman candles summer new year's and Guatamelan shirts For R.

Flurries She is talking about the weather up there in the Deep North, laughing as she watches neighbours chasing their bins in the icy wind. Casually she tells me she can see snow "flurries.

They should not have been so surprised to hear a clank or two and feel a loosening from the crematorium's basement. He sunk through the floor like an old Wurlitzer, is how she phrased it over a glass of Punt E Mes.

I enjoyed driving to Heathrow