Jackdaws leave no note, just gnarled twigs like bony fingers pointing at the women who live like clichés: alone, on a hill, with cats.

A glimpse of the future.

Dormant for 300 years, empty as a monks' cell dreaming of itself. It waited patiently staring at the rain tapping out its own carnival. It waited watching over generations

This is my tribute to Poe's Cask of the Amontillado.

Lives kept in shoeboxes.

Death hadn’t knocked; he just set down opposite me,