There was no oxygen left. Inside the ship there was oxygen, and also the vicious Q’Fnargh pirates who’d boarded and probably gobbled the crew on sight. Outside the ship, where, during routine maintenance, he’d discovered the Q’Fnargh travelpod attatched to the ship’s exterior, there was no oxygen and also no Q’Fnargh. A solution struck him: he’d steal the spacepod and take his chances at finding help. Gasping for breath, he left his crewmates to their fate. In the medbay an exhausted stranger told the crew of his escape from Q’Fnargh pirates: lucky he’d found their spacepod before they found him…

Content note: rape/coercion references

I sit and knot my skein of thread and sing my ditty, gazing out at the surging waves. When my betrothed returns we’re to be married. He sailed one spring morning, swearing he’d return on lammasnight.
He smiled at me and I, simple lass, was overcome. But since I promised, I’ve come to know his cruelty, his lust. I didn’t want to, not before our wedding, but he snarled: stop him and he’d say I’d whored with half his crew.
And so I sit, and knot my skein, sing the waves high, the sky dark. Soon there’ll be a storm.

She was not uniform. The skirt and blazer slouched subversively on her body, looking like fancy dress no matter what she did. Her tie was insolently loosened, and she had gone to great lengths to get her regulation tights laddered sufficiently.
They might restrict what she could wear: the consultant who’d come to turn the school around claimed force that a strict uniform policy would foster a sense of belonging, reduce dissent.
In jeans and t-shirt her contempt for authority had been somewhat muted. These days her lolling tie and shortened skirt broadcast rebellion louder than blue jeans ever had.

She was away with the fairies. The doctors – poor, simple, superstitious fools – spoke of chemical imbalances and hereditary factors. In vain they tried to ward off the onset of what they reverently called psychosis and delusion with their arcane rituals of cognitive behavioral therapy and person centred counseling, their citalopram and clozapine communion wafers washed down with flimflam and hocus pocus.
The fairies, the ones who had taken her away, paused, and watched with her as the doctors performed pontifications and prescriptions. They cackled and hooted with amusement before they grabbed her hands again, whirling her wildly back into the dance.

It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.
Adam was a simple soul, liked digging and strolling through the garden in all his glory, as Eve and Steve sighed longingly. Adam was cute and clueless. Eve and Steve (It was Eve and Steve, once) had tasted knowledge before the serpent showed up, but the Almighty, fixated on his project, didn’t care. Adam must be kept pure and innocent, a manchild in a playpen full of furry friends. It was Eve, Steve-spurned and serpent-abetted, who first tempted Adam to stray from Eden. Adam and Steve, well, their story came later.

The party was a very long time ago. 1999 was a very, long time ago. They hadn’t partied like that for a very long time.

They couldn’t remember everything that had happened at the party that lived on in the mythology of their friendship.

The night they’d danced and laughed and taken things, then given, things, then shared things.

The story of the party sustained them far into the new millennium. The still had it, remember that night? But years passed and friendships faded. The stories worn comfortable by repetition became threadbare. Nobody could remember being the protagonists any more.

We’ve got an infestation. I just knew it. You can always spot the signs. First, food goes missing. Cereals are especially vulnerable. You’ve to keep boxes tightly sealed, and woe betide you if you leave your porridge unattended! Then there’s the furniture damage: cushions indented, grubby marks on the arms, the legs scuffed. Those telltale curly yellow hairs everywhere. They make me squirm.
It’s beds as well. You’ve to check your sheets carefully.
Do you know we found one asleep in our son’s room? Bold as brass! He’s traumatized, won’t sleep in his own bed.
We’ve put some poison down.

She scowls lopsidedly at the old fool in the mirror. Dresses herself. Maneuvers fabric around the dead weight of her arm. Won’t let nurses do it. Won’t be dressed like a doll. Like an old woman. At least she’s still got that photo of her and Matilda. Arm in arm. In love. She hopes one nurse might be “of our church”, as Tilly would’ve said. Might look twice and know her for a grieving widow, not an old maid.
But even if her mouth could form the words to correct those who shout “IS THAT YER SISTER?”, she wouldn’t tell.

Mo and Sam and Nat sit side by side.
Mo’s tattooed arm squeezes Sam’s slim shoulders. Nat’s spiky nails tuck stray hairs back from Sam’s damp face gently, gently.
Sam weeps silently, well trained to make no fuss, no sound, no splash. Nat and Mo wait for Sam to speak. They’ve been here before.
(Slurs and slaps are standard, at Sam’s house. Unsavory insinuations drip from lips that once kissed the baby’s head gently, gently.)
Nat and Mo don’t know how to teach Sam toughness or stop the hurting, but they’ll sit and wait and love as long as needed.

He was just walking home, but LAWRENCE LANCASTER SIMPSON SHEPARD he knew he couldn’t let himself avoid the park. Part of him abhorred his meekness, told him to keep his head held high. Part of him was furious LAWRENCE LANCASTER SIMPSON SHEPARD that he’d been advised to avoid parts of his city, as though the appropriate response to hate was to restrict LAWRENCE LANCASTER SIMPSON SHEPARD the hated, not the haters. That part of him powered his legs through the park. Ignored the catcalls from cidered-up lads. Tried to quiet the screaming LAWRENCE LANCASTER SIMPSON SHEPARD that he’d be next.