SOME DAYS it rained, that summer of Saucony. I took long walks on the clifftop paths. The grey-green sea broke against the rocks in rolling swells and sent long, foamy washes into the coves, and the beaches were closed for days at a time by dangerous currents and sudden blooms of stormwater. That didn’t stop the…
Darren, in a neat shirt and slacks, with an ID lanyard around his neck, a bright red chevron that signifies his membership of the cardiometrical brotherhood – they are still mostly men – Darren will pass a plastic-covered sensor over your upper left chest, where your heart is supposed, in the sense of thought, to…
The people were queuing up to board, some through the front door, some through the rear, according to which line the flight attendant checking our boarding passes had assigned us: in theory the two queues would never meet, dissolving somewhere in the middle of the aircraft: “Row 19 – board through the rear door, please.…
The knife came in a special black cardboard box with the blade wrapped in newspaper and slipped into a protective vinyl scabbard. The steel was clean and bright, stippled along the spine as if it had been beaten with a small hammer, and engraved with Japanese calligraphy. The cutting edge bore a watery swirl, like…
“Do you see how beautiful the stadium is,” the father said. “The flawless emerald rectangle where the players assemble, the crowd hushed, the giant screens replaying the game in hallucinatory slow-motion, like our dreams projected on the night sky…” On Friday evenings they were swept along in the crowd hurrying towards the glow of the…
It was better to arrive at the Lawton’s Hallowe’en party late, but you wouldn’t know that if you hadn’t been a regular guest over the years. The first hour or so of the party was always dedicated to taking the children around the streets to ask for trick or treat, and as the younger children…
When Martin woke he thought, Fuck – should I go in today? He took the dog for a walk along the creek. She whined and jumped against the glass of the back door when she saw him with the lead and wriggled under his hand while while he tried to fix it to her collar.…
The immediate problem was a traffic jam on the freeway bridge. The car crawled in the middle lane among a line of trucks carrying containers to the port. The lanes to the left and right were moving more freely, though both lead to the wrong exits. The bridge at that point gave a fine view…
Matt Holden 