A semi-barbaric king devises a semi-barabaric (but entirely fair) method of criminal trial involving two doors, a beautiful lady and a very hungry tiger.

“It’s always the same to begin with,” I said. “I’m on the beach. The sand is hot, the sun is bearing down. It makes the sand look white, like snow.”

We kept white feathers before exams or doctors’ appointments. Black feathers, of course, were warnings. We knew these to be facts, as empirical as science.

As if there weren’t enough problems on his plate, Mondriel had to go and stumble upon the biggest secret ever, didn’t he? The kind of secret that would turn the natural order of things on its head if it was leaked to a wider public.

But in my head that summer before we moved into the town was yellow and purple and red and supremely happy

Truda paused at the gate and tried to calm her racing heart.

He sat on the bench. Their bench. And watched the birds. And remembered.

He dances maida maida, like a butterfly around the candle.

She said she was crying tears of happiness. That’s when I learnt that happiness could make you cry too.

It was Christmas the first time they made love; he said it felt like coming home