A game of Scrabble has serious consequences.

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.”

Yesterday’s air sucked out, tidied and smoothed for re-use.

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

"That tree," he says. "It's looking at me."

You have to play the cards you're dealt

How many people who turn on a light understand the generation of electricity?

"I love you, Martha, but you break things. You're breaking us."

There is a bleached skeleton that holds no marrow

People aren’t as good at dying as you might think.

Joe had a bad feeling he’d need his gun before the night was over.

Ten words, one tale. Ten tales, a hundred words.

That first night in the Lodge, I had the strangest dream, though I didn’t seem to be asleep. A weight was pinning me down, as if a creature were crouching on my chest.

On the morning of the Naming Day, I am up early.