Aspiring writers are generally advised to ‘show’ not ‘tell’ and to minimise their use of adverbs. But where’s the fun in that?

I get this a lot. People get embarrassed talking about the supernatural. I expect people from his world, with their neatly trimmed front lawns and house prices, to worry about making fools of themselves.

I muttered a quick prayer for my soul’s renewal, hoping the words would catch on the hawk’s wings and be taken to wherever such prayers should go.

Private Alexander Huxley sat in the hull of the C-47, jaw clenched and lips twisted into a savage grimace. The weight of his parachute kept him hunched in his seat, and the straps of his harness and weapon case chafed raw swathes into his skin.

Oowama loved mud. As large as a school bus, though many times longer, the giant worm swam and played along the muddy lakes and streams.

Shoes on Main was a small store nestled between Sally’s Coffee Roost and a space that had more businesses over time than he could keep track of. Some spaces are like that; cursed or haunted, whatever the explanation, nothing stuck.

While most of the musicians dream of West End gigs, trumpet player Joel only wants to play jazz.

The helicopter would be coming in the morning to take him home. Not home forever. Just two weeks of R&R.

Outwardly Seth didn’t react as he watched Mrs. Hatfield misplay the four spade contract, but inwardly he groaned. True, she made it, but most of the other pairs would make it with an overtrick.

“So.” she began. “The thing is. You’re a shadoweater. From a long line of shadoweaters. Me, your nan, her mum, stretching all the way back as far as anyone can go ...”

I dream of one day having a house that my mom and sister and I can all live in. I want one just like the gray house on the corner.

I won’t tell anyone about the diagnosis. Not my mother or sister. Certainly not Jake. Maybe not even Steve.

Sitting on the plane to Chicago, Mila wondered when exactly the idea had taken hold of her. Did the idea have an infancy or a childhood, or did it ground itself in the soil of her imagination like a full-grown poison tree?

Peter was tired. After 10 years of holding together the paperwork for “Johnson, A.P. – SSN 555-66-33xx,” his tensile strength was fading; he could feel his molecules beginning to degrade.

An expansive absence of colour fills my view. A single, naked bulb – pure, cold – blurs into my opening eyes. This is not my flat. The realisation rocks me like a shot of tequila.