Unexplained Experiences

There was no second thirteenth floor. Priya told the fire warden that three times before he stopped nodding at her like she was concussed, and even then he wrote something in his little book that she…

I never read past the header line. Doesn't matter whose job it is, doesn't matter if it's a wedding invite or a court filing, I slide the ruler down and I only look at what's above it. Ask the others…

I never deliver to the Hollis place unless it's raining. That's the rule. Doesn't matter if the paper's soaked through and useless by the time it hits the step. If the sky's dry, I skip number 14 and…

"So you're saying it moved four metres in three weeks." I say it flat, because if I say it any other way my voice will do something I don't want it to do. Deko doesn't answer that. He never answers…

"No, I never saw him. That's the first thing you should know." Dennis says this before I've asked a single question, before I've even got my coffee off the counter at the Wetherspoons near Preston…

"—and I told her it's just a stain, Denise, everyone's got a stain like that on a rented carpet, it doesn't mean anything." Marion says this over the rim of her mug, not looking at me. We're at her…

"—no, the fourth one, not the second, the second one's fine, it's the fourth one that does it." Danny doesn't look up from his phone when he says it. I have to ask him twice which register he means…

The sound was a foghorn. I was sure of it, that low double note rolling off the water, the kind the container ships used to give near the lock gates when I was a kid. Then I saw the barrier arm…

You asked me to start from the beginning, so I'll start with the washing. It was a Tuesday, I'm fairly sure, because bins go out Tuesdays on our road and I remember stepping over the box when I…

The wellington boot was buckled into the front seat when I got on, seatbelt tight across its ankle, green rubber gone grey. Nobody claimed it. The driver, a woman called Pam who'd done the route…

No, I didn't make a wish. That's the part nobody believes, so I'll say it first and get it out of the way. My aunt Rosalind left me a storage unit in Elyria, unit 214, rent paid through August.…

The ticket machine on Level B2 had a laminated sheet taped over its screen, yellowed at the corners, held on with the kind of parcel tape that leaves residue for years. It hadn't been there when I…

Denny found it wrapped in a tea towel, in the freezer drawer where the ice trays go, still blinking its little green light once every four seconds. That was the thing he kept coming back to when he…

"—and I told them, twelve. I counted twelve aisles every night for six weeks, and the store only has eleven." That was how Priya started, halfway through her second pint, like we'd been talking about…

"No, I said I'd be back by one, not that I'd left by one, there's a difference, Carol." I had the phone wedged between ear and shoulder, indicator ticking, and she was still going on about the…