There were once two friends who started making yoghurt after seeing a video on the internet. They didn’t like yoghurt all that much, but it seemed like magic, so they thought they would try it. They worked apart, so that if one batch went wrong, they could compare notes to work out why. Before long it got competitive. More yoghurt, thicker yoghurt, tangier yoghurt. There was less and less room for anything else. Eventually, one of them would have to quit, or open a yoghurt business. That’s the Jones’s Spiteful Yoghurt brand story, and it’s still why we make yoghurt today.

Mister Crimvis Squib had wrapped all of his presents, most of the tins in the cupboard, five of his shoes, his pillow, his left leg, and the cat. He had wrapped several things that he couldn’t remember what they were. He had, perhaps, got a little bit carried away. But wrapping things up was his favourite part of Christmas. He piled everything under the tree, except for his left leg, which ne needed to walk on, and the cat, who had mostly unwrapped herself and was curled up under the tree anyway. In a few days, he would have to unwrap it all and wrap the presents back up again. He was looking forward to it. For now, he stuffed his stocking with the last lot of wrapping paper to use as a pillow, wrapped up the rest of himself, and fell into a long and contented sleep.

Sometimes, halfway down the hill, when the sledge was still picking up speed and there was so far still to go, she felt that it would never stop. And then, one day, it didn’t. She went hurtling across the park, past snowmen and kids with chilly fingers, and out into the street. She flew between parked cars and garden fences and discarded Christmas trees. She shot out into the fields and over them, taking great jumps from hills, sheep parting at her approach. She skimmed over the ocean until she reached land again. Faster and faster and faster, until she could circle the Earth in a single night.

Ground down to powder, but it takes more than that. When you grind a thing to powder it gets stronger. Sometimes it gets explosive. Grind it till you can’t grind any smaller and then what can you do? It’s all over you then. It’s jamming up your gears. It’s wearing you down. And when you seize up, they’ll scrape it back out of you, unchanged. You could have left it alone to begin with.

The kids got me with a snowball, right on the back of my neck so it dropped down into my coat. I shrieked, and they laughed at that, so I laughed along. “That was a good shot,” I shouted over to them, and they landed another one smack in the teeth. I wanted to keep on pretending I wasn’t upset. But it was Christmastime, so I gave them what they wanted.

I crawled deep into the leaf-drift, where I would only be found by small creatures who understand the warmth of dark spaces. I thought I would rise up as a leaf-man, a spirit of the forest. But the leaves melt faster than you imagine, and I melted with them, into the earth.

At night I find new constellations. A thousand stars can trace uncountable paths, and the longer you look, the more stars you see. In the darkest hours, there are so many that the sky is a clear canvas. As the year turns, the pictures I have made pass and return. There is always something to make, even here, lashed to my rock.

The invitation came with directions to a recommended car park, which I followed until our car was teetering on the edge of a terrifying abyss. A sign said, “PLEASE PAY AND DISPLAY”, and taped over the top, “NO CHARGE FROM NOVEMBER 1742”. There was a smell in the air like when you’re toasting marshmallows and yours catches fire and it was the last one in the bag. Not wanting to make a fuss, I shifted back into first and drove us over the edge.

My friend got hold of a “Baby On Board” badge, and he wore it on the tube every day. He thought it was funny. But more and more, he found that there would always be someone who gave him a seat. They’d rather give their seat to some dickhead than keep it from someone who needed it. For a little while, he thought that was funny too. Then one day, someone got on who looked just like him, and they had a badge as well. So Mick tried to give them his seat, but they wouldn’t take it. And nobody else offered. He had to pretend he was getting off at the next stop. Turns out the man can feel shame. He still wears the badge. Just on the inside of his jacket.

After the fourth time her finger grew back, she accepted that she was just built that way now, like a starfish. She got a family bucket from the chicken shop, figuring she needed it. This changes everything, she thought, as she sprinkled paprika salt on the chips. But she was lucky after that. It never really came up again.

I am building my volcano lair. It’s big and scary. It will show I am a threat. I’ll fill a tank with sharks. I’ll hide out here and wait until they send their spies and secret agents out to stop me. They’ll ask my what my plan is as I dangle them above the magma, and I’ll drop them straight in. When you have a volcano lair, you don’t need a plan.

The moon started visiting regularly. She said it hurt that we never came to see her any more. That more of us took pictures and fewer of us talked to her. We felt a deep sense of goodness, knowing that the moon wanted our friendship. We didn’t mention to her what the tidal forces were doing to us. But she felt it too. The cracks were growing.

There had been something about a chicken. It had been red, or gold, or purple: some colour suggesting luxury. And though it hadn’t laid golden eggs, he had been certain it would bring him prosperity. Wise eggs, was the phrase in his mind. Wisdom eggs. It hadn’t been a dream. It was a thought from that half-awake state where new things seem true, which made it hard to shake off. He knew that he probably ought to. But he didn’t want to let the promise of the chicken go.

Another hot glue burn on my fingers, not so accidental this time: I’m pushing the pieces where they need to go, smearing and shaping the glue before it cools, it can burn me all it wants if it just fucking works. A job I didn’t much care about until it started going wrong, and now I’d tear my life up to get it done. I know because the sun will be coming up soon, and I have work in the morning, and I’ll sit dead-eyed at my desk and come home hating myself for doing nothing all day and hating my boss for not noticing. The glue burns, and it ought to burn badly because it sticks, but it never seems to get too deep, like it just can’t hold enough heat to do real damage, which I suppose is why it melts so easily. In a minute I’ll run the cold tap over my finger just because I know I ought to, and the cold will hurt more than the burn.

I like things in strange containers. A cup of gravel. A vase of beans. Jelly in my pockets. Gets you in touch with the truth of a thing. Too often we mix things up with their containers, like when the cold soup slides out of a can and hold its shape; like when we think the skin is the person. But spilt things are more their wrongness then they are themselves: milk on the table, blood on the floor. Put something where it’s OK, but just not usual, and you can begin to see it clearly. So, that’s what happened. I know you’re angry. You’ll see it. Just look again.

I wasn’t sure if it was a squeaky gate or a whimpering dog, but it was keeping me awake. If it was a squeaky gate then it was insane for someone to be opening and closing it over and over again at three in the morning. If it was a dog then someone had been very cruel to it. So either way, I felt I had a deep and inarguable justification for screaming out of the window. To do so was a moral good. So I lay there until the sun came up, long after the squealing stopped, trying to think of words I could scream that would cover either possibility.

It was built to see the world. To roll through airports and along city streets. To carry everything a traveller might need. It even liked riding the baggage carousel. Now it lived in the loft, full of old coats that would never travel again either. It kept the dust off them. One of its wheels got knocked off on the way up there. Sometimes, a mouse nibbled at its corners.

We ran a sweepstakes on when the last leaf would fall. It had been a mild autumn, but storms were forecast. We had bets right through to February, and mine was the latest. Sometimes, when their day rolled around, people went out and shook the tree. I didn’t mind. I had climbed up and glued a few leaves on long ago.

Yndric was the first tree in the forest, older than the forest itself. It had felt many changes in the air and the earth. By now it was hard to feel what was a change in the world and what was a change in Yndric. The wind seemed to blow more gently in these years: was that the strength in its branches, or the shelter of its brethren?

On the first day of the thaw a wizard came to Yndric, one who had studied within himself so that he might talk with the trees. He planted his open hands in the earth at Yndric’s roots. Men will come, the wizard said. I can give you sight and hearing to know them. I can give you voice and quickness to frighten them. Then you will be safe. Yndric said, You would make me a man to protect me from men. Let them come and be changed into us. Let them grow roots deep in the earth and branches that reach the sky. Let them grow together into a forest. Then we will be safe.

In the dream I step out on to the ice and hear it creak. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I have no choice. If I understood I was dreaming, I would know that if the ice broke I would be awake before I felt the cold. The dream isn’t scary. Scary is waking up in the middle of the ice, with warm sunshine on my face and a long walk home.

For the month of December, I put my medication behind the windows of an advent calendar and pretend it is a little treat, which of course, compared to the alternative, it is. I buy fancy little chocolate pearls and put them in my pill box, and feel a little whisper of pleasant surprise when I tip one out into my hand each morning. It makes the whole ordeal that little bit more pleasant, except on the awful days when habit takes over, and I swallow my chocolate down without tasting it.

Her favourite trick to perform was the one where you take a volunteer’s watch, smash it, and restore it. Cogs and springs everywhere, a nice little show. Everybody understands that it’s a trick, so they don’t mind pretending that the Apple Watch you took off the gentleman in the front row had little bits of clockwork inside. It’s precious, that understanding between performer and audience. It makes things so much more fun. Particularly when she wraps the gentleman’s watch in the handkerchief, and smashes it for real.

I tried my hand at bricklaying. I never thought it was for me. It didn’t fit who I had come to believe I was. But I have watched my friends think that way, and it makes me want to scream at them that they are so much more than they believe. A person can be anything. I will not be held back any longer. Anyway, the wall fell down.

He transformed from the waist down: thick, dark bristles and cloven hooves. I thought: at least I won’t have to pair his socks any more.

When I watch a nature documentary I am torn between predator and prey. I want the cute little thing to escape. I want the majestic hunter to feed its young. I don’t know what to feel. When I watch my neighbour’s cat hunting birds for fun, I cheer for it all the way. It won’t eat them. Usually it doesn’t even kill them properly. It takes them back and leaves them twitching next to its overflowing food bowl, and I smile. I don’t care about the birds at all.

As part of the pact, I spend each Thursday as a decorative glass bead. I have negotiated a compressed working week with my employer, so this is not a huge problem, though somehow it seems that delivery of any parcel sent to me is attempted on a Thursday, while I am a bead. On Wednesday nights I check that the oven is off and I close my bedroom doors and windows. I wonder what colour of bead I will be. I wonder if I am always the same. Sometimes, I hear a magpie pecking at the window.

I shoplifted a few times, for fun. It seemed like the sort of thing a person ought to have tried. Just to show you’ve got it in you. I took a pack of birthday candles once, and burned them all down to the end, one after the other, like I was chain-smoking. It’s easy, when your belly’s full and you look well off and you don’t need to do it. It was easy, then, and now it isn’t.

She floated away on a candyfloss cloud, until she reached the colder air, where water condenses. Before long the floss was sticky and heavy, and she began to fall, sugar-wrapped and helpless. Just as she was giving up, the birds smelled her sweetness, and carried her away.

With a little trickery, you can manipulate a line of ants so that it forms a circle, and the ants march around and around and around with no way to stop. You can stare at the endlessly turning circle until the edges of your vision start to fade and your head droops. You can wake up in an underground chamber, a good source of food and warmth for the larvae. You can close your eyes and hope to be reborn in the diffuse mind of the colony.

When we started playing chess by post I didn’t know how much the price of stamps would go up. I didn’t know how hard it would become to find time to write. But I knew we would never switch to email, or text, or playing online. I didn’t know the game would stretch out this long. I didn’t know we would end up on different continents. I didn’t know we would start losing our grip on the rules. I have known for a long time that you have me beaten, and that I will never resign, and that I would swim the ocean with an envelope between my teeth to deliver my next move.

He carved foul words into ancient oaks; disturbed nesting birds; muddied streams and set fires. He beat the bushes and pulled up new shoots. When he ran out of ideas, he cursed the sun and the moon. Offend the spirits of the forest enough, and they will curse you: they will transform you into a tree, and you can live rooted in that earth for eternity.

For twenty minutes, there was no heartbreak; no grief; no self-doubt. He did not fear climate change or war or disease. For twenty minutes he lived in pure, unmediated connection with his physical self. The world dissolved. And for forty seconds, once he had reached the toilet and fumbled with latch and belt, he felt truly happy, before it all came rushing back.

Mister Crimvis Squib couldn’t remember which bin it was that week. He had lost the little leaflet, and it was too dark to see the other bins on the street, and he had lost the little leaflet. He put out his fullest bin, and covered it in tin foil. When the sun rose, the shiny surface would reflect the colour of his neighbour’s bins. He didn’t know why they had all the different colours, but he didn’t want to get it wrong.

I have been trying for weeks to befriend the crows that live near my house. I have offered them peanuts, raisins, dog food. I am reliable and respectful. I only wish to be brought a paperclip, or a dropped earring, or a button, or a screw. I only wish to hear them caw to me with fondness. I fear these crows have already been befriended by my enemies.

He got on the bus before I could stop him. I don’t know what the driver was thinking. They must have seen me, running and screaming. Or perhaps they never checked their mirrors. I ran at a full sprint, counting on traffic, all the way to the next stop. I staggered on, breathing like the air brakes, vomit in my throat, legs good for nothing. The bus was empty.

He was already having a bad day when the seagull stole his chips. Grabbed up the whole tray in its grubby beak and flew off with it, not dropping so much as a grain of salt. He couldn’t even be angry. Sometimes, the world simply shows you what you deserve.

She strolled down the beach, and shared her chips with him.

I have to press the button or else I’ll never know. Maybe I can’t bear to know, but I definitely can’t bear not knowing, so I have to press the button. I don’t konw if I can do it. It feels like jumping off a bridge. But I have to. I count down from five and at zero, without thinking, I press the button. And I never find out.

I hope the plane crashes. I hope it comes down in the ocean and we have to use the life jackets. I hope I am one of the few who stays calm, the one the crew ask to help his fellow passengers. I don’t want anybody to get hurt. I hope the plane crashes and we all make it home with an incredible story and a payout for emotional distress. I hope the plane crashes, and it is one of those near-death experiences that shocks you back into life. Plane travel, they say, is extremely safe. I wish I knew how to do something dangerous.

I walk over the same hill I walked over yesterday. Then I was just stolling, out for some fresh air, seeking high ground for the exercise and in hope of a view. Today, the directions I should have read sooner send me the same way, treading in yesterday’s footsteps, trading in yesterday’s wandering for a stride that knows just where it is going. I pick up a chocolate wrapper that fell from my pocket. I pick a blackberry that ripened overnight. I come down into the valley, and cross over the river a second time.

—And there’s your free potato scallop.

—Oh, no thank you.

—It’s free.

—I know. But I don’t want it.

—Well, there’s a free potato scallop with every order at the moment.

—Right. Yes. But I don’t want one. I’ve got enough.

—I’ve put it in the bag already. It’s free. I’tll have to go in the bin if you don’t take it. We can’t give it to someone else.

—Well do you want it?

—I’ve been here four hours, I’d rather stick my head in the fryer than eat anything greasy.

—OK. Well, thanks.

—Excuse me, do you want this potato scallop?

—Not really, mate. You couldn’t get me a pie, could you? It’s freezing out here.

Take the money and put it in the bag. Take all the money and put it in the bag. I would like you to put the money into the bag. Money, bag, now. You better put the fucking money in the fucking bag. Would you please fill this bag with money for me. I’d like to make a very large withdrawal. Money in the bag. Money in the bag. Money in the bag.

Christ, I’m going to make a mess of this, aren’t I?

After many years of dedicated, deliberate practice, I have perfected the art of marshmallow toasting. They snap like a crème brûlée; they ooze like a rich caramel. I must have burned forests to get here. I brush my teeth carefully. I read books and visit friends. I’m not obsessive. It is a small thing, but it is mine. There are still arts in this world that have not been perfected. They can be yours.

You can earn money while you sleep this way. The money’s not much, but it’s steady. Dreams are irreplaceable: computers can’t dream the same way we do. So there’ll always be demand. The money’s not much, but it puts a few more hours in the day you can get paid for. It pays the rent, so you have somewhere to sleep, so you have somewhere to dream, so you have something to sell.

And it’s completely non-invasive. You don’t even have to wear anything. The sensors are all in your pillow, and they can pick up your brian activity even when you move around. Amazing, really.

The only change is, it adds a bit of drag. Like how a water-wheel slows down the river a little. It’s just part of how the tech works. You might feel like you’re dreaming less. You’re not, not really: the dreams are there, you just don’t experience them any more. So don’t worry. You’ll still get paid.

He could feel the wine seeping up his trousers, at his heel where the hem dragged on the floor. Not his wine, and not him who had spilled it, but he was sat in the puddle, so who would know that?

At the interval, he would fetch paper towels and mop it up. For now, he sat, and stared into the back of the head of thr man who had kicked his wine over and pretended not to notice. He felt the stain wick up his leg, and he didn’t hear a word.

The Great Blade of Constancy, the sword by which the foretold hero would defeat the coming darkness, resembles the kind of soft foam sword that a kid would have a tantrum over in a gift shop, or an adult would buy for their live-action role-play sessions and paint to look more badass. But the Great Blade of Constancy rejects decoration of all kinds. It will be unchangingly red and yellow until the prophecies are fulfilled. And the foretold hero will be one who can draw on the deepest well of courage, to look extremely silly as they strive to do what they know is right.

Nothing remains of all my useless things but charcoal. Charcoal, to cook, to filter water, to draw, to write. To start again.

Eight paces down the aisle of the shoe shop. Eight paces back. All the time worried that someone will think his shoes are for sale, and there will be a misunderstanding, a scene, as though anyone would want to buy them. Sixteen paces not really sure what he is supposed to be looking for, not really sure what his feet feel like the rest of the time, not really sure if this is how he normally walks. Does his heel hit the ground first, or his toes? Has he tied them too loose, to avoid creasing a pair he doesn’t want to buy? He paces again, then flexes his feet with a thoughtful expression, one that shows the empty shop that he knows what he is doing. And then, because he cannot think of an answer when he imagines the shop assistant asking what is wrong about them, he buys the shoes.

Behold, the incredible Time Shoes! Step forwards, to move to the future! Step backwards, to move to the past! Step sideways, if you need to move around but you want to continue your normal trajectory through time! Strap them on and try! Yes, that’s it! Wait! No! Do not dance in the Time Sh—

At the museum I always look at the same painting. I was going to look at a different one each time I visited; I thought that would make me more appreciative. But I never made it past the first. There is always something more to look at. It would seem a little bit arrogant to move on, like I had finished it. Now, though, they have taken it down for restoration. I am free to move on to the next. But I look at the hook, and the patch of wall, and the little plaque telling me about a painting that is not there but that I can close my eyes and see. I look at the room in which it stood, and in which I stand. I find that there is still more of the painting to see.

Sybil Bushtail

Can whoever has been digging up my nuts PLEASE STOP. I have worked really hard gathering these nuts for the winter and someone keeps coming and digging them up and taking them. THESSE ARE NOT YOUR NUTS. Its already getting cold and if this keeps happening I will not have enough to survive. Honestly when I was a kid people in this forest used to have basic manners and you could leave your nuts in a little pile, you didn’t have to bury them even. It’s not like that these days and it’s a real shame, not wishing to point any finger but I think we all know the place has gone downhill.

Gary Nutkin

alright grandma get over it it’s just a few nuts!! 😂😂😂

I am waiting for the crocuses. When winter ends, they will poke up through the thawing earth to greet the sun, and me. I can make it through the winter as long as I remember that I am waiting for the crocuses.

But while I am waiting, I don’t go out to look. If I went out and looked at the dead earth every morning, then before the shoots pushed through it I would be dead too. I do not look, and so I might miss the first day that the crocuses show their faces to the world again. But I know it is coming. I know it is. There will be colour out there again. And I am waiting.

I don’t know when it started, or how. I just got colder and colder. And then one day, I put my hand to my heart and it wasn’t beating any more. The blood thickened in my veins. It should have been scary. But whatever else I am, I am not scared any more.

It took forever to carve this pumpkin. To get the shape just right; to smooth off the rough edges. And when I painted it, it looked wrong. Just unnaturally orange. I don’t know why people bother carving them. It would have been easier to buy a real one.

Old Mr Pratt was always horrible to the kids who came into his shop. None of them understood why he ran a toy shop, or why their parents let them go in. He would sneer and spit and make fun of you for the toys you chose, even though he had chosen to have them in his shop. He was mean, and he was stupid: every time you went in there, you could trick him into giving you something for free.

One little bird didn’t join the V as it cut through the sky. Nobody had invited him, and he didn’t hear them calling. He didn’t want to seem presumptuous. So he made his own way, little wings and little heart beating hard with no upwash to help him. Somewhere over the ocean, he heard a voice at his shoulder: “Shouldn’t someone else take a turn in front now, friend?” Behind him, the V stretched out like two immense wings.

The morning of the holiday. Cleaning the house, emptying the bins, packing the car. He almost got mixed up and put the food waste bin in among the suitcases; he realised what he was doing just in time. Then he imagined their faces when they arrived at the cottage and found it. The laughter. The full week of ribbing him about it. Them bringing it up every holiday. He tucked the bin into place, and closed the boot.

We went to the hedge maze. Thirty years I’ve been wanting to go to a hedge maze, and never going, and never telling anyone. We tried a corn maze when I was eight, but we had just missed the season. They had cut the whole thing down.

Now we’re here, lost in the middle. We split up and we sometimes hear each other’s voices calling. As I turn at a junction I see you, walking towards me, and I smile and try to stop myself from running.

The slots of the Pop-Up Pirate are getting full and it is simply too nerve-racking to insert another. It might pop, and I will jump higher than the pirate, and the boy will laugh at me. It might not pop, and then pop on his turn, and then he will cry. And I can’t stop thinking about hiding in a barrel, curled up tight, just waiting for one of these blades to pierce my belly. The little plastic sword is trembling in my fingers. Yellow. I choose a place and slide it home. The pirate leaps out into the air, and I catch it deftly, without looking. The boy applauds. I look at the pirate’s little smiling face, safe in my hand.

The hovercar had broken down again. Power to the screen, but seemingly nowhere else: apparently it was some kind of server issue. She wouldn’t have minded, only it was very, very hard to push.

He laced up his golden boots and kicked the dog to death. He took no pleasure in doing it. He did it with all the solemnity the task demanded. And he certainly understood the point of view of those who said he shouldn’t do it at all. But since it had to be done, he thought it best that it be done by him, so that it was done properly. And they were very shiny boots.

After forty years of repression, Simon hacked and sputtered and coughed up a little pellet of pure anger. It was dark grey and oily, with veins of red and purple, and even a little gold, here and there. The government took possession of the pellet without remunerating him: it was felt that to offer compensation would hamper future research. Simon did not complain. When compressed further, the pellet produces a quite astonishing amount of heat. It powers a small region of the East Midlands to this day.

He had bled all the radiators, black gunk and hot water spraying him, a bruise on his thumb from the key on stiff valves that hadn’t turned in years. Bled all the radiators so they got hot right up to the top, then topped off the system so it was back up to pressure and checked them all again. He had bled all the radiators ready for the cold weather, just in case he could afford to turn them on, and it wouldn’t need doing again until after he had to move out.

He sunk into the lake not expecting to be able to breathe. The weed that once tangled his legs now seemed to hold him, gentle and safe and warm. The cold faded gently. His vision sharpened. He felt a peace he had never felt before. When he came to the surface, the sunlight dazzled him; his lungs burned; his skin felt like it would burst.

I was starting to worry that somebody would recognise my shoes. I told myself: if somebody recognises your shoes from under the door of a toilet cubicle, then they’re the weird ones. But when the door’s been locked for twenty minutes maybe it’s not weird to check there’s someone in there, and they haven’t passed out.

And I would never know, because they wouldn’t say anything. If a person has a reason for locking themselves in the toilets for half an hour, it’s generally not something you want to hear about. Maybe I should be glad not to be asked any awkward questions. But if you don’t get asked them, it means people are making up their own answers.

After a while, it was all quiet. I flushed, just in case anyone was still there, and went out to face them: those lovely people, who want nothing but the best for me.

The apples kept falling, faster than they could eat them or stew them or juice them for cider. Faster than they could gather them. They heaped around the trunk of the tree, stinking as the buried ones fermented. And still the branches sagged under the weight of new fruit. Flies and rats came, more each day, and the apples kept falling.

They cut down the tree, and the apples did not stop. They poured from the felled branches even as the stump sprouted anew. They sawed the tree to pieces, and the pieces dropped apples. Some found a little length of branch that produced just one or two each day, and took it home for themselves. But this was forbidden. They piled the pieces in around the stump, atop the rotting fruit, and burned it all. Most of them never tasted an apple again.

I dreamed about him nightly, for years, until I knew every wrinkle of his face. We never spoke in the dreams. Rarely did I even get close to him. But he was always there. After confusion, curiosity, and frustration, I began to feel safe. I had something to rely on, just as long as he was there.

One night he wasn’t. I dreamed of terrible things, the ground falling and splits in the sky. The next day I saw him on the street. We spoke for the first time. He said, I’m sorry, I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else, I’m afraid I really have to go.

I heard about it on a podcast. You measure out fifteen grams of sunflower seeds for every year you expect to live, and you put them in a jar. That gives you roughly the days you have left. It’s not too accurate, but hey, life is unpredictable too. In another jar, you measure out fifteen grams of sunflower seeds for every day you’ve lived already. And then each morning, you move a seed from the first jar to the second jar, and in this way you become aware of how your days are passing.

I got a few months in, and it felt like it was really working. I’d never got so much done. And then I slipped on the spilled washing-up water while carrying the jars across the kitchen. I lay there on the floor, feeling the seeds under my shoulders and on my fingertips and in my hair. The first jar had a little handful left. I poured them into my mouth. They were just beginning to turn rancid.

Not a single thing had sold all day. She paid a tenner for the pitch and another to hire a trestle table, which had threatened to buckle under the weight of her crap and was sagging even more six hours later. The float money she had prepared sat heavy on her waist. The price signs she had thought so carefully about were a jumble of discounts. She felt like a ghost. Except that ghosts get to leave all their earthly things behind, while she had to pile all hers back into the car and drive it back to the empty flat.

He’d been dumped by text before, but the eight-day comms round trip to the capsule made it worse. Worse becuase he knew she wouldn’t be chewing her fingers off waiting for a reply: she would have been over it before he read it. Worse because he knew he would regret any reply he sent before it arrived. And worst because he could do nothing to stop the message he had transmitted yesterday, dumping her.

She donated what she could. You don’t burn a perfectly good pair of jeans just because of what happened to you in them. And donation had its own kind of purification: the good deed balancing out the bad, the things being anonymised in charity shop backrooms where volunteers priced them up in terms of physical condition only. She almost felt she could go in and buy them back herself.

The rest she piled carefully, so it would catch well and burn clean. She knew how to build a fire. Dryer lint to letters to books to furniture, then the less flammable things, once the flames were already established. Warm on her skin; she wished she could see the glow on her face. She thought, without regret, that everyone would have understood, if only she had built it in the garden.

filling the suitcase with socks and tools and pancake batter and good books and bad cooks and typing errors and candy bracelets and resealable clear plastic bag for small items or jewellry 100/250/500/1000pcs and a seaside claw machine and toothbrush and spare toothebrush and fingers and chocolate fingers and a little bit of regret tucked in to fill up the gaps, just in case nobody else brought any

Since it’s all over, I sell just about everything I own, keeping only two pairs of each bit of clothing, a toothbrush, the little tent we never used. I buy a new rucksack, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, knowing that quality makes the difference. I consider a stove, a compact little thing, but I want to take as little of this place with me as possible. As I set off walking I turn over in my head what I might be: knight errant; pious hermit; roving killer. Something new, I decide, that the world won’t need a name for.

A minute in to the deckchair-eating competition, I realise I have made a huge mistake. I thought it was just a lark. Nobody can eat a deckchair. And of all the people who can’t eat a deckchair, I thought I would be top decile, at least. But these guys are pros. They’ve got technique. You can see which ones are using which method; who’s breaking legs up first, who’s tearing fabric into thin strips. And I’m here gnawing like an idiot, splinters in my tongue, not daring to look at the front row in case there’s pity in her eyes.

I always wanted to go in a helicopter. Don’t know why. I don’t like heights or noise. I like sitting in my garden and looking at birds. Helicopters aren’t even good for looking at birds. Anyway, every reason you might go in a helicopter seems like something bad. Some kind of rescue or something, or you’ve joined the military. Probably you’ve got a grievous injury, or you’re about to get one, or everything you have is on fire or underwater, or all of the above. I wouldn’t want to go in a helicopter if it was taking me away from the ruins of my house, the garden covered except for the sycamore tree where the magpies nest. Coming back only to pick through the rubble.

You can just pay to go in a helicopter. Feels a bit pathetic, though, all that money on a daft little whimsy in a helicopter that could be rescuing people. Maybe one day someone would get me that as a present. If they were to think of it.

Old Man Matthias lives in a little tumbledown hut on a scrubby patch of land where the scrapyard used to be. He’s off-grid, and he must have to shop sometimes but none of us have ever seen him. You sometimes spot him out in his garden or fiddling with his solar panels, or just stood there, arm in the air. We dare each other to sneak over, steal some apples, draw a cock and balls on a solar panel, but we always chicken out. He’s got a scary dog. We’ve seen it on his TikTok.

I tried on a few new pairs of legs. I’ve had these so long, they must need replacing. Some were stronger. Some were longer. All were more shapely. But none of them had that little tingle, the damaged nerve to remind me that they carried me everywhere I have been.

You know how it goes with immortality. First you think it’s the best thing that could ever happen to you, then you wise up and realise it’s a curse. The thing is that, so far, everyone has died in the end. They never got the chance to wise further up. You can’t just think your way into wisdom. The wise among us know that.

So if you wise up first and then become immortal second, you have a bit of a panic. You think: I’m going to watch everyone I love age and die. (It’s only our own mortality we’re supposed to be sanguine about, normally.) You think: what if I just get tired of it all? You think: what if someone sets my feet in concrete and throws me into the river?

You spend a long time thinking about the first two, and dismiss the third as a bit silly and outlandish. Of course, thinking about the first two is pointless, because you just have to live through them, the same way the mortals do. And thinking about the third is wise, because if you stick around forever, all sorts of things are going to happen to you. And when people learn you are immortal, this is the kind of idea they come up with to deal with you.

But what makes being thrown into the river with concrete shoes so horrifying is the part where you drown. The desparate struggle, when you have minutes left. I don’t have minutes. I have forever. I watch fish. I watch what floats past. I see the riverbed shift and flow. You know when you get sick, and it’s the only time that feels like a proper holiday, because on an actual holiday you can’t stop thinking about your responsibilities? It’s like that, at the bottom of the river. I’ll come out of it a better man. And I will come out of it. That’s what “immortal” means.

She had never been able to hula hoop. Never ever. She just wasn’t a person who could move that way. But she watched her kids say the same thing, “I can’t do it”, over and over. About riding their bikes, about tying their laces, about hula-hooping. They said it after a minute of trying, and whatever it was, before long they had done it. How long had she spent trying to hula-hoop over her lifetime, she wondered? How often had she tried more than once in a row?

So she took the day off work, and bought a hula hoop, and practiced. Because we are not fixed. We are capable of so much more than what we are now. That was the lesson the kids had taught her. That alone was worth all the late nights and heartache.

It was 4pm. The hula hoop clattered to the floor again.

What an unbelievable waste of effort it had been. Opening the wrappers with a razor blade. Syringing just the right poison in just the right dose, enough to do the job and well-distributed so the taste would be right. Smoothing the chocolate over the puncture marks with a hot knife. Resealing the wrappers. Subtly marking the one left safe for herself. She had thought of everything, except the dog. And now the bloody dog had eaten the lot. Not that she didn’t want to kill the dog too. But the chocolate would have done that on its own.

Pilot always knew first. She didn’t whimper or drop her ears: that came earlier, when she lost the scent but still had hope. Those things meant, “I’m a bad dog”, and all she needed was a reassuring touch and a few words from Pat to be off and running again. But sometimes, just as Pat thought they were getting close, Pilot would start playing. She would play brashly, irrepressibly, like a child who doesn’t want to be told off. She fetched sticks and nosed at pockets and ran around in tight little circles, like she was doing now. Those things meant: “It’s a bad world”. Those things meant that they would not find the boy alive.

She had snapped the spout clean off the teapot. She couldn’t help but play with it for a while, seeing how neatly it fit back into place. From the right angle there was barely a crack to show it had been broken.

She remembered her time as a nurse, breaking ampoules. Those tiny glass fragments that fell into the medicine. But there was no needle or filter to stop the shards floating in the tea from ending up in the cups. She poured her sister’s first. It made an almighty mess.

I sort each stone according to what it might be good for. Building. Skimming. Forming to an edge. Cracking a skull. Holding down a sheet. At the shoreline, the sea spray in my eyes makes it difficult. When I am finished, I take only the best from each pile, and walk along the cliffs to the next beach.