They found the victim slumped over the board, with a tiny dagger in his heart and a piece of rope stuffed down his throat. The little black envelope had split down its seam: every character card but one had been shoved inside it. The dice were turned to double one, staring out from his eye sockets. He hadn’t even wanted to play in the first place.

Oliver turned the shower right round to shame. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was enough to get him to the office. He thought about twisting the valve the other way, to joy or excitement or self-belief, like he used to, but it had been broken for months. That end barely gave a trickle. So he slumped under the water, and thought about how pathetic it was that he couldn’t fix his own shower.

The brick flinched as it flew through the window. It wasn’t for fear of scratches: it hardly noticed the glass shattering. It wasn’t the speed: it had been heaved around before. But it was never made for this. It was made to build a home.

The shine had come off their relationship. He found it in the dishwasher filter, all clumped up with bits of green slime. He rinsed it off and tried to press it flat, hoping, insanely, that he might press it back on. He knew it was no good, and he knew it was his fault. Of course it wasn’t dishwasher safe. But then, why was the dishwasher always his job?

When she woke on the narrow steel bed she wasn’t sure if she was under the ocean or out in space. She knew she ought to be able to tell from the gravity, but she couldn’t remember which way round it would be. It was cold, and after a few minutes she noticed that the lights were all out. After a few more, she wondered how it was that she could see. She swung her legs from the bunk, and tried to work out if she was floating.

It was the packaging that set it off. The little see-through plastic case looked so appealing; the way the leads slid out of the little opening, one long enticing stick of graphite at a time, would have called to any kid in any sweet shop. The shiny grey on his teeth and in his spit did something for him, too. It felt like smoking cigarettes or drinking black coffee, neither of which he had ever been able to handle. But there were problems, too. Mostly when he needed to write something down.

Your body wants to do it, they were saying The scream is in you already. Relax your throat and let it fly. The more they said it the more she tightened. The more the circle smiled its welcoming smiles the less possible it felt to make any sound at all. Their hands lifted into the air and her fingernails dug into her palms. She screamed, screamed, screamed at them, silent.

On Tuesday night flowers sprouted from my skin, blue and white all down one arm and red on my cheek. By Wednesday morning I was all in bloom and abuzz with insects. I crawled out into the sun and let them come. Today I am fruiting, and thankful for those creatures who pollinated my flowers, and thankful for those who eat of me.

Halfway through writing his letter, Simon stopped. He normally wrote them in one big harrumph, and the paper published them the same way, unedited. That helped him know he was right. He had felt this one bubbling up the moment he saw the caravans on the school fields. These people who disrupt communities because they don’t have a community of their own. Because they don’t have a place. But halfway through, he looked out of his window at the rows of big dark cars where he used to play. He thought about the pub that was a ruin and the market hall that was a Tesco and the square that was a car park. He closed his email and started searching for caravans.

Thirty years later I, tracked down the boy who took my POGs. It wasn’t easy: I only half-remembered his name, and his face was more worn even than mine. But it was him. He was selling SUVs a mile from where we went to school, although I know he moved away for a while. I thought I’d break into his house. I thought I’d make friends with his wife and get in that way. But it wouldn’t have been right, when he had won them fair and square. So I challenged him at work. And you know what? The coward refused to play.

When they finally agreed to take me fishing, the only thing they would tell me was “you can’t mackerel radio”. Every question I asked, they said “All you have to remember is: you can’t mackerel radio.” Any time there had been silence for a few minutes, one of them said, “Just keep in mind, you can’t mackerel radio.” We didn’t catch anything, and we didn’t mackerel radio. Ten years later, the one who was still alive was amazed to hear I didn’t know how to fish. “But didn’t I teach you?” he asked. No, I said. You never even explained the joke.

The boat was sinking, but the sun was so hot that the trickle of cool water felt welcome. The deeper it got, the more comfortable the two of them were, and to bail it out felt impossible in the punishing heat. As they tumbled into the sea they thought: this is heavenly, why didn’t we think of it sooner.

Life goes on, they said, and so it did: until she felt she was the bloom of algae on the pond, the mould at the back of the cupboard shedding invisible spores. Life went on in every crack of her, breaking them open like tree roots through concrete. Life went on rotting her teeth. She took a long cool bath and watched her fingernails grow, quick as a mountain. That was enough, for now.

Dan went to the corner shop for ice creams, but they had sold out except for three frosty lollies stuck to the bottom of the freezer. He leaned his head in there for a while, breathing in lungfuls of cold; then he bought them all. Back home he said there had been a single Cornetto, too, and he had eaten it on the way home. They all hated him for it. He wasn’t sure why he had said it, but by the time the day started cooling, he believed it was true.