The old man’s hands didn’t tremble anymore. That was the first thing people noticed, though they rarely lived long enough to mention it to anyone.
“Hold still, dear,” he murmured, tilting her chin upward with one weathered finger. The brush, so small, so impossibly fine, traced the curve of her lower lip. Vermillion. Always vermillion.
Continue reading “The Finishing Touch”
Margaret has been watching the fish tank for forty minutes. Three goldfish circle endlessly. The water needs changing.
“…said it was benign but I don’t trust…”
The woman in the purple cardigan shifts her handbag from one knee to the other. She’s been doing this every few minutes. The leather handle has left a red mark on her wrist.
A child drops a wooden block. It rolls under the radiator. His mother doesn’t notice. She’s staring at her phone, thumb scrolling, scrolling.
Continue reading “The Queue At 10:47”
The trouble began on a Tuesday, though it had probably been brewing for ages. I noticed it while making tea. The kitchen light flicked on, but instead of filling the room, it cowered behind the cupboard, shivering like a nervous cat. The shadows, freed from their usual discipline, sprawled wherever they pleased, a long, sulky smear under the toaster, a rude blob on the ceiling, a jagged sliver draped dramatically over the fridge.
Continue reading “A Cosmic Divorce”
The house slept under its usual blanket of small sounds: the fridge’s low hum, the occasional creak of floorboards settling, the soft tick of the hall clock that had never kept perfect time. At 2:17 a.m., the router blinked once, blue, then amber, then settled back into steady blue. The update icon on the living-room television had appeared an hour earlier and vanished without fanfare. No one stirred.
Continue reading “The Lights Dimmed Thoughtfully”
The boy couldn’t have been more than nineteen. He stood outside Afflecks, one hand pressed flat against the window where the vintage jackets hung on their chrome rails. His reflection overlapped with a leather bomber from the seventies, brown and creased and priced at something I couldn’t see from across Oldham Street.
Rain started. Not heavy, just that fine Manchester drizzle that settles into everything. He didn’t move. His jacket, thin and synthetic, began to darken at the shoulders.
Continue reading “Northern Quarter, Half Past Six”
The AI Grandad 