The first mistake he made was his entry. In the front door swaying with the creaking floor boards, a murderer’s dance, because he thought nobody would expect that. The second mistake was his attitude. Casual, because he’d been here before, so many times it had become like a ritual of violence, the knife wounds, bloody tears and those screams in the darkness that nobody ever heard. The third mistake was what he said after the night silence shattered to reveal the woman, eyes carved down to the… Continue

“One more,” says the shadowed man, and he downs his drink like a lightning bolt to the brain, slams the glass on the bar and stares. The barman doesn’t say a word, because he knows the look and knows the white knuckled grip lost men have around bar glasses like lifesavers in stormy seas. “One more,” the shadowed man repeats, and repeats again, and still the barman says nothing but holds the bottle out of reach and watches the man watching him. There’s a cyclone in his eye and that white… Continue

The morning after they ran away from home, Abby and Danger had cake for breakfast. It was squished into abstract art from Danger’s pocket and when he whipped it out and they unwrapped it from a plastic cage Abby said it tasted like freedom, but Danger thought it was more like wet grass and cold park benches. That day, with the sickly sweet taste of new horizons stuck between their teeth, they sat half-asleep and leaning in a parking lot soaking up the sun for hours. When they lost the light to… Continue

My neighbour is a pirate. He’s building a ship in his backyard of oiled teak and adventure. During the day, he hides his form, polishing his masterpiece like a craftsman who may never let it see the salted waves, but I hear him whistle jigs that dance rum drunk on tropical beaches and dig for ancient troves of gold. At night, I creep from my bed to watch him sit on the deck, dirty bottle in hand looking out over the rippling tide of uncut grass. He sings now, mouth moving in sailor’s shanties,… Continue

We called him the Captain. Despite having neither ship nor crew, he held himself like a lantern on the far horizon and I could so easily imagine his hands balancing a compass to guide his vessel through the night. His step was cautious and slow, like at any moment he expected the ground beneath his feet to pitch and roll on some invisible wave, and there was a smell about him, so different than the soap and old aftershave of the elderly. Instead, when he passed by he would create in his wake a… Continue