The circle of life It’s getting dark, and the match is about to start. I need to go in the kitchen. I need a beer. Arsenal is playing Chelsea and there’s two league points between them. But I'm afraid to go into there. Even with the light on. I shouldn't be afraid, but I'm only human. When I'm in there, there's something I can feel. It’s invisible, present; breathing with me. And there is a smell that's, just as they say in all the best horror movies, sweet and rotting.

Sometimes it's just to hard to let go She sat sideways for comfort, one foot tucked beneath her, watching as he tended their garden. He’d made this bench for her when time was kinder. Now only memories and love held it together. Running her fingers ran lightly over the back, she felt rose whorls coming to life again between its oak grooves. The breeze whistled through the slats, and his hands tapped along to the rhythm. He had a musician’s fingers. No, a magician’s fingers, b

Before the deadline, his life had been measured by the aristocratic ticktock of duty. His conception, his birth, schooling, friends, work, lovers, even death. His parents had succumbed ten minutes apart, under a coroner’s report of joint suicide. Their corpses had chased him to the train station, reminding him of the deadline for marrying a woman whom they both knew to be genetically unsuitable. They accepted that any children he had with her would have been a strong candidat