Stories from all categories

shop of owls
Went into my favourite bookshop today, which has owls carved of different woods stashed in all its corners. For the first time I noticed the sign on the back of the door: Antiquarian shops are ...read more
“high, wild, savage and frightening”
What is that book you're always carrying? my friend wanted to know. So I opened it and read to him: "But the first of the thunder and lightning was always high, wild, savage and frightening. ...read more
the c-u- in court
Drowsy today & introspective and I had to sort of tip myself out of the house like the last olive clinging in the jar. The market stallholders seemed to me noisy and boisterous, cheerful in ...read more
I’m not sure you’re taking this entirely seriously
Went to the outdoor store to try on their $1000 goose-down & coyote fur jackets. "Made in Canada," the sales guy explained as I was falling about laughing at the price: "Canadian wages." "Ah," I ...read more
tall & straight-sided
Tonight I saved somebody's life. I cycled past a table on the mall where Scientologists were practising Scientology, just right out in the open as though it were nothing, were not based on shame & ...read more
Felix Nussbaum
10
Today I saw the paintings of Felix Nussbaum who because he was born Jewish was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944. My friend described how 'we Germans' had done 'the worst thing' by industrializing mass murder. ...read more
like a cake
Went down to the print shop to ask him to make me a copy of one of the two novels I'm hoping to finalize this winter. Like a PhD student at the far end of ...read more
we were dancing
6
On the Weihnachtsmarkt before it closed I had this most marvellous adventure. Rounding the corner my friend & I following the thread of sound came on these two solemn, courtly black American musicians, not young, ...read more
olivewood
On the market I bought a tiny chopping block made from olive wood. It's dense and silky and only a little larger than my spread hand. I was about to hand over the money when ...read more