Tyranny of distance

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For all we do in the dark

Non-fictionI DEAL WITH grief the way I deal with most trauma. I keep it locked away in a dilapidated archival box – one of the brown ones...

FictionIt was always busy there in Palermo. During a snow shower I’d sit in the cafés, small corner net connections. Sometimes the weather was a little heavy – I’d kick my boots clean of ice at the entrance, umbrella heavy with sleet. The man you paid to use the internet would be singing in Farsi; a woman would speak in hushed tones in the cubicle. Sometimes not so hushed. Talking to her family on the other side of the world. Where maybe it was snowing, too. And together they could listen to each other. Together in the snow they could talk.

Speaking my language

Non-fictionMY AUNTIE HAS stopped speaking to her siblings. Rifts like these are commonplace in my family, where people fall out with each other like...