Tyranny of distance

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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.

The menaced assassin

FictionSOPHIE STANDS IN front of the painting, flexing her toes. She pushes one heel off the ground and then the other, as though she...

Displaced

FictionTHE DELICATE RED filigree of the sea fan coral looked like alveoli in lungs, Clare thought as she kicked through the shallow waters of...