Author: Lauren Thomas

“You must learn not to be defined by the past.” The young woman sighed. “They didn’t say you talked in riddles. What does that even mean?” The woman wasn’t offended. She was used to people seeking her out for advice but not always liking it. She never welcomed the rumours about her, but she didn’t…

If he could feel he would feel sorry for them all. Gawping at him, inane grins on their faces, taking their silly photos and posting them to an audience of strangers. And they thought that it was creations like him that didn’t care, that couldn’t feel. That much was true. But at least he knew…

Look. No, really look. Not straight ahead. To the side. Out of the corner of your eye. Quickly. Before it even knows you’re looking. There! You saw it didn’t you? It’s always there you know. Watching you. Biding its time. Hiding in the shadows. In the places people tend not to look at. Not properly…

“Roll up, roll up! Fancy winning a toy for the little lady?” Parents were his favourites. They could never say no to the watery eyes of their greedy offspring. He picked up the hoops, knowing that they were too small. With a sleight of hand he pretended to remove one from the bunch, instead placing…

“How do you want your eggs?” He froze. It had taken him so long to choose something from the impossibly large menu in the impossibly small diner. Its size was the reason he had chosen it. Just three small booths and a sign proudly declaring it as the smallest diner in the state. Very little…

“How many times do you think you were in love in your lifetime?” She appreciated the small talk. It distracted her from the wires and machinery. From the sterile smell and the sound of squeaky shoes in linoleum corridors. She didn’t hesitate. “Two.” “Ok, so Bill was one. Who was the other?” She placed a…

“Whose shoes are these?” “What?” “In the hallway? Whose shoes?” “What kind of shoes are they?” “Men’s trainers. Old.” “They’re not yours?” “I think I’d know if they were mine.” “Well they’re obviously not mine.” “So whose are they?” She walked into the hallway and looked down at the shoes. He looked at her face…

“Really look at them all.” She looked again, at mothers and daughters arm in arm, milling around the narrow city lanes where the old buildings leant against each other as if exhausted. “Don’t you think they’re all a bit too alike?” She rolled her eyes. “Genetics.” Just then, a mother and daughter walked past her…

It wasn’t an accident. The police weren’t really interested in an elderly man falling from a window. She had watched it unfold from across the road, the most interesting thing to have happened on their street of pensioners for a long time. They assumed that he had been cleaning the windows and leaned too far…

“Hey what’s this?” She held up a small tube and squinted at it through the cobweb that had caught in her fringe. He took it from her hands. “That’s a roll of film!” He had never felt older under her blank stare. “You’d take photos on a camera and then take this out of the…