‘Anonymity is golden Paul.’ I can still hear Dr Flores in the induction session an age ago. ‘Never reveal anything personal to a caller, it confuses the issue and the issue is them. Provide only the sketchiest details, your name only in the direst circumstance and never ever agree to meet.’ Continue reading
short story
On being hit in the head (for David Lang)
…‘heh…hello…hello heyloo-oo-oo…Mr Lang, can you hear me?’
‘Just nod…that’s it. I thought you’d want to know where you stand.’
‘You’re on the ground, your eyelids are fluttering and your breathing is shallow.
‘There’s some twitching in your extremities, some jiggling…’ Continue reading
Sleeping in Red City
Awake/not awake, how do you tell? Did she dream that the rain through headlights had become living shadows; that the ceiling writhed and twisted and the room ran with water; that the cornices leaked and streams bubbled down the walls, over the cupboard, over the dresser, over the photographs and onto the floor? Continue reading
Dog days
I think my dog is depressed. She puts her head on my lap, looks up at me and sighs. Continue reading
Time’s arrow
00:00
Every story needs an arc, a trajectory. Here’s one—Elliot Greenleaf steps off a concrete ledge and begins to accelerate towards the pavement 200 meters below. He looks down and the street is rushing up at him like a lion. Continue reading
Second Nature
The nose replies (a homage)
“it is relatively easy to perceive that Gogol must have intended [The Nose] as a satire on social climbers…but it will become clear that…under the guise of grotesque farce, a drama of sexual failure is enacted. Spycher, P., The Slavic and East European Journal, 7. No. 4, 1963, p. 361
An empty signifier
G reckoned that it was all extraordinary and happened in the Capital one autumn over a few days, barely a fortnight. Continue reading
Rom Com
He was due at one. At a quarter before he called from the lobby and got Ann Seldom’s voicemail again, so he went up anyway. Continue reading
Alice
Eleanor lies naked on the bed. No thoughts, she is pale and empty and a little chilly from the air-conditioning. Continue reading
Happy now
Satan asks
— Well?
— I never thought much about it. Certainly, I never believed any of this was likely. But I guess it’s what you don’t know that trips you up. I’ve always thought of myself as…well… moral. Continue reading
Peter Frankis writes 