Story 1
Ian asked who was allowed into heaven. The priest was answering gently, but Ian kept drifting in and out of sleep.
Father McIntyre stood to leave.
“No.” Ian grabbed his arm from the bed.
Startled, the priest sat back down.
“Will Frankie Burns be there?”
“Frankie Burns?”
“When I was ten,” Ian said, “we used to play a game called safari. You climbed over every back garden on the street without touching the pavement. The dogs were lions. The sheds were caves. If you got caught, you were dead.”
He swallowed.
“The best route was the dangerous one. Two alsatians and Mr. McCracken. He was always in his garden.”
Ian closed his eyes.
“I jumped the hedge at the low point. I didn’t see the pitchforks. Four of them, stuck in the ground, pointing up. I missed them. I turned to warn Frankie —”
The room was quiet except for the soft hum of the oxygen machine.
Father McIntyre nodded slowly.
“I’m sure Frankie will be fine,” he said.
“I just want to see my mum. My dad. Frankie.”
“You will,” the priest said softly.
Ian’s voice was barely there now.
“I better not see McCracken.”
A small pause.
“I doubt you will, Ian,” said Father McIntyre. “I very much doubt you will.”
Story 2
Arthur In The City
Arthur knew the city was watching him. Not in a grand conspiracy way, but in the small, quiet ways that are easy to dismiss. The traffic lights held on red a beat too long just for him. The same magpie was always on the same TV aerial. One for sorrow.
He’d mentioned it to Marie once. ‘It’s like it’s all a bit too arranged,’ he’d said, staring out the kitchen window.
She’d sighed, the way she did when he started this. ‘It’s a bird, Arthur. They like perches. And the lights are just old.’
He stopped talking about it after that. But he started writing it down. He bought a cheap notebook from the stationer’s and began to log it all. The registration of the pizza delivery moped that seemed to be the only one working in the entire borough. The woman who walked her terrier past his door at exactly 8.17 every morning.
It was the puddle that convinced him he wasn’t mad. After a night of rain, a single perfect puddle had formed on the cracked paving slab by his gate. And frozen in the middle of it was a postage stamp, Queen’s head down in the ice. It felt like a sign. A mistake in their system.
That night, the black cab was there again. But its light was on inside. And sitting in the driver’s seat was the magpie. It turned its head and looked right at him.
His blood went cold. This was it. He had to know.
He clattered down the stairs, his slippers slapping on the concrete, and shoved the heavy front door open.
The cab was gone. The street was empty and quiet. Just the orange glow of the streetlights and Marie, standing by the postbox. She was holding his notebook.
‘They said you wouldn’t let it go,’ she said. Her voice was different. Tired.
‘Who did?’ His own voice was a whisper.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She started tearing pages out, slowly. Letting them fall onto the wet ground. ‘You notice things, Arthur. But you’re not meant to put it all together.’
She turned and walked away up the street. He didn’t follow. He just stood and watched the rain soften the paper, the careful blue ink of his handwriting blurring into nothing.
Story 3
Her stomach ached as she clung to the top of the clothes pole. The Rottweiler that had chased her into a stranger’s garden circled below, growling.
‘Help!’ she shouted. Faces peered from windows, but no one opened a door. Lucky she was wearing jeans, she thought, or the neighbours would be getting quite the show.
After half an hour the dog grew bored and slunk away. She dropped down, bolted through a lane and out onto her own street. Not quite at her door, but close enough.
She scanned the pavements, heart still thumping. For such a dodgy area, the place was deserted. Then, almost at her gate, the Rottweiler leapt her fence and landed in front of her, teeth bared.
They stared at each other. Neither moved.
‘This dog’s a pain in the arse,’ her dad said, appearing behind it with a collar and lead. He clipped it on with practised ease.
‘Dad? You got a dog?’
‘Yes, it’s a rescue. Worth having round here to keep us safe.’
‘Safe? It chased me into some garden and kept me stuck up a pole for half an hour!’ she blurted.
‘Sorry, princess. But think about it, extra security, and imagine the looks you will get walking this beast.’
‘Is that all I’m good for?’ she muttered.
‘And No. He doesn’t have a name. That is your job.’
She looked at the Rottweiler, still glaring at her, and thought for a moment.
‘Clothespole,’ she said.
Her dad grinned. ‘Perfect.’
Story 4
A sharp pain in my gut landed me in Midland Metropolitan Hospital. “Infected appendix,” the doctor said.
I laughed. “At fifty?”
They operated. Keyhole surgery. I was home in forty-eight hours, thinking I’d dodged a bullet.
Then the letters came. NHS envelopes, marked Urgent. Missed scan, missed consultant appointment. My stomach dropped.
I texted my ex-wife, Sindy, then deleted it. Why worry her? She called instantly. “Why are you deleting texts? What’s going on?” I downplayed it. She hung up. “Text me the address. I’m on my way.”
We’ve been divorced eleven years. We’re still close, for our son, Kyle.
In the hospital, I handed her the letters. “You realise this is serious?” she said. “Do you know what a colorectal surgeon does?”
The consultant was calm. She explained that when they removed my appendix, the lab found something unexpected.
“The appendix was cancerous,” she said. “The Big C.”
I sat there, a statue, nodding. Sindy went full warrior. “Is it gone?” “No.” “What happens next?” “Major surgery, maybe chemo.”
The consultant’s voice was gentle. “This cancer is extremely rare. For men over fifty, it’s almost unheard of.” She paused, looking at me.
“This is a one-in-a-million case.”
The room went quiet.
Driving home, I replayed her words. One in a million.
And somehow, weirdly, I felt lucky. Lucky they caught it. Lucky to be here. Lucky to tell the story myself.
Because that’s what this is: my story. Not a sob story. Just real life. Messy, unpredictable, and one in a million.
Story 5
There were seventeen elastic bands on the floor inside his bedroom, by the door. Wallace had been trying to turn off his bedroom light for about an hour, just so he could get some sleep, by firing elastic bands at the light switch. He was down to his last five.
He was convinced he could do it. He had nearly made it with three. This time, he said aloud, as if anyone could hear him. Hope he isn’t gonna be my dad, Wallace thought. His mum was downstairs, watching the telly with Arnie.
He took aim and… missed. Only four tries left.
Wallace aimed, tongue out, eyes focused. He fired.
The light went off. He had hit the switch.
He cheered so loud you’d think he had just won the World Cup for Scotland.
He ran downstairs in a state of triumph, only to find his mum and Arnie tangled together on the couch in a way he couldn’t understand. They froze.
“I just hit the light switch,” he said, holding up the last three elastic bands.
They stared at him. Wallace backed out of the room slowly.
I think Arnie will be my dad now, he thought, slinking upstairs to bed. Well done, champ.
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