Water In The Wrong Light

My short story titled "Water In The Wrong Light" has just been published in the first issue of  Roads Less Travelled magazine, edited by Trevor Denyer through Midnight Street Press, and as usual I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

I usually start with a title and whilst I can't remember where this title came from that was certainly the case here. I coupled this with something I took from my regular morning cycle ride, where a strip of stagnant water - which seems to be the dead end of a river - runs along the side of the cycle path. It's overhung with trees and there's usually a polythene bag somewhere in the water and if I were ever to discover a dead body I'm convinced that it would be here. This got me thinking that not only would it be a likely spot to discover a body, but also an ideal setting to place one. I decided to create a character who would fantasise about this scenario, and then consider how this might play out, and then - of course - wonder if such a body might be his own, and how that second scenario might unravel. Essentially, that's the impetus for the story. My narrator isn't an altogether pleasant character - far from it - which I think makes the piece more interesting as to where a reader's sympathies might lie. I'm very pleased with how it worked out.

Here's an extract: 

Each time Shimizu cycled under the railway bridge his eyes were drawn to the shaded patch of water to his left, a stagnant area where his expectation was always to see a body. The early morning sunlight would kaleidoscope light through variegated leaf cover, speckling his vision, the contrast between the route ahead and adjacent vegetation almost two different worlds, just as the track he was on was once a former railway line even as trains passed overhead. This secluded area would be a place that he would dump a body, should he ever murder anyone, that much he knew. It wasn’t so isolated that it might never be discovered, yet neither would it be obvious. The idea that a body might lie in such a liminal space resonated with him. There was a mirror to be had with his take on existence.

Regular readers of this blog will know I usually listen to music through headphones whilst writing, and this entire story was written to Blonde Redhead's album "Barragán" (initially the whole album, but then only the title song on continuous repeat).

To reiterate, "Water In The Wrong Light" is published by Midnight Street Press, and in addition to myself features stories from Michael FitzMichael, Ian Li, Frances Koziar, Ralph Robert Moore, Margaret Eve, Sunmisola Odusola, Charlotte H Lee, Tim Lees, James Van Pelt, Vaughan Stanger, K MacMichael, and Joe R Lansdale together with a number of interviews and articles. Buy it here. 

Best of British Science Fiction 2023

My short story titled "So Close To Home", originally published in Languages of Water, an anthology edited by Eugen Bacon, has been reprinted in Best of British Science Fiction 2023 edited by Donna Scott and published by NewCon Press.

I've reprised my original blog post about the writing of that story below.

The anthology, "Languages of Water", came into being via Eugen's short story, "When The Water Stops", which was first published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. "Languages of Water" - Eugen blogs - is a cross-lingual hybrid birthed from the Writers Immersion and Cultural Exchange (WrICE). At the heart of WrICE is a simple idea: to give writers of different backgrounds a chance to step outside familiar writing practices and contexts and connect deeply with writers from different cultures and across generations in an immersive residency. The respectful and generative space for reflection, conversation, creative sharing and surprise that WrICE offers affords writers a muse - a precious opportunity to explore possibilities outside comfort zones and borrow something new into own creative practice. It sparks connections and grows a cohesive community of writers that spans boundaries.

"When The Water Stops" becomes a source story in "Languages of Water" where it appears in multiple translations and interpretations. Eugen asked me to contribute to the project, and "So Close To Home" is therefore inspired by that story.

Envisaging a world where water is in short supply led me to consider how the impact of aridity might affect countries that would normally have no fear of drought, namely the UK and those in the Northern Hemisphere. How they might repurpose water from elsewhere, or add other liquids to it in order to bulk it out. How they would ration it. The story is split into two sections, centered around a child - Joel - who accompanies his father on the morning trek to a repurposed filling station in the first section, and in the second section is older and in a gang that seeks to intercept one of the water trucks. The title - of course (perhaps) - is appropriated from the Raymond Carver short story, "So Much Water So Close To Home."

Here's a bit of it:

Joel didn’t understand the ins and the outs, the hand-me-down jokes, but when he suggested the plan, they listened. The trucks made pre-determined journeys, not dissimilar to the passage of water down a mountainside in the golden days. From the source they spread, fanned along tributaries, turned where the land grooved. In Joel’s city they arrived in the early hours, twin orbs lighting darkness. In amongst the metalwork at the rear of the garage Joel found the tyre iron he had hidden three days ago. Gripping it in his right hand he left to join the others.

Best of British Science Fiction is edited by Donna Scott and published by NewCon Press. It can be bought here. In addition to my story, there are reprints from Alastair Reynolds, Tim Lees, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Ana Sun, Stephen Baxter, Angus McIntyre, Lavie Tidhar, Chris Beckett, L.P. Melling, David Cleden, Fiona Moore, Jaine Fenn, E.B. Siu, Rhiannon Grist, Robert Bagnall, Teika Marija Smits, Tim Major, Ian Watson, and Felix Rose Kawitzky.

Commercial Book / Perfect Love

As many of you will be aware, my short story collection, "Commercial Book", was recently published by The Eyeball Museum via Psychofon Records. The collection features 40 short stories of exactly 1000 words in length, and these stories are based on the 40 songs of exactly one minute in length that featured on "Commercial Album", released by The Residents in 1980. "Commercial Book" is fully endorsed by the band.

I'm aware that some of my readers will be unfamiliar with The Residents, and fans of the band will also be unfamiliar with my writing. As the book can be enjoyed without any prior knowledge of the music, I've decided to post some of the stories here in full, so readers can get an indication of what the collection is like. My first posting was Margaret Freeman. This second story is "Perfect Love". A link to the song concludes this post.

Perfect Love

A hit is a necessity to the making of a miss.

Cate was on the rebound when she came to Pendour Cove. In other circumstances the area would be idyllic. The curvature of sunken green land sucked down into a basin peppered with black rock and curated by light refracting through a blue topaz sea. The only manmade structure the rentable shack at the top of the cliff, together with the well-worn path bearing tracks of the device containing the giant Mason jar which could be winched from the water and – through double swing doors – into the shack itself.

She arrived mid-afternoon on a late summer’s day. The sun creating a hard glaze on the veneer of the sea so that it appeared the surface might be picked up in one piece, like the caramelized sugar atop a crème brûlée. Cate sighed, the exhale carrying suggestive fragments of a broken heart. In her mind’s eye, her former lover, Giallo, the circus clown, approached her as he had on their first date, a bright yellow flower in his lapel. As she walked down the compacted trail to the beach a stiff breeze whisked a mist of salt spray onto her skin. She licked her lips. Cate preferred this taste to that of tap water. She reached the bottom and faced the sea. Her shoes made impressions in the soft, wet, sand.

That evening – after winching the Mason jar outside the double doors - she burned a candle for Giallo, the nicitating flame illuminating then eclipsing the furniture within the room. Despite the extortionate price, the interior of the cabin was meagre: a table, a chair, a fridge, a stove, a sink, a toilet, a bath, a bed. Each object functional, unromantic. Cate allowed a moment of reflection, her visage static as her shadow danced. Was there such a thing as perfect love? She wet her fingers and extinguished the flame, plunging her into a darkness from which a new light might emerge.

She woke early the next morning. Daylight straining against the double doors, delineating two rectangular patterns around the edges as though the open leaves of a gilded book, with the wider gap between them suggesting a gold-finished spine. Cate took hold of her hair and held it in the light, before making a three-inch cut. Moving to the stove she lit the gas low, burning the split ends just enough so that they didn’t disintegrate. An instantly identifiable, but indescribable odour filled the shack. She wrapped yesterday’s underwear around the hair and placed it in her pocket. Then she opened the double doors inwards and strode into the view bowed by the jar’s curve.

Operating the winch, she kept a keen eye on the jar as it jiggered on its little wooden trolley down to the beach. Once it reached the flattened surface she caught up with it. Taking the fetish from her pocket she stood on tiptoes then placed it inside. A second winch on a plinth half-buried in sand allowed her to ease the Mason jar into the sea. She counted to twenty-five once it was fully submerged. An optimum distance for fishing.

Cate spent the day squeezing sand between her toes, precariously climbing those black rocks, watching the movement of tiny red crabs which seemed to multiply before her eyes, and spotting the raised burrows of razorfish which fed by straining organic matter through their thin bodies.

Come evening, Cate returned to the shack. She prepared a simple meal of sandwiches and salad which she ate voraciously, her eyes fixed on the scene beyond the double doors. At 8pm, as the sun began its descent, she operated the winch, the electric mechanism drawing the Mason jar out of the sea and up the steep incline to the shack.

Despite her curiosity Cate averted her gaze until she had closed the double doors and was no longer alone.

The creature within the jar was more fish than man, but Cate’s response was dictated by the potency of the fetish. Gills fluctuated in their opening and closing either side of a ribbed neck; opaque eyes unblinking; webbed hands pressed flat against the interior glass; the remaining body suspended within the water, just as a bird might hover in flight.

Love swelled within Cate’s breast. A rush of dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, phenylethylamine. She ran fingertips over the glass, which the creature emulated. Unselfconsciously, Cate removed her clothing, pressed her body against the jar, wrapped her arms either side. Angling her head, she directed her lips to the formerly liquid sand, and the creature reciprocated. Pure joy sparkled through her.

Over the remaining days the creature mirrored more of her actions. When she sat at the table, it adopted a crouch. When she slept, it curled. When she smiled and laughed the creature responded in kind, bubbles rising to break the water’s surface. When she ate, she threw scraps into the water. When she toileted, it did too.

Should the creature have exhibited any attributes of its own Cate was aware the spell would be broken. Perfect love can only exist without a partner’s intervention. She projected her desires upon the creature and they were mirrored. Should it initiate an action, this would risk displeasure. She knew the longer they were together, the greater this likelihood would become. Love was a one-way ticket. To retain it, she had to mythologise it.

The weather took a downturn on her final day. Clouds portended rain. She pushed back the double doors against a high wind. The metal latch rattled to hold them open. As she kissed the glass one final time, her insides ballooning in an amalgam of emotions, she saw hesitation in the creature’s expression, a panic of goodbyes.

The winch broke halfway in the descent, the cable whipping against the Mason jar as it tumbled down the cliff side, the glass smashing against the black rocks.

Cate gasped, polarised.

Those tiny crabs began their work; bodies the colour of hearts.

*  *  *

"Commercial Book" was available in a special limited edition version with CD and Perfect Love chewing gum, however this has sold out. The regular paperback is still available HERE although copies are also limited.

And here is the song, my inspiration (only the song, my story has nothing to do with the representation in this video):

Commercial Book / Margaret Freeman

As many of you will be aware, my short story collection, "Commercial Book", was recently published by The Eyeball Museum via Psychofon Records. The collection features 40 short stories of exactly 1000 words in length, and these stories are based on the 40 songs of exactly one minute in length that featured on "Commercial Album", released by The Residents in 1980. "Commercial Book" is fully endorsed by the band.

I'm aware that some of my readers will be unfamiliar with The Residents, and fans of the band will also be unfamiliar with my writing. As the book can be enjoyed without any prior knowledge of the music, I've decided to post one of the stories here in full, so readers can get an indication of what the collection is like. Without further ado, I present "Margaret Freeman". A link to the song concludes this post. Incidentally, "Margaret Freeman" is guest-sung by Andy Partridge from XTC.

Margaret Freeman

Wanted: skeleton key.

To begin with she was just a girl I knew growing up.

Then she became a girl everyone knew.

And then a girl no one knew.

I didn’t call her anything. Some of us called her Bones. Later she was known as The Skeleton, or Skeleton Girl, although oftentimes the moniker was rendered as Skellington Girl which tells more about the company she had to keep than the rest of my story. Those she travelled with were illiterate, often vicious taskmasters who had little concerns over those in their care other than their capacity to make money. When I caught up with her the second time around I saw those exchanges that occurred when they thought no one was looking. Large men would enter her tent with anticipatory smiles, and it was barely a comfort when they left that those expressions were twisted into something unfamiliar: shame wrought on their faces.

Yet my first memory is of her moving next door. We lived in Tulsa. For a time it was known as the Oil Capital of the World. My father was a roughneck on the oil fields. He would return home slick. There was an iridescent ring of starling-feather discolouration around our tub that could never be shifted. Honest work. This dirt – this black gold dirt – was in complete contrast to the buildings that had sprung up around town, their art deco architecture of relative simplicity, planarity, symmetry, and unvaried repetition of elements seemed an extension of the machine: that marvel of the modern age. Will Rogers High School, the Philtower, Boston Avenue Methodist Church: they still stand today should you care to view them.

Of course, Tulsa had a darker history. The race massacre was a recent memory. It wasn’t that anyone spoke of it but it was another stain that couldn’t be shifted. Some times I think folks seek different targets to take their minds off atrocities, which possibly explains why they talked about her but never intervened.

I was sat on the stoop, whittling, when they pulled up to the house. She had no father with her. Her mother was a hook-nosed woman who picked the wrong side in fights. The girl was paper thin. Jokes came that she had to walk with a stick sideways in her mouth in case she fell through a drain cover. This is not what I saw that day. I saw a body that appeared to echo internal thought – a manifestation of a soul. She was a few months younger than me but older than her years. I expected to befriend her.

It was the holidays, so in those first weeks there was no school. I saw her rarely, but so exact was my initial impression that I had become fixed to the stoop, surrounded by shavings, silently shaking my head when friends invited me to go to the lake or on rabbit shoots. It was as though she had found a way to capture me with barely a look. I was hollowed from the inside out whilst for her it was the outside in. That’s how I describe it now, although maybe it was no more than morbid curiosity, an affinity for the strange.

I’d kick a ball in the vicinity. She might come out to hang washing, her arms as thin as the line. We’d exchange a look but the howdy stuck fast in my mouth. There was a tension there that only now I might define as sexual. We were thirteen. Buds on the tree of life. She’d return inside. The backs of her knees concave. In my daydreaming I saw her legs bend wrongways like those of a stork.

If there was an innocence to my observation then this collapsed when school resumed. My closest friends catcalled her. They’d forgotten about me when I stepped out of the game. The most inventive was Coathanger, but Bones was common. They’d crowd behind her back in the playground like leaves caught in a dust devil but no one would touch her. She wasn’t brittle – there was fibre in her being – yet you imagined she might collapse like a folding chair. I could see they were afraid of her. Their whispering a barrier, a defence.

There was something thrilling in becoming a voyeur. I’d observe this cruel behaviour, admire her restraint. By not participating I considered myself an accomplice: aligned myself to her over my friends. I’m sure that unspoken bond was in my head. Yet this suggestion of intimacy granted me permission to observe her inappropriately, from ever-decreasing distances.

I took to watching her window after dusk: an illuminated square that she would extinguish as she entered her room. Her form in subsequent shadow as thin as the light cord dangling from the ceiling, whilst she reached down to pull her dress off over her head. I could write music to it.

One afternoon I enacted a cherished fantasy. I approached her house with a handful of hen’s eggs. A faux-neighbourly gift. I knew her mother was out. The back door was open. I said nothing as I entered the house. She stood by the sink, naked, washing dishes. It was then that I saw her mother’s sodden ways had rubbed her rib cage raw. Her body was as manipulated as a Chinese woman’s feet or the extended necks of the Burmese Karen tribe. It wasn’t natural. It was abuse.

I can still hear the sound of those eggs smacking on the wooden boards. Still see that slight turn of her head.

When I pressed my hand to my chest the hammering remained.

I didn’t run. She watched me unashamed. Her body as ridged as an art deco monument. I stepped forward.

By winter she had joined the freak show. I charted its progress through advertisements and word of mouth. As I aged, I took to following it around. The Skeleton. The Skellington Girl. Bones.

I saw that no one called her Margaret.

But I did.

*  *  *

"Commercial Book" was available in a special limited edition version with CD and chewing gum, however this has sold out. The regular paperback is still available HERE although copies are also limited.

And here is the song, my inspiration (only the song, I hadn't seen this accompanying video before I wrote my story):

Betaville

My short story titled "Betaville" has just been published in the anthology Unauthorised Departures edited by Rick McGrath for Terminal Press, and as usual I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

"Betaville" is one of twelve stories I've recently written which takes French New Wave Cinema as a starting point and then runs with an alternative version of it. There will be no surprises here that the inspiration for this story comes from Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 SF movie, "Alphaville".

The conceit in my story is somewhat based on real events. In 1978 Deborah Harry and Chris Stein from Blondie were considering filming a remake of "Alphaville", with Amos Poe directing, Deborah in the Anna Karina role, and guitarist Robert Fripp in the role of the detective, Lemmy Caution. Some publicity stills were made and rumour has it that Deborah and Chris bought the rights to remake the film from Godard for $1000 however the rights weren't Godard's to sell. True or not, for whatever reason, the remake never went ahead. In "Alphaville", Lemmy Caution journeys to the eponymous city where Alpha 60 has outlawed free thought and emotion. There is a dictionary in every hotel room that is continuously updated when words that are deemed to evoke emotion are banned. In my story, "Betaville", Deborah journeys to the eponymous city governed by Beta 60 (Godard) in order to buy the rights to make their movie, however finds that Beta 60 is on a mission to exclude popular films from future history, so that movies subsequently disappear from the listings in Halliwell's Film Guide. The story works both as a playful accompaniment to "Alphaville", containing references which lovers of the film and of Blondie will connect with, as well as standing alone as a short story in its own right. It was a blast to write, and hopefully readers will engage with it too.

Deborah Harry & Robert Fripp 

Here's an extract: 

Deborah wears a black gabardine trench coat with a removable sherpa lining. The expressway is lit yellow both sides. Her foot is down hard on the accelerator of the 1967 Chevrolet Camaro coupe. Occasional overhead lights strobe her face. She is alone. A gun may or may not be in the glove compartment. She seems to have come from nowhere.

Chris has stayed in New York. It is her mission to buy the rights from Godard. An assignation has been arranged. They’ve done some preliminary photoshoots with Fripp. She’s wearing a black one-piece, her hair all 50s starlet, star lit. He’s donned black slacks, a black jacket. Not quite a suit. White shirt punctuated by a black tie. The larger end of the tie is higher up than the shorter end, as though knotted in the dark. There’s footage too. A screen test. Fripp can’t keep a straight face. Deborah wears dark glasses, pulls at her cheeks as if getting into character. Head shots.

The photographs have been printed and reside in a brown manilla envelope on the passenger seat. Collateral or a statement of intent.

She grits her teeth.

Godard has suggested they meet in the past.

There’s a junction somewhere in sidereal space.

She keeps her eyes to the road. Traffic merges at all angles, entering the stream on zipwires. Getting mighty crowded. The Camaro reverberates to a different timbre. The road surface deteriorates. Up ahead a lump of tarmac resembles a sleeping policeman. When she hits it, something triggers. The sultry voice of Paco Navarro on WKTU-FM is lost to crackle. Potato chip radio. There is a flash of darkness, an antithesis. It picks her up and spits her out. She maintains a steady fifty. Everything is black and white.

Beta 60 broadcasts. The recognisable voice mechanical, as if comprised of the aforementioned crackle.

< I am trying to change the world >

Regular readers of this blog will know I usually listen to music through headphones whilst writing, and this entire story was written to the mostly instrumental (and futuristic) song, "Europa", from Blondie's 1980 album, "Autoamerican", on continual repeat.

To reiterate, "Unauthorised Departures" is published by Terminal Press, and in addition to myself features stories from the following: Maxim Jakubowski, James Goddard, Hunter Liguore, Rhys Hughes, David Quantick, Paul A. Green, Ana Teresa Pereira, Tom Frick, Eugen Bacon, Lawrence Russell, Lyle Hopwood, Elana Gomel, D. Harlan Wilson, David Paddy, Andrew Frost, Don MacKay, and Paul H. Williams. Buy it here. The book comes in both paperback and hardback editions.

Commercial Book

My eleventh collection of short stories, "Commercial Book", has just been announced for pre-sale over at Psychofon Records. This is my second book to be written in association with the legendary San Francisco anonymous avant-garde art collective known as The Residents, following my book on the Mysterious N Senada, O For Obscurity, Or, The Story Of N. Those familiar with the band will be fully aware that in 1980 The Residents released “Commercial Album”, a collection of 40 songs each of exactly one minute in duration. I always thought these were similar to story prompts, and I wondered whether the band might be interested in furthering that idea. Contacting the Cryptic Corporation - and after consultation with their representative, Homer Flynn - I was given the go-ahead to write this book. The idea was to apply a similar restriction to the fiction as it had been to the songs. I felt that forty short stories each of exactly one thousand words in length would be an appropriate method, with those stories named after the corresponding song title and using the lyrics – where there were some – as inspiration. Homer confirmed that The Residents had considered telling me their own interpretations of the songs, however they had then decided it was better to give me free reign. The resulting stories are therefore a product of my imagination, distilled through Commercial Album, but do not directly represent the band members’ views of the source material. I imagine many of these stories differ quite considerably from the inspiration behind the songs, although I have invoked several motifs that those who are familiar with the band will be able to identify.

Myself with Homer Flynn, Leeds, 2023

After catching a couple of shows with the band early last year I began to write the stories. I did this in order of appearance on the album, without thinking too much about them beforehand. Whilst writing each song I played it on a loop - meaning that I heard the tracks on average about one hundred and fifty times before I'd finish the story. I always finished each story in one writing session. Whilst it's fun to see how the stories sprang from the songs, I want to stress that you don't have to be a Residents fan to appreciate the stories. These are genre tales which wholly stand alone in their own right.

Once written, I sent the manuscript over to The Residents who approved. They were able to provide me with the original artwork for the album together with permission to include the song lyrics. As O For Obscurity had done well being published by Psychofon Records it was agreed we would continue that relationship. The pre-sale included a limited edition of the book where the first hundred are hand-numbered and come in special Psychofon packaging with the complete Commercial Album Radio Ads CD that was intended for Ralph Records promotion in 1980 as a bonus. At the time of writing, those limited edition copies have already sold out, however the standard paperback remains available.

The pre-order information regarding the standard version can be found on the Psychofon Records website.

Meanwhile, here's some pre-press reviews:

With little to no exception, The Residents found the stories to be absolutely delightful.

- Homer Flynn, President, The Cryptic Corporation

They may be miniatures, but Andrew Hook’s globe-spanning, genre-hopping tales conjure entire worlds within 1000 words. His lonely, haunted characters are immersed in dreams and steeped in film and music. ‘Commercial Book’ is another essential collection from one of our most gifted storytellers.

- Tim Major, author of Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives

A dissonance of the near sinister thrums inside each beautiful tale- Eugen Bacon, twice World Fantasy Award finalist and British Fantasy Award winner

Cumulative Quote Story (2023)

 

During 2023 I read 80 books. Following each reading, on both Twitter and Instagram, I would post a picture of each book together with what I felt to be a pertinent quote from the contents. As I was devising my end of year list, it struck me that putting all these quotes together might form a short story, so - entirely without embellishment and wholly in the order in which the books were read - here it is. I think there's some really fluid segues! For those interested - which I imagine to be only a few - the titles of those 80 books (together with a list of favourites) is included in my 2023 summary of reading/watching/listening which I previously posted here.

 

Untitled

 And it was she who took his gun out of his pocket. She put it in his hand. I heard, "Shoot...Shoot while you're kissing me."

And if everyone believed that the boy was their son, of course there was no reason not to take him into their house.

The corridor was dark and smelt of too much disinfectant for concrete.

A photograph could never hold the shape of a sound.

It takes you strange digging up a littl dead kid like that. From so far back and dead for so long and all the time they ever had ben jus that littl.

The story of my life was a novel whose missing chapters included empathy and kindness and tolerance.

Maigret could not move. He lay inert, in a puddle, at the edge of infinite space.

The flower stared at Emily, then swayed from side to side until it seemed to haemorrhage into a cockerel with deep red plumage and a scarlet crest.

To these young men opportunity beckoned constantly, drawing them ever southward towards Los Angeles and, of course, Hollywood, where, eventually, all the adolescents in the world will be congregated.

I sobbed, and heard a loud ringing in my ears. My entire body throbbed; I felt huge, elephantine, as if I had become bulbous with inflamed limbs and grotesque deformities.

For good or evil you are yourselves, poised for a brief and dazzling time between two annihilations.

We live in the void of our metamorphoses.

You remember the urogi, the night runner you saw. The naked woman dancing alone in the blackness, then gone in a sprint. She could be a bad spirit.

It was such a feeble moan, at such a strange pitch, that, although it filled the house, it was hard to pinpoint its source, as if it were uttered by a ventriloquist.

I crouch by the wall until the night smudges into another grey day, half hoping the wolphins won't come. I've never touched even a sliver of wolphin meat, but how will they know that?

“Is that it?" asked Nicholas. “Is that your big plan? We're about to burn for all eternity and you're going for cocktails?”

Ducrau took a step forwards, perhaps to kiss the dead boy, but he did not do so. He seemed frightened. He looked away, at the ceiling, then at a spot by the door.

I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity the appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent.

Overhead, as the darkness became complete, the aurora appeared: a long arc of reddish light stretching from east to west, quivering, as if eager to expand.

We're not sorcerers. We can't have started anything.

She reached into the dress and pulled out a leaflet. It was crudely reproduced, like most of the human population.

I might be indiscreet, but I'll try not to offend. I may occasionally go into slightly bewildering detail, but I'll try not to be boring.

Just then a shot rang out, the room was filled with the smell of burnt gunpowder and a bluish cloud hung in the sunlight.

We walk into any room, and as expected, we catch Patty trying to bring the doll back to life.

Home was suddenly bright in his mind. Annika, Eva, he wanted to get back to them more than anything else.

Home was suddenly bright in his mind. Annika, Eva, he wanted to get back to them more than anything else.

What makes something art is the intention behind it.

I had no idea that I'd come to miss the decay and the danger.

He heard the whisper of a kiss close to him. He had a taste like someone else's saliva in his mouth.

I saw her in front of me and it was like I was speeding along a motorway with a car crash happening way up ahead, but instead of slowing down I was accelerating into it.

Manchester already had enough history for me, enough secret stuff buried away. Hidden rooms at the backs of houses. Moments sinking in the quicksand of time.

Trees are like recording devices, you just need to learn how to read them properly.

When watching foreign films, I was convinced that the words the actors were saying didn't match the subtitles, and that the characters had a direct message to me I couldn't understand.

I'd wager that the only reason he married you and spent so many years with a horror like you, with all due respect, is because you had a hold on him.

So here I am, a ghost in a world of zombies.

I do not know how dangerous the dust is now or in what quantities it is drifting over the hotel.

It's night work that lets something creep in.

Unless you have been inside a sanatorium you do not know that madmen are made there, just as criminals are made in our reformatories.

What do you think the crime rate is in your neighbourhood?

She wants me to think she gets pleasure from degrading herself.

It was an extraordinary moment, and Maigret would never forget the taste of it

I may be wrong, but I think in truth, we never really directly see, rather we imagine a fraction of a second later, what extends before our eyes.

The snouts were as long as human arms and seemed to have shapes at their ends serving as mouths.

Always dead-eyed and looking right through the observer, they resembled a team of assassins, each of whom specialised in a different means of killing.

Her hand, heavy with fake diamond rings, kept landing on the knee of the inspector, who looked glaucous-eyed at this frothing creature.

No operation could ever improve a woman's intellectual skills.

The world stilled, and then changed around her.

Dreams that apparently only last a few seconds can leave their mark on us for a long time, sometimes our whole lives.

No one had broken in. Someone had written in my diary.

Rock 'n' roll is bigger than just records, it's a way of life - you don't even need music to have rock 'n' roll.

I have become the swing of the fire iron.

I got a theory a person ought to do everything it's possible to do before he dies, and maybe die trying to do something that's really impossible.

Burn. Burn. Burn.

…he did seem to have the knack of framing what was essential...

It's hard to understand other people, to know what's hidden in their hearts, and without the assistance of alcohol it might never be done at all.

Surely a man could be forgiven almost anything if he could do this and get it right.

But it has begun and there is no stopping the process, which scans, unloads, associates and empties out in a welter of fact, heresay, and invented memory.

In paradise there are no desires, no pity, no love.

I'm milking the Zanzibar cows.

It was strange and barely understandable, but right here in the midst of love and hate, right at the fracture, the balancing point, this was his place in the world.

She has rediscovered her sharp voice and that disdainful look.

We are so often wrong about those we love, slowly debasing ourselves,, so gradually we barely notice we're doing it

Just then he looked at her and wondered, without knowing why, whether she really wanted him to have found out something.

Yes, the centre of everything is empty. That's how it must be.

He now wished he had started destroying people much earlier in his life.

Always the same song and dance to begin with, the same nervousness, the clenched fists, the darting sidelong glances...

Ginger Rogers said that she did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in heels, but I wouldn't go that far.

Often he thought of death, of himself gone and the great dark shoulder of the world for ever turning away from the nothingness of him forever in the blackness.

There was the sound of a door being slammed and the screeching of tires.

In this box-shaped windowless room, all the girls are named Natasha.

What a lonely place.

Her first night had not been a good one. Too many bad dreams, some of them true.

From the harbourside follow the promontory that stretches out to sea.

I would rather not go into details, but I noticed that there was something violently sexual about her feelings for me.

She had a much delayed wee: a nice yellow flow, then green, then flecks of orange. Lovely.

It was an obvious step to go from the man commuting to his office to the man remaining in his own environment and conducting his business through the use of advanced electronics.

Temperatures soared in the city and melted pear blossoms coated with frost.

Oh my God, Dahmer...what have you done?

Hell is a man's shadow printed on the side of a building.

Civilised men fear wild creatures, especially wild creatures of their own kind who remind them of life in the primeval forests of past ages.