Fiction
"...at half past four" by Peter McGregor
I took inventory of the car rather than trying to make small talk with this curious young man: two flat bucket seats that almost joined in the middle, real wood on the dash, a parcel shelf below the glove-box that in my youth would have been used to elevate sweaty thong-clad feet. A gear lever as thin as a pencil stuck out of a transmission tunnel halfway as high as Uluru. Round dials with real levers behind real glass.
"I like your car," I said finally. "An old Hillman Minx isn't it? One of the later ones. Around nineteen-sixty-four?"
"Fade" by Lee Battersby
The room is dark. I lie in the exact centre of the bed, with my head nestled between the pillows. Shadows talk to me from the ceiling. In them, I catch a glimpse of what things will be like when I fade away. The silence is wonderful in the dark: strong and comforting. I can think of anything. I could create whole worlds never before imagined. Instead I populate my dreams with parrots: drinking cappuccinos; eating foccaccias; talking of business plans and BISEP models, compliance pyramids and audit trails; filling the silence with the babble of senseless birds. A cold breeze blows across them. A single grey hair, all that is left of me, floats toward the floor.
