‘The name is familiar, maddeningly so, but Emily can’t work out who it is. Not because it is an unusual name, but rather because it is such an ordinary, placeholder one, instantly forgettable.’

‘n the backyard, my legs were outstretched between the Dolly Parton gnome and the old ammo box. The gnome belonged to my father, the box to my mother and my feet, well, they belonged to both of them.’

‘Inside the cushion palace, all we do is smoke.’

‘The door swung open; the bell rang. It sounded a hundred times louder than the reality, like a command to church. Which it was, in a way.’

‘Two girls sit in a field. One brunette and one blonde and both tired. So tired! Tired like chipped nails and soft pink. Tired like pale blue linen and smooth skin. Pink champagne and tennis dresses.’

‘At first, I liked how envious people were. I liked that they coveted my sons. But after a while their comments and sidelong glances began to make me feel self-conscious.’

‘As he taps a broken pen, his fingers turn inky blue. Beyond the office, outside, there are rows of matchstick conifers, tall and brittle boned: what a fire they would make.’

‘Saturday, and he sits at the lights. A night-bus chugs in the next lane, its passengers bleached in blue-white anonymity. He wonders, briefly, what it would be like to share these midnight journeys with others. But no.’

‘The cashier asks me if I want the receipt and I picture a cat locked inside a washing machine. The terrified cat tries to stay upright as the drum fills up with water and starts to rotate.’

‘This morning the tea man’s vending van had been coloured by graffiti. He was hosing and using bronze wool on it and cursing profusely. Never would've have happened back in Ireland, he said.’

‘And then came a change. The alteration in our biology.’

‘She takes to wearing a Pikachu onesie on first dates. The first man to meet her watches her approach like a malignant swarm of something.’

‘Notes by Mr Keith McNamara
FAO Prof. Christopher Sollertinsky, St. B*** Hospital

Day 1
Today I was my husband’s dead mother.’

‘I was fired from my job as a soda jerk for wandering away from the milkshake machine, the milkshake machine making a grinding roar that matched a sound in me I hadn’t known, and so I had to walk away.’

The boy hands over the teacher's instructions. Sans-serif links to the relevant apps, logins, Google Earth. A multidisciplinary exercise: the making of a map.‘

‘Great friend, follow these instructions.’

‘“You wouldn’t recognise yourself if you met yourself,” you once explained, mouth wise and full of stolen sweets. “Because you’ve only ever seen yourself in a mirror. The wrong way round.”’

‘The yellow cream sits thick on the top of the milk. The two children sit watching the bottle closely, waiting for their mother to depress the red foil top and dispense its contents. They used to both clamour for it but have since learned that the child sitting most patiently is usually rewarded.’

‘In 1870, Oskar became the census taker because he could sit a horse, write his name, and appreciate a warm body.’

‘In the faint blue light of the night we get into his bed and wait for time to run out. In hiding, we hold onto what we think we are and what we wish we were.’