The Forester’s Daughter

The Forester’s Daughter

When he is getting into his car, a stranger who holds his cards close to his chest approaches. ‘I understand you have a dog you’d sell.’ ‘A dog?’ says Deegan. ‘Aye,’ he says, ‘a gun dog. Do you still have him?’ ‘Well, I do.’ Deegan is set back on his heel but he...
Our Strangers

Our Strangers

On Sufferance The cat says, “I’m only here on sufferance.” The dog doesn’t understand, so the cat defines the word sufferance. It has to do with a kind of tolerance. It has to do with permission that is only indirect, permission through failure...
Timbuktu

Timbuktu

He spent the night in a vacant lot, cowering under a profusion of weedy growths and pinprick stars, barely able to keep his eyes shut for more than five unbroken minutes. Bad as the day had been, the night was even worse, for this was the first night he had ever spent...
Night Boat To Tangier

Night Boat To Tangier

Benjamin? Charlie says. He want a black-sand beach. He want to be talking bollocks. He want a circle of swaying dreadlocks all ’round him. He want the girls and the dogs hanging on his every word. He want to be staring all soulful into the moonlight. Ranting his...
The Night

The Night

You are a child in a small town. You are, to be exact, eight years old, and it is growing late at night. Late for you, accustomed to bedding in at nine or nine-thirty: once in a while perhaps begging Mom or Dad to let you stay up later to hear Sam and Henry on that...