In another life, the villains seemed legible. On 4 July 2019, a frigate detained an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar at the United States' request. The Iranians cited piracy. The British cited Syria. Both filed the correct paperwork. A fortnight later, Iran boarded a British vessel in the strait. Same

The floor is eighteen. The trapdoor, older – there since 1940, survived the carnations, asks only for sufficient reason. A colleague of the man who hung it has requested three of him, in bronze, at street level. He observes it, on Sundays. Speaks, with much feeling, about the Roma and their

The television drips. Saturday leaks down the wall. My mouth speaks facts about forged papers. The papers grow legs and wander into WhatsApp. Someone lifts a phone like a seashell. Inside it: my name, warped, echoing. A man assembles relevance from spare parts: a cousin, a discipline, a place I

at 11:13 she checks herself as one checks the sea has tea and toast with the dogs he wears the face with the accusation says it is nothing she says right again thinking how expensive it has become to erase the lines on her forehead the day splits like

The message pings at 6:47. It wakes the floorboards. Then the dogs. Then the thought that the world has changed. The curtains observe. The kettle prepares. An old lawyer in Monaco wants her thoughts on a case he calls complicated. He does not ask for her time. He moves

The gate has been trying to confess for weeks. First it claimed the motor was tired. Then the card reader had lost conviction. Then the central unit no longer recognised the hour. Each update arrived as a minor truth, delivered with the calm of one who believes the next sentence

Applied for a job in Riyadh On my lunch break, a whim of curated mischief. Checked “Approach to Ethics” and “Other.” They’ll never know how much subversion can fit into a checkbox — when you’ve spent a lifetime being one.