Lost Stories

Mary knew she wasn’t allowed out, but the silence of the apartment was getting too   loud to bear. She got up from her bed and marked April 30th 1971 off her calendar   with black Sharpie before putting on her slippers and venturing out into the kitchen.   She had a mug of concentrated orange juice and a bowl of Kellogg’s cornflakes   with milk, the last of all three cartons. Food was running out but it wouldn’t be too   long before Agatha got back. Though she wanted to go outside and find her, she   knew she mustn’t. Too much could go wrong. Tripping down the stairs and breaking   her neck. Stepping on a rusted nail and getting an infection.   And, as Agatha had told her, it would be her own stupid fault if it happened.   The clock in the kitchen struck ten and Mary dropped her cereal bowl and glass into   the sink and went to the window to see the same thing she saw everyday.   Old Miss Mitche...

“The moon is an egg, you know.” said the homeless man. “It's filled with cannibalistic demons.” I nodded stoically as I sat on the park bench and watched him eating the Gregg’s pasty. A chunk of   chicken and gravy dropped into his beard. He wiped it off with decaying fingerless gloves. I spotted a single shaft of cotton on the pinky finger of his left hand. Not entirely fingerless but soon to be, I considered. I continued to swirl my pen around the   notepad. Somedays Simon was useful, but today I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe the material was   just too weak. “Anything else?”   Simon chewed.   “The world’s going to end in 2031.” he added, with the demeanour of a man remembering that he   needed to reschedule a dental appointment. Not that Simon needed to, of course, as he gnawed you could spot only about two of three teeth left in his mouth. “You can see it if you drive trains.” “Cool.” I replied. I dropped the note...