Why We Die

Don't. Don't do anything. Just go. Now." It was always possible that if you very quickly told a man four times to do something, he'd get the message.

Things weren’t always better with coffee, but they were reliably worse without it.

He looked like a posterboy for something expensive but ultimately soulless, like alcohol-free lager, or a New Labour policy initiative.

That was the process in a nutshell, really. Your body did what it was going to do. You took steps in mitigation, but the face you were growing into was already there.

A scratching noise made her turn, but it was only a cat, its paws clicking on a drain cover. The look it granted her was part contempt, part indifference; all cat.

Trains at night were a melancholy sound. They rendered every Country song Zoë’d ever heard redundant.

Katrina touched her cheek. Purple or blue; black or crimson. What is your favourite colour?

Trent didn’t feel drunk, which was alarming. He’d been drinking all day. If he wasn’t drunk, he’d possibly turned some evolutionary corner.

She flipped the light switch in passing, but nothing happened. It was an immutable law that bulbs only went when there was no spare on the premises.

It was an immutable law that bulbs only went when there was no spare on the premises.

clothed it in flesh, and painted it in action? And this was her father facing the camera, as if the photographer, coaxing the required reaction, had asked What makes you smile? and he had replied The muscles at the corner of your mouth. They make you smile.

Children should reconcile you to your own mortality. All parenthood had done for him had been make him aware of his child’s inevitable end.

She refused a cup of tea for obvious reasons, and returned to the car, reminding herself to jot down numberplates if any of the cited infractions occurred. Pink wool, white hair—the old duck might be Miss Marple, and come checking.

It would not simply be the end of Zoë Boehm. It would be the end of everything—of armchairs, tap water, curtains: everything. The fact that they would continue for other people didn’t count.

Its burning smell mingled with others—with the wine; with the trace of her perfume hanging in the air; with his own bodily odour—and all of it produced a self-disgust so enormous, he wished he could disappear.

His body would have slackened further into that Babapapa shape men declined into; he’d have become seedier, the way men on their own did.

It’s medicinal, he wanted to say. It would stop the pain, he meant. A smart woman had once remarked that what put you off drugs was the embarrassing slang you had to use.

He returned to the book he wasn’t reading. Words swam into vision, took their usual route to his brain, and evaporated immediately, leaving no discernible impression.

Rediscover the traditional art of ear-coning, under a trained therapist.

Women choose men hoping they'll change. Men choose women hoping they won't.

Two years older. His body would have slackened further into that Babapapa shape men declined into; he’d have become seedier, the way men on their own did. Would be making his shirts last an extra day. And there’d never be anyone else again, because who would love him now? He’d been lucky the first time. Luck wouldn’t happen twice. And he really didn’t think he could take another unlucky day. The important word here was really.