Dating is different in a dystopian world...

Moving into your first flat with a lover is a stressful time, but when precious objects become damaged, there'll be tears before bedtime. Thank goodness for the Bronte family band!

A young couple are taken on a life-changing journey. A story based on real events. "Captain Parker took us aboard his ship in 1847. That winter, the Caribou did not arrive and the seals had come late. Many of our people had eaten their dogs and twenty had died of starvation. When Captain Parker gave up his store of whale fins and flippers there was much fighting, but our elders made sure all had their share. The captain and the ship’s doctor had learned Inuktitut and conversed with the elders of our tribe. When he spoke of taking some of us to show to his people, my father offered me and I was accepted by the captain as I was young and healthy. He promised my father that he would tell his people of the plight of our tribe. He said we would bring back many riches and the goodwill of great people. They would send men to build settlements and we would be helped by them, just as the Inuits of the East were helped by the Danes. The captain wanted to take a female too, and after inspecting some of our younger girls he chose Uckaluk. He said it would be proper for us to be married before the journey. The weather was becoming unfavourable for setting out to sea, he had to hasten the start of the voyage, so we began our life as man and wife without the blessings and customs of our people. Captain Parker performed his own marriage ceremony on board the ship. Home was far away only minutes after the Truelove set sail for the land called England. The sea was wide and long..."

Yasuko works in a brothel in Tokyo. One night she is visited by a new client... "The front door was already closed against the storm, and I thought I was finished for the night. Crossing the landing, I was on my way to borrow a jar of face cream from Mayu, when I heard the bell. Then, Mama-san’s fulsome stream of welcome: of course it was not too late, it was her pleasure, she had the prettiest girls, as well as the most refined and cultivated... Her tongue ran on. That meant a stranger. How old? I paused, silent-slippered, at the top of the stairs. From here, you can see, in Mayu’s words, ‘close enough to spit’. Older men are generally sent my way. The ‘traditional’ clients, Mama-san calls them, those who like my tiny, doll-like feet and hands, and want to kid themselves they’re connoisseurs of high culture. I can even perform a tea ceremony and, in theory, play my late mother’s ancient koto, although I’ve not fitted the pick on my finger since I first left home. Fortunately, no client has ever asked me for that form of entertainment."

This is the story of two characters in a small town in Wales who only meet once, with shocking consequences.

It's hard to describe what it was that made Grandma's house so spooky, but as long as I could remember, something permeated the house with a sense of unease. It was not until I was ten that I heard about Esme...

"I killed my little brother. When he was two, and I was six, I crept into his bedroom and suffocated him with a pillow while he slept. ‘No you didn’t, Nadine,’ said my mother, ‘It’s a dream.’ ‘It’s a dream about guilt,’ my psychiatrist said, patting me on the knee. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself, my dear, it wasn’t your fault.’ On Tuesdays, I go to the Community Clinic for my weekly meeting with parents who are thought to present a risk to their children. Publicly, it’s called a ‘parents’ support group’ so they have a cover story when they come into reception. But these mums and dads are under no illusions; they watch me scribbling notes and know my risk assessment will dictate their future. If they give the right response, the courts may grant them a family life; the wrong answers and they won’t see their children again; something in between and they could get one afternoon a fortnight at a contact centre where, corralled by cuddly toys, they will try to engage their little strangers in a parody of play, under the watchful eye and busy pen of a social worker. While this process grinds slowly forward, the children who are being protected will metamorphose into sullen teenagers with unmet needs who will probably follow the pattern of their parents, having children of their own who will be in need of protection; and the cycle will start again..."

Some things are better left unfound. "Mark yawned, sipped his fourth cup of coffee of the night and found that familiarity was breeding contempt. This instant shit was just about tolerable out on the rigs, but he’d hoped for more from his first night of leave in over six weeks. Some company would have been a start. Kate was supposed to have been there well before him, making the place homely, stocking the cupboards with fresh food, good wine, good beer and he had hoped, good coffee. Not that he gave a shit about groceries at the moment. She was late. Really late. The supposedly cosy interior of their rented cottage was seeming lonelier by the minute and the empty chair on the other side of the kitchen table just amplified the effect. The nature of his work meant they had to deal with long periods of separation at times but it was an agreed rule that neither of them would ever lengthen that absence if it could be avoided. More than that, the thing that was really nagging at him was that generally Kate, like many so others he supposed, was barely able to let a minute pass without checking for or sending a text, yet she was now some ten hours late and he still hadn’t heard a thing. He glanced at his phone again, just in case, and tried not to notice that the clock on his phone read a little past four am. There was currently no signal. Not even the single rogue bar that had been teasing him throughout the night. A flash of thigh here, the promise of mobile coverage there. He traced the grain of the table with his finger and once again tried to run through the list of benign yet logical reasons as to why his darling wife was almost half a day late. Traffic was an obvious possibility or perhaps she’d got lost and decided to stop off somewhere for the night. Maybe the car had broken down and a kindly AA employee was at this very moment organising a replacement so that this lovers’ reunion wouldn’t be ruined. And then came the drunk drivers, faulty brakes, crazed hitchhikers and multiple car pile ups..."