Because she is so little and there is so little to do, Bittie Betina spends some mornings dropping bits of colored thread through the cracks in the floor.

I remember the tan guinea pig, dead of dehydration. Through the wire bars of her cage I viewed her body. She lay stiff on her side, stretched out, as if in her guinea-pig dream she had been running through grassland, open and close to the sky.

The gel is cold against my bare legs and bare feet, but I listen to the woman and try to do what it is she wants me to do. She asks me to pretend like I am bicycling in the air, and I lean back on the squishy mat and rotate my legs. She asks me to kick.

“Well, there you go. Jesus won't let you drown.” They all looked at each other in agreement as one of them said this. I looked all over the pool room. I didn't see Him. Through tears and in between sobs I told them so.

My sister, Bonnie, is busy with the dishes as I enter the kitchen; I toss the mail I was sorting through onto the table and look around for Sophie, my four-year-old daughter. "Bonnie, isn't she ready…

Stalin and sex. These S&S were taboo. We knew nothing about. Paradox... no-one can answer ... (190 words)

I'm upside down on my hands with my eyes to the drain, when the bottom of the tub shakes free of the rest of the bathroom and starts sinking. I descend with it into the dark water, past the submerged pipes, down into a bubbly abyss.

Clare sits bolt upright in the hard plastic chair, warily tracking every passer-by. In her lap, Kim’s hair is damp with sweat, dark blonde curls melting against her flushed cheeks. Clare absently strokes the length, soothing both of them.