Matt Gemmell

I look up from below, at the patchwork of shapes above me. They come in all forms, and all geometries, some moving and some perfectly still. Many have a human shape, or the shape of a tree, or a building, all with skewed angles that shallow and then deepen as each day dawns and passes. To me, they’re like clouds; black clouds on a negative sky, far above me but all within reach. I need only look to one, or fasten my attention upon it, to go there — and then I can be in the real world too. ...

She was a tobacco blonde, and she wasn’t getting younger. Thomson watched her from across the way, sitting in a soulless coffee place but drinking mint tea instead. He found the spectacle fascinating, glimpsed through the steam coming off the mug he held to warm his hands. There was an alley where she was standing, and she would back into it a bit if a police vehicle rolled by. Thomson thought it was a questionable move; too conspicuous. She would have been better just checking her phone, o...

It was an obnoxiously beautiful day, trite and insulting. Blue, hazy skies in a complex and fading gradient. A few streaks of lazy cloud dusted in for visual interest. Birds desperate to tell anyone and everyone who would listen. Heat making the tarmac seem to writhe. The kind of day where nature gives the middle finger to all human affairs, and people are still grateful for it. The analogue clock on the dashboard of the old grey Mercedes Benz pretended that elegance compensated for inaccur...