The man lay naked on the marble of the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens and exposed his arsehole to the sky, his head resting over the lip of the ledge up high; quite, quite high. A dozen policemen paced beneath him, and told us, the crowd, to go home. We were not helping.
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‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
‘Every time I tried to write more, it turned out to be a fruitless endeavor – I felt like I was trapped in a sealed room with no windows.’
Fiction by Yu Hua, translated by Michael Berry.
‘People say it’s healthy for couples to fight, it means there’s still passion. I’ve always assumed that was bullshit, but now I’m not sure.’
Fiction by Brad Phillips.
‘How do you love a monster when they are no longer monstrous?’
New fiction by Diana Evans.
‘Being recognised as part of a couple thrilled me; I felt legitimised. John had a life, a full life.’
Fiction by Sophie Collins.
‘The script of script production rather followed the script of sex: it was intimate, exciting, boundary-crossing, and left the participants changed.’
Susan Pedersen on paranormal love in the Balfour family.
‘It hurt for no particular reason, just as the sun rises each morning and the stars come out each night. ’
