HOWZAT

Why I loved her so much, was that rebellion inside her. She'd go time and again to the tree in the glade he’d said not to harvest. So I thought – maybe I can get her that way. I'm a pretty good specimen, slim, straight legs, strong body. Maybe if I climb the tree, do some acrobatics, she'll see me; realize what she's been missing.

I was already there when she came into the glade that morning. I didn’t see, until I'd swung down, that he was with her. Embarrassed, I scrambled to get out of sight, and in the flurry an apple shrugged itself off its branch. She ran to pick it up, no hesitation, didn't even look at me. She said, with a smile, it's fallen off now anyway, might as well have it. She ate some and held it out to him. It's delicious. As he bit into it, lightening split the sky with a roar, and we all fell through space…. until the moment time began.

Now I have to watch them, bound by love and shame, banished to a life of struggle. They grow older by the minute. She doesn't look through me any more – just screams in fear as I crawl on my belly, trying to tell her I didn’t mean it to happen like that. She wouldn’t believe me though. You don’t, do you?

Early Morning Tea by Susie Fellows, 43

A muscle in his upper arm trembled as he raised the kettle and tipped it over the teapot. Every weekday morning for sixty-one years he’d made Edie an early morning cup of tea and she’d returned the favour at weekends. Even after retirement, when he no longer needed to rise early, they had continued the roles, secure in the ritual of ordered married life. Of course, he’d taken over the weekend cuppas too after her first stroke.

As usual he grimaced at the term. It was no gentle caress that had left her so very debilitated. She’d moved to a home nine months ago, after the family had persuaded him that she needed full-time care. He felt the tears well up as he remembered the first time he’d left her there. She had seemed…so surprised. Guilt had lodged in his heart that day and taken up permanent residence, cheek-by-jowl with loneliness.

He poured the tea and shakily carried it back to the bedroom. He used a mug now, instead of cup and saucer, telling her the jangling of china had got on his nerves. He hadn’t yet told her about the accident when he’d caught his foot on the corner of her dressing table, and batted the cup into the curtains. He was saving that anecdote for one of her good days, hoping to raise a lopsided smile.

It would take him four hours to get ready: washing, shaving, dressing and then a late breakfast. He’d drive to the Home and help feed her the mid-day meal, spooning in her liquidised portion as he kept up the one-sided conversation.

When the tea trolley came, he would collect Edie’s spouted beaker himself and deliver it tenderly to her bedside. You could say it was a routine.

Same taste in footwear by Fran Hill, age 46, from Warwick

Cinderella, a downtrodden, pasty-looking thing, lived with her two sisters and stepmother. Despite being downtrodden and pasty-looking, Cinderella was still a bloody sight more attractive than they were. Granted, she got sooty from sweeping the grate, but it was pointless getting dolled up anyway when you never got invited anywhere. The only time she got out was to do her NVQ Level 1 in Broom and Mop Operative Essential Skills. She’d struggled with some components, not being that bright.

One day, though, an invitation came from the Prince. “Dear Householder,” it began, which led to an undignified scramble between the two sisters and the stepmother who each paid a third of the rent. Still, it turned out that the party had happened the night before. They’d only just got the invitation because of a postal strike.

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