“Try shrinking your ego and expanding your brain!” she yelled. “Eh? I got a distinction in Physics and a scholarship for my masters…and you’re telling me to expand my brain?” She marched out and slammed the door so hard that I thought the cottage would crumble to the ground. An image rushed to my head …
A True Verdict by Anthony Padman
Anthony Padman was born in Malaya (as it was then called) and educated in schools in Malaya and Singapore. Later, he went for tertiary studies to the United Kingdom. He graduated with a Law Degree from the University of Wales and subsequently called to the English Bar. He has both taught and practised Law in …
The X to the Y by Zed Rahman
It was Oscar Wilde that once wrote, ‘All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his’. I’m not sure I quite agree with you Oscar but I’m hardly going to argue with one of the most prolific writers of the 19th century. Mainly because you’re a very intelligent man …
Basant by Palo Stickland
Palo was born in the Punjab but has spent most of her life in the Glasgow area. She began writing three years ago after retiring from local government education department. She is currently writing her first novel as part of a postgraduate degree in creative writing at the University of Strathclyde. This is an extract from her story, …
Ordinary Dreams by TS Abilash
The vendor selling fruits on his trolley with little paint left on it was crying and shouting loud, ‘Ber-le lo- Ber’ (*1) in the busy market of Mandai. The sun was scorching down upon him from right above. He felt the heat. He looked up with his eyes half open and half shut. Salty sweat …
Ayah by Leela Soma
Leela Soma lives in Scotland where she works as a Principal Teacher in Glasgow. She recently won the Margaret Thompson Davis Trophy for the first 10,00 words of a novel. This is an extract from her short story Ayah which has previously been published in SQA’s new ‘Write Times’. It was a tropical night, a heavy navy curtained …
The Pariah by Dina Begum
Why should she feel as though she is living in somebody else’s house? It was hers by right. She had been the one to marry him and move with him to a house that resembled a hotel after all. The rooms do not feel as though they belong to her somehow, pale washes of blue …
The Fudge Club by Yamboy
It was in the middle of the Great Fudge Recession that Fudgie Fudgerson decided he needed to do something about the fudge crisis that was hampering the government’s efforts to boost the country’s morale. Fudge prices were at an all-time high. They had invaded neighbouring countries for their Weapons of Mass Fudging, only to find …
The Money Carpet by Abhijit Dasgupta
Abhijiit Dasgupta is an Indian editor with over twenty five years. He currently works in Kolkata as the editor of India Today. He has recently completed his debut novel The Vice Song. Anirban always thought he was like a flower. Small, pink, slightly soiled, the sort you see lying unheeded beside some trees in a …
The Secret Arts by Azma Dar
Azma Dar is currently working on her debut novel aswell as a play based on a true story set in WW2, Noor, for which she received an Arts Council grant in 2006. Her first play Chaos, the story of a Muslim family, set in the aftermath of 9/11, was read as one of ten pieces in Kali …