The familiar sensation soothed me. It had been my comfort as long as I can remember, like a drug, and I had been having strange withdrawal symptoms since adapting to my civilian life. It felt good to be back, there’s no point in denying it. I glanced at the trooper next to me, and as a distraction, attempted the impossible task of identifying the individual hairs standing to attention on the...

Failed Novelist.

Werther looked out of his bedroom window at the London sky. “It is as if January’s wearing thin,” he said though it was the beginning of April.

Selena was outside chopping logs. The sun had just poked out again. She stared at the sky thinking about how apocalyptic the sky was at late. Snow, sun, hail, sun, rain, wind, sun. It was a feeble sort of half-hearted sun, not quite convincing because not quite convinced. It was midday, she was at her parents’ house in Wales. She didn’t need to chop wood because there were plenty of logs that had been pre-chopped, but the action of pounding something with an axe soothed her. She finished chopping and resumed her usual calm, pensive smile. The others weren’t up yet.
She went indoors and put the...