Popshot Magazine May 2018

I sometimes wonder whether the truth is overrated. Does it do us any good to know the world is in a terrible and terrifying state? Wouldn’t we be happier if our crushes told us they loved us desperately, completely, exclusively? Who wants an expert opinion when there’s someone – anyone – to defend an easier view? If everyone lied to each other and to themselves, what would it matter? I’m over that now. Post-truth is very last year. Even fake news is old news. Would a life of lies be better? No, it would not. From William Hillier’s sizzling short story, Towns Like Ours (p36), following a woman who delights in exposing secrets, to Ben Normanton’s playful design project, Post-Truth (p23), exploring life in the digital age, your pieces on…

‘And this,’ Neale Michaels said, motioning with a sweeping gesture, ‘is our pride and glory, our green wall.’ A vertical lush-land crept its way up the exterior of the building, flowing and undulating like a pot of boiling soup. Shades of green, from the minty paleness of fur-tongued leaves to the vibrant yellow tips of petals poured down the surface of the wall. Windows, small glimmers of sunlight reflecting in the glass, peeped out from behind the vivid biology. A small seed unfurled in Bonnie’s stomach. She had never seen anything so beautiful within the perimeters of this small, unremarkable town. Neale retracted his arm. He didn’t dress like an executive coordinator – at least, not like any that Bonnie had ever encountered. His soft flannel shirt and stonewashed jeans…

It’s late. He’s lost all track of time,runs practised hands over wheel archeshe’s spent hours rubbing downbefore a going-over with glass paper. For weeks he’s tinkered with her gearbox,engineered that throaty purr. I attackchassis and spring hangers with a wire brush. From beneath the bonnet, an outstretched handdemands a ⅜” ratchet, combination wrench.I flex the tape rule’s steel tongue, admirehow it snaps back into its shut trap. I no longer dream of lovers’ lanes, pub nooks;I study maps for quarries, gravel pits,sheer drops…

You hear the tentative whisper of the wind become a whistle and the whistle hurl into a tormented howl sooner than you were prepared for it. You watch the branches of the leafless tree arch back reluctantly. Rebellious at first, relenting at last much like the defeated warrior of days gone by. …You dancing in the wind, eyes closed. Feeling the wistful wind reel you off the pavement. Drops of rain rolling off your fingertips and the cold cursorily cradling your hand. So cold. You open your eyes… You snatch away your hand from the open window, cast away your frivolous fancy. Seal the window shut. Pull the blinds down. Realisation dawns on you. You, an adult now. You turn your attention back to the laptop screen that stares back…

Dad had been found by a neighbour on the first-floor landing, a crimson halo radiating from his head. The paramedics suspected a heart attack or aneurysm, but the post-mortem revealed nothing that might have caused an otherwise healthy seventy-two-year-old to topple over and die like that. So to anyone who asked we said that he’d had a dizzy spell or stumbled down the stairs and split his head open on the tiled landing. Mum seemed to relish conveying such details to people, and during the week I was over for the funeral I witnessed the way she deftly refined the story. ‘Your dad wasn’t very popular,’ she said as we left the crematorium. Including us, six people had attended. No eulogy. ‘What about that colleague of his,’ I asked, ‘the…

Before you diedyou told meI don’t want youto ever be lonely. I remember that dayyou rowed our familyacross to the island.I remember the picnicand how we were hitby a storm so heavyyou were forced to carryus each back in turns.You took me first. I remember the two of usalone in that boat,the oars small comfortagainst the waves.I recall wanting to talk –how I knew that thiswas when I should sayeverything important.But we remainedmute to the shrieking gullsso afraid of ourselves.I recall how you left meto go back for the others,your slim back shrinkingagainst the swell. You were gone for hours.I remember the wetwaiting, pacingthe length of my shore.I recall just how it feltto know I’d survived –my throat hot and siltingunder emptying skies.…