COWS

by Matthew Stokoe

He wanted to scream at her that he could be like them, that one day he would have love and a wife and everything else. But he knew the bitch was right, he couldn't leave. He had plans. He needed safety in which to copy the lives he saw on TV. The dreams he had of rebuilding himself would be impossible to fulfil without it.

out on to the roof, panting and pushing the skylight open and gulping down the gritty air of the city that seemed back then to expand in your lungs and float you up and out into a world not shared by monsters or mother.