84K

by Claire North

There wasn’t enough personality in Theo Miller for people to love or hate.

pedalled away without bothering to tuck his trousers into his socks.

that in all his efforts to be anonymous he had in fact ceased to be a person whatsoever.

blue-skies thought-dynamic

sometimes he remembers both, and both are true,

She was sent to juvenile detention, where she worked copying and pasting five-star online reviews for sports products.

same GCSE classes, including food distribution and logistics, business studies and graphics for marketing.

she maintained the fish-gut nets where the flies bred in order to produce maggots for the medicinal trade.

two bathrooms now that’s something to look forward to that’s something!”

It is the time that must be taken to do the thing that needs to be done.

Answered the phone when his mum called, and when they’d gone too long without talking would call her and they’d chat for an average of forty-three seconds.

“Justice is doing the right thing for society.

the boy was autistic and assessed as being unlikely to contribute very much to society.

Now £45,000 and that’s the expunging of all records including police, and Dani Cumali’s death will be registered as drug overdose . . . ” “It’s an extra £700 to alter the death certificate.”

You must live your life first before you can help others, you must have the security so that you are not a burden, must have the space to be free to be able to make a difference to have that freedom – freedom is a thing which must be bought you buy the freedom you buy . . .

“Illegal but affordable.”

Whoomp whoomp whoomp went the music and the security guards looked the other way and money switched hands and no one cared, and none of it mattered.

“I was a journalist,” Faris announced, a tale told too many times, the meaning sucked away into only words. “I was done for libel. The indemnity was £329,560.

That makes it law. That means no one did anything wrong.

“If a Company man kills a stranger, he pays less than an ordinary citizen. He’s worth more to society than other people – no point penalising the successful for a lapse in judgement.

Someone who isn’t a stranger would get hurt, if we ever managed to speak the truth of things.

It’s like going to church, only different like. Sometimes I scream, it’s like praying, but different.

she hadn’t been able to see that the shape of her soul was a woman, blazing with light.

when I cut my wrists but didn’t die, men shouldn’t do that, men shouldn’t die, Dads shouldn’t ever

caring isn’t the same as doing something,

saw that this was a family who kept their ketchup in the fridge rather than the cupboard but seemed to just leave mayo standing wherever they wanted – odd that, very odd. He was at a loss to understand.

My evils have been ordinary evils. My sins against the world are daily, little sins that no one would question.

If you fuck us, I will make you eat your own fucking eyeballs.” “Right. Well. That’s very clear.”

think people like to be right. And they like to be told that they’re right. And they forget when they’re not, because it makes them feel bad, and most of the time they’re wrong.”

do you regret? Is that what you feel?” Theo thought about it. “I think I would,” he said at last. “If there wasn’t something more important to do.”

cutting off her voice from the outside world, who tried texting their friends about her, and thought the text had sent, and didn’t really understand why they never got a reply.

I am good at my job. It’s important to be good at your job. It’s very important. It’s how we know we’re . . . good people. Because we work hard. We work hard and we do our best and . . . I am very good at my job. You were good at your job too, weren’t you, Mr Miller? If we are both good at our jobs, then it doesn’t matter what these jobs are, because it isn’t the consequence that matters, just the doing.

sort of assume that if they do what they did before, maybe it’ll be okay eventually.