Lanny

by Max Porter

Ah, Lanny, my friend, look at these blank pages. Don’t you feel like God at the start of the ages? You could do anything.

waif.

And then the word Lanny started bursting like blossom on the branch of the evening.

Sleeplessness does the devil’s joinery, son.

biro

We are but pitiful narrative creatures, Mrs Brailsford, obsessing over the agony of not knowing. Sisyphus, Atlas, Echo, all those poor souls, now us. It is the oldest story of them all; never-ending pain.

He smells like natural truth, like sex and death.

traipses

flints