[Roger Slater]

If life is a penny arcade, all I have is quarters, and they don't fit in the slots, but all around me other people, lacking pennies themselves, seem to possess large sacks of illegal slugs that fool the games into letting them play. I once saw a clown removing his makeup. Beneath it, more makeup, equally hideous. No, much as I love the lions, it's time to jump off of the elephant train, make roots in a town too small for the circus.

[Terese Coe]

removed by tc

[Janet Kenny]

Do not ask me about my first nightmares in which I shivered naked and hungry as my mother made love to a stranger on a sack of flour hurled into a rat-infested corner. Do not ask me about the beatings and the abasement. Do not ask me about prison and corruption. Do not ask me about my awakening to the presence of my father nor of the pain and humiliation he caused my mother and my half-sister. Never ask me about my failing sight and above all do not ask me about Sigismund’s skin disease which ended all hope for my family.

[Janet Kenny]

Would Morton take to Phyllis or would he have one of his irrational fits? Planning a dinner table was always a delicate affair. Was it still acceptable to use place-names or should one just smile and casually suggest to people that they should be seated? Alfred would want to avoid eye contact with Sidney and Jacqueline always made eyes at Alfred. She would be wearing one of those dresses again. No Jacqueline would have to sit next to Morton. Would Morton prefer Jacqueline to Phyllis or would Phyllis become jealous? David was always reliable. He was a good conversationalist and Sidney enjoyed his jokes. Martha was surly but Alfred would jolly her along and she was reassuringly plain. What if people talked so long the soufflé was spoilt? Were soufflés still acceptable. One didn’t hear much of soufflés nowadays. It was all warm salads. Should she serve one of those instead? If they talked too long would they get poisoned by salmonella? It was all so difficult.

[Salli Shepherd]

Bill drank a fifth of bourbon in the time it took Jennifer to undress. Shockingly, he found himself wishing he'd married a woman with limbs. Her sensual striptease, achieved via garment-hems gripped in her teeth and a series of shrugs and undulations, somehow didn't arouse him like it used to; he may as well be watching a caterpillar shedding its skin. It dawned on Bill, as Jennifer once more grumbled herself to sleep, unsatisfied, that perhaps his chronic inability to please his wife might not be the fault of a testosterone slump, or the result of too much whiskey at bed-time. Bill frowned, and finally faced the truth: he had begun to suspect that Jennifer was having an affair.

[John Whitworth]

Salli, didn't I unaccountably fail to go to a movie with this storyline?

[Janet Kenny]

Just a check. I thought the piece had to repel the reader by being indigestible and unreadable rather than Grand Guignol. Am I wrong?

Salli, I want to read more. It has legs even if she doesn't.

[Salli Shepherd]

Writing badly is easy. Writing very badly is far harder than it looks.

John, I wonder if it was Boxing Helena, with Julian Sands? Ghastly film. Utter rubbish. Of course, I loved it. Though Sands removed the limbs himself, and his object of affection was... well, I won't spoil it for you.

[Roger Slater]

It's hard to make snow angels when you don't have any arms or legs, and jumping for joy becomes seemingly impossible. Yet this didn't stop Arnold from making snow angels in his heart and releasing them in his imagination to jump out a loftier tribute to joy than legs made of mere sinew and muscle had ever contrived. For Arnold was in love, and love has always possessed more arms and legs, more toes and knees and thighs, than it knows what to do with. And though Arnold's vocal chords had been rendered useless in the accident, this minor inconvenience did not keep him from singing.

[Jim Hayes]

Bob, if I might suggest; though Arnold's decimated (whatever) vocal cords meant he couldn't talk never mind attempting to bellow his usual rendition of Nessun Dorma (whatever- the more outlandish the better}) this minor inconvenience didn't stop him trying to audition for the lead in the local operatic society's forthcoming production.

Jim