Down the side of the sofa

It hadn’t once occurred to him to slide his hand down between the sofa cushions. He had spent almost an hour scrubbing the stupid rings she had created on the wooden table with her stupid black coffee.

White rectangles

The Lubba house sits on the hill above Lubba beach, which forms part of Lubba bay. We’re probably related to whoever first called them that, though we don’t exactly who it was or why they did.

Look for gold

We’d squint our eyes and look for gold, sifting the dirt back and forth. On the side lay our little piles of treasure, purple, green, pink, orange.

Pros and cons

To think that the crumbs in the butter had been third on her ‘cons’ list for him. She didn’t even notice them anymore, if anything she contributed to the crumb lined knife marks as much as he did.

Prodding a bruise

You can still feel grains of sand between your toes. You know it’ll scratch and hurt as you rub them together and yet you do it anyway. Temptation takes over your toes like it does a finger prodding a bruise.

Feet for hands

‘Henry?’

He smiled, he’d been waiting for this.

Because of where we’d been

We had a game we used to play in the car on the way home. There was always a packet of gummy sweets squished into the cup holder, the top gaping open so you could see the greens and yellows and oranges inside.

To do

1. Add ‘no deliveries for neighbours’ to sign on door
2. Pop neighbours’ boy’s football in back garden
– if his parents ask, he has been warned TWICE
3. Find out how to stop someone from phoning you

Picnic lunch

Plastic flower-shaped plates balanced on our knobbly knees. His was orange, mine was pink. Blades of grass tickled us between our toes, socks and shoes abandoned at the bottom of the garden.

Tightly pulled

No matter how tight she pulled the curtains, first light still seeped through. Dust danced in the streams like the shapes behind her eyelids. Pink, yellow, orange.