Liars' League

Kind, Intelligent, Generous by Georgie Melrose

Kind Intelligent Generous MP3

Read by Annalie Wilson

I knew Adam wasn’t The One when I found out that he didn’t think I was funny. It’s not something people usually just come out and say – I guess that’s how I dated the man for three years without realising. When he told me, which I’ll get to, it hit me that in life we all operate in our own siloed-off worlds; connection occurs as much within our heads as it does in reality. I blundered around for years laughing at Adam’s jokes, thinking that the kind, intelligent and generous man I was with also had a sense of humour. The realisation he didn’t was like glass of cold water to the face, followed quickly by another, when I realised he had never understood my sparkling wit. So, I left him.

The Man in the End Terrace by Catherine Edmunds

The Man in the End Terrace MP3

Read by Gloria Sanders

South Cleatlam is more street than village - two rows of mean terraces facing each other, built a hundred years ago for the men at the pit that closed as soon as it opened. Out back there's the netty, and then the farmer's fields. Cheryl’s dog got lost in the fields one time. Her brother said the tractor ran it over; it got sliced up in the machinery and spattered all over the place. Cheryl’s brother found this very funny, so she told him the owl that sat on the fencepost would peck his eyes out, and Cheryl’s brother said fuck off and took a Stella out the fridge, but ever since then he looks warily at the fencepost whenever he passes it.

Ray by Sadie Nott

Read by Miranda Harrison

The hood of Jessie’s parka was pulled forward so it was not until she was nearly home that she caught her first glimpse of him. A huge ginger Tom, stretched out in their window box. He was squashing the purple crocuses her mum, Dawn, had planted there. A bit of nature to counteract all the car fumes, Dawn had said.

When Jessie opened the gate, she realised with a start it was not a cat at all. The fox opened one eye. Jessie took off her rucksack and held it protectively across her chest. You could tell from the size of him that it was a male fox. The jangle of Jessie’s keys didn’t seem to faze him. She wanted to shoo him away but something about him made her hesitate. Brazen, that’s what Nan would have called him, if she was still around.

Not Like Other Girls by Lizzie Milton

Not Like Other Girls MP3

Read by Arden Fitzroy

Dad was a bit surprised when mum gave birth to one million spiders. Everyone was. I mean they would be - giving birth to one million spiders is not typical. The thing about giving birth to one million spiders, the reason spiders give birth to one million spiders, is that most of them will die. Sometimes they crawl off to seek their fame and fortune in foreign lands, but usually they just die.

This was exactly what happened with mum and dad which, as you can imagine, for them was a bloody relief. What do you do with one million spiders? Granted, on a one-to-one ratio one spider is much lower maintenance than one baby, but one million ... that’s a lot of spiders.

Dwarfs Don't Die by Doro Boehme

Dwarfs Don't Die MP3

Read by Sophie Cartman

I smear a slug of Nutella onto a halved Granny Smith. She scatters the animals: the octopus in a sweater, the disemboweled lion, a furry white blood cell holding hands with a glassy-eyed botulism tube – plush-toy microbes scaled up from seven zeros and a decimal point to fist-size velvet. They’ll populate seven hills and a forest, threaten Snow White but won’t harm her. Bear went missing last week in the park but remains present in spirit; we talk about him a lot. There’s a unicorn, just in case, but realistically, it’s too small to corner miracles, not in Chicago. Mostly it gets kicked under the bed when she flees from the hunter. And we prop up a creature with appendages so unproportioned and facial features so ill-defined, we call it Ms. Speass because we don't know anyone else by that name.

Ink by Aileen O'Farrell

Read by Carrie Cohen

I may be the last typesetter in England. And like the last speaker of a tribal language I am increasingly in a world of my own. I speak of ink levels and typefaces, margins and frames, and the young activists nod at me but they cannot really grasp it. They have seen printed works of course – exquisite books in libraries and newspapers in museums. Artefacts from a more beautiful and a more primitive age. Metal. Ink. Paper. To think we once had to cut down forests to share our stories. The clamour of presses, the stink of chemicals.