Liars' League

Corner of her Eye by Caroline von Schmalensee

Read by Gloria Sanders (first story in podcast, here)

Sarah first noticed the specks on a bright spring morning. The city shimmered in pale light and she saw tiny somethings on the periphery of her vision. They disappeared when she turned her head to look. Sarah interpreted the movement as cherry blossom petals in the wind: ephemeral shapes that disappeared when she tried to focus on them.

As spring turned into summer, Sarah saw more specks and spots. They couldn’t be petals now the cherry blossoms were gone, but they were certainly something.

I fell in love with my documentary crew by David McGrath

Story read by David McGrath (final story in podcast, at 1h 27 min, here)

I once manned the helpline for tourists disenchanted by Paris not being the Paris they expected.
    My documentary crew says that’s so interesting.
    Better than working for Facebook.
    What did you do for Facebook?
    I screened reported photographs. Before the software could do it.
    You must’ve seen a lot of dick pics.
    The dick pics I could handle. It was the war photographs that gave everyone in the office nervous breakdowns. The in-house therapist told us that everything was going to be OK. That’s how I got the experience for the helpline.
    My documentary crew is fascinated. You’re an interesting guy. We don’t want some run-of-the-mill, kitchen-sink documentary. We want sensational. Like you.

    My documentary crew and I move in together.

We're All Here to Save the World

Read by Magnus Rook (second story in podcast, at 17 min 45, here)

The alarm was bleeping. Glenn stretched out a hand to silence it, his sleep-fogged brain registering too late the confines of his space. And so, once again, his day began with him inadvertently punching the wall next to his bed. Sometimes he really did wonder what the Save The World Programme’s recruitment team had seen in him.

The sun was pushing through the blind onto his cheek, its warmth strong but not yet unpleasant. Lying in its glow, his chest bare above the thin sheet, he felt a rare flicker of anticipation. Then his mind caught up: it was his birthday. Or more accurately, his Programme Birthday: the anniversary of his arrival at this tiny five-by-five-metre pod in the desert.

The Lord is Mike Shephard by Jonathan Sellars

Read by Tony Bell (third story in podcast, at 36 minutes 30 sec, here)

When Mike Shephard burst in on the congregation of St Mary’s one wintry Sunday morning his announcement was met by six gasps and a groan. Five of the gasps belonged to Kathy Dudlingham. The groan came from the vicar.

“Sorry to interrupt, Reverend Herold,” Mike said in his thick west-country accent. “It is Reverend Herold, isn’t it?”

Kathy Dudlingham turned to him furiously. “You know full well it’s Harold. Just like that murderous bastard Harold Shipman. That’s right isn’t it, Reverend?” she smiled.

Colours with No Name by Elizabeth Hopkinson

Read by Tim Larkfield (fourth story in podcast, at 52 minutes, here)

He doesn't know what to do with her spectacles. Every time he enters the room, they stare at him from the work table. Unseeing. Incomplete. The thin wire frames, the round lenses gathering dust along with her embroidery silks and scissors. They watch blindly as he spins the carousel of little bobbins, like a child with a zoetrope, watching crimson merge into scarlet merge into robin's breast orange. So many colours. She saw the world in colours for which he has no name.

Every Damned Thing by David Turnbull

Read by Ray Newe (fifth story in podcast, at 1h 9 minutes, here)

‘Would you give it a rest? All your moaning is doing my head in.’

That was Khalid the Cabbie, a vaguely sketched proposal for the lead character of a 1980s sitcom. Like all of us he was an idea that never made it further than the initial stage of being dreamed up. In my opinion my moaning was justified. I had a right to moan.

I should never have been here in the first place. Unlike Khalid, I'd been a genuine contender. I could easily have had my own graphic novel series, maybe even a movie franchise. They’d given me a fully plotted back story.