Liars' League

Knob Creek by Christina Lovelidge

Oct_10_Knob_Creek

Read by Elizabeth Bower

He first came to me at 5pm on a Tuesday. I'd phoned in sick with the flu and spent most of the day with a turkey baster up my nose trying to clear my sinuses. One of my more enlightened friends Ebony told me that she did this every morning, not with a turkey baster (she was vegetarian) but with a small ceramic pot. Titling her head to the side, she poured saltwater into one nostril until it gently drained out the other, clearing all the muck and germs in time for breakfast. I get the flu a lot so she thought this might be helpful but the baster was too big, it wouldn't fit up my nose, and the salt solution dribbled down my chin and stained the front of my nightie without a drop reaching my sinuses. I opted for a whisky toddy instead.

OK by Sammy Wright

Oct_10_OK

Read by Silas Hawkins

Boots stamped. Concrete echoed flatly after the wide beach.

”Hello? Hello?”

Crackle of fire.

“Hello?”

They knew someone was there. They’d seen the smoke from the hilltop a mile away.

Lie There, My Art by Richard Smyth

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Read by Greg Page

A stormy relationship? Well, yes, I suppose it might have been.

But then a relationship has to be stormy, nowadays, to get a mention in the newspapers. I’m old enough to remember a time when a more tender sentiment prevailed in the public press, and every marriage made in theatre-land was ‘a grand romance’ or ‘a sparkling match’ or ‘a union of twin artistic spirits’, as long as the gentleman held the door open and the lady didn’t run off with a carpet-fitter…

So ‘stormy’, if you wish, yes.

Brooklyn Bridge by Jessica Kranish

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Read by Freddie Machin

As Max stepped outside he delighted in the fine mist dampening his hair, the sudden slickness of the pavement greeting his Oxfords. The rain began to soak his shirt, thunder clapped in the distance, and he felt himself relax, knowing this would mean fewer pedestrians on his streets. Yes, it was around 10 o'clock on a Tuesday night, but this was New York, after all, and there was always someone around. What Max prized about his home—the fact that after trading hours, almost no one hangs around Wall Street, making the area a ghost town—his wife Lena detested. More and more Max felt himself drawn out onto the streets, and on these occasions, he valued the deserted, almost post-apocalyptic air of the neighbourhood.

Joy by Alleia Jones

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Read by Clareine Cronin

I am not really reading. I'm thinking about my bag. I didn’t know if I should bring it. I thought it might be presumptuous - embarrassingly so - to think if everything goes well then we’ll do it tonight. But to not have it would be worse. If he wanted to … and I couldn’t. An opportunity missed. He might be put off. And then, disappointed, never contact me again. I don’t know if I could go back trawling the site. So I brought it, and now I'm looking past my book at it, and worrying it's too obvious. If I were the sort of person who carried a handbag this wouldn't be a problem. The bag-for-life is just too orange.