Sublime

the ‘Drabble’, or a ‘microfiction’ of 100 words. Many writers have tried their hands at Drabbles, including Neil Gaiman, who, he says, ‘failed miserably’ and couldn’t get his below 102 words. Eventually he gave up, and made the first two words the title of his story, ‘Nicholas Was’. It is a gleefully sinister Christmas tale.

The almost-35-year-old Terry Schmidt had very nearly nothing left anymore of the delusion that he differed from the great herd of the common run of men, not even in his despair at not making a difference or in the great hunger to have an impact that in his late twenties he’d clung to as evidence that even though he was emerging as sort of a failure

punch-happy fists, sad eyes – but between them was decency, between them a bond, a shared weakness that made them both strong. If you see them, hoods up, prowling the pavement at night you’ll walk quickly away, skin prickling with terror but they know love, though, and they know laughter, know each other as brother, friend, father. Equals. Gods in

was in his early forties, they said – though also round about his twenties. He was married, they said – also not married. Definitely he was ‘connected’ – though ‘unconnected’ at the same time.