Vestigial by Aideen Henry

The cows drift over when there’s a shower, it’s like they’re tethered together by invisible ropes. Once one makes the move they all tug along, squelching in and out of each other’s muddy hoof prints, breathing misty air over each other’s flanks. Flock memory, Niamh calls it.

Photo by Marcino via Pixabay.com

'Vestigial', by Irish writer Aideen Henry, is a story of innocence and experience, looking at the lives of teenagers as they fumble towards connection, growth, lust and love. A selection by guest editor Madeleine D'Arcy. READ 'VESTIGIAL'.

The Landlord's Daughter by Guy Ware

"He had often wondered at the time how Mr and Mrs P – who were both large and soft and spread themselves widely – could have produced so slight a daughter, a girl whose skeleton one could always sense, just below the surface. He had pondered childhood illnesses, consumption even, before reminding himself it was the twentieth century."

Photo © Sacha Lenz

July 2016's edition of Long Story, Short Journal is by writer Guy Ware, whose debut novel The Fat of Fed Beasts was declared "brilliant" by Nick Lezard in the Guardian. This month's short story, 'The Landlord's Daughter', confronts the fragility of memory and the vulnerability of the individual facing the classic question: how well one can truly know another human being? READ 'THE LANDLORD'S DAUGHTER'.  

A Good Funeral

Luke’s father lies in a hospital bed in a private room. Luke stands at the foot of the bed, holding a bunch of oriental lilies he bought at Cork airport. Their scent is muted in the antiseptic hospital air. His brother Terence and Terence’s wife Una sit at the old man’s bedside in a silence broken by the click of the morphine pump, then a clatter of crockery and muffled voices from the corridor outside. The old man seems dead already, until suddenly his blue eyes flicker open. ‘If you’ve come to get something out of me, forget it,’ he manages to say.

'A Good Funeral' tells the story of a bittersweet homecoming for Luke, an Irishman who left his small town at a young age to live in London. When he returns, he takes stock of how much, and how little, has changed--and learns the unknown influence he had on another young man who lived in the same town. A new offering from Hennessy Award winner Madeleine D'Arcy, with all of her characteristic humour, warmth and emotional wisdom. CLICK HERE TO READ 'A GOOD FUNERAL'.