Alan Marshall

did not see her leaving me of her own will but leaving me because of some sudden, monstrous circumstance over which she had no control

I never associated Him with kindliness, only with severity

The eager life of it moved into me, refreshing and strengthening me so that I felt no weakness at all

’s like a pot to a thirsty man.’

I’ll make him a bushman and a runner,’ he said with determination. ‘By God, I will!’

It’s good to make people laugh. There’s a hell of a lot of other things making them

when Mrs Carruthers handed Mary the present, did Mary touch her

I wished I was dead, seeing in death not a frightening absence of life, but a sleeping without pain

my right leg dragging in the dirt like a broken wing

My right leg, the one I called my ‘bad’ leg, was completely paralysed and swung uselessly from the hip, a thing of skin and bone, scarred and deformed. I called my left leg my ‘good’ leg. It was only partially paralysed and could bear my weight