A story by Miranda Gold published in The London Magazine, December 2023/ January 2024.
That day when the red sun took the light out of the city and caught it in a restless sleep. Even Fran’s voice matched the drift and twitch of somnambulist Londoners, appearing and vanishing through a milky florescence usually the preserve of a seaside town out of season. She’d educated Theo and Laura in her particular grammar of signs – anything can be a sign, she reminded the children, once you know how to look at it. Laura pulled her hand out of Fran’s, let her satchel slide off her shoulder, and dragged it along the pavement.
BEYOND BINARIES
An essay in response to the Israel-Hamas War and the humanitarian crisis, 2nd December 2023
The ‘task’ of the Holocaust has come back into the foreground with blistering clarity since the October 7th attacks – and if the foundation of this task is to honour the pledge ‘never again’, surely this pledge must be extended to all humanity.
WrestLing with Shadows
Two rivers run in the home of the shades, Mnemosyne and Lethe; drinking from the former assures recollection, drinking from the latter promises oblivion.
Extract | A Small Dark Quiet
Read the first chapter from Miranda Gold’s second novel, A Small Dark Quiet, an extract published in The Best Peace Fiction Anthology by The University of New Mexico Press.
turtle at low tide
Freddie’s father was fifty when he informed what remained of the family that his number was up, that he was on his way out. It was the closest the man had come to completing a sentence in over a decade.
MY LONDON
My map of London stubbornly resists sensible navigation; temporally as much as spatially its tracks crisscross timeframes and boroughs – closer to the logic of a dreamscape than an ordinance survey.
LEFT PENDING
Yellow ringed, disinterested, but the illusion of eye contact was convincing enough. We were a week into London’s variation on the theme of lockdown by the time I’d realised the blackbirds had gone.
Reading as Alchemy
A failsafe cocktail of vodka and poetry got me through the damp October I spent at UEA. Student essentials: one to trick me on to the makeshift dance floor, the other pulling back the curtains, hauling me into the day.
Just Passing
Alf’s train was due in just before six. Caroline’s last message to him was a list of identifying clues: red scarf, black beany… Nothing back.
chrysalis
Molly’s grandmother, Hazel, was congealed to the worn brown velvet armchair in the front room on Sunday evenings.