by Charlie Hill

Each morning, the bus stops outside the Cross Guns on the shuttered, hope-damp High Street and each morning I am humbled by an unassuming man. “Free paper!” he announces, as he gets on the bus and helps himself to a copy of the Metro; tucking it under his arm he gets back off the bus and strides, with earnest purpose and desire, towards the assurances of another day.

The Metro is full of lies and sensation of course, and the man is almost certainly mad, but still — here is someone who knows things I can never hope to know.

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Charlie Hill is a critically acclaimed writer of novels and short stories and an occasional poet.