Alan Marshall

They say you breathe the germ in,’ he said. ‘It’s just floating about in the air – everywhere. You never know where it is. It must have been just floating past his nose when he breathed in and that was the end of him. He went down like a pole-axed steer. If he’d been breathing out when that germ passed he’d’ve been right.’

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