By Katie Coleman

Shelly nibbled a carrot, while Heath filled her in on his conservation project. She ate olives with little stabbing sticks, while Abigail described how she embroidered dolls for orphans. Shelly dipped a dagger-shaped Dorito into hot salsa. Hugo had recently published poems in Sanskrit and by the time Daniel came along Shelly had finished her Devil’s food cake.

‘Daniel,’ she said, ‘I’ve excavated burial sites in Borneo. I’ve trekked the Galapagos and brought back dragons and albatrosses which haunt my parents’ attic.’

The music halted and Daniel sipped iced tea, ‘Wonderful!’ he replied. ‘I work in accounting. What else do you do?’

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Katie Coleman’s fiction has appeared in Ghost Parachute, Briefly Zine, The Ilanot Review, Bending Genres and Potato Soup Journal. She has a master’s in creative writing and works as a teacher in Phuket, Thailand. She can be found on Twitter @anjuna2000.