These aren't the stories your mother told you. No, these are the other stories.

Slither. Written by Daniel Wilcox, narrated by Joseph Maudsley.

Tell me once again how everything's going to be all right.

Tell me once again how much you love me.

Shout it from the rooftops and tell the world that you'll always be there and nothing will ever change.

So laughable now. To be so removed. be there and nothing will ever change.

So laughable now.

To be so removed from what once was such an assured thing.

There was a time when you couldn't keep your hands off me.

When I'd walk through the door knowing I'd have to take a deep breath because for the next minute or so, your lips would slide and smooch across my own,

and our bodies would become so intertwined that I'd feel cocooned.

And now there you are, and here I am, half a world away,

clinging to the shadows like a love-struck possum.

Running alongside the cracked brickwork path that we both tread,

the river whispers and gurgles its steady rhythm.

The water, usually a sapphire blue in the sunlight, looks an inky black with the measurable depths.

Spaced every 30 foot or so, there's a small circle of orange trapped on its rippling surface,

reflections of the street lamps that illuminate everywhere apart from here under the bridge in which I hide.

I hear you giggle. Slight, but full. You tiptoe up to his height and plant a small kiss on his cheek.

I find myself growling. The sound no louder than the splashes of water on rock.

Started slowly in hindsight, so slow that I can forgive myself for thinking that it was

nothing.

...