Hi, I'm Lovar Burton and this is Lovar Burton Reads.

In every episode I hand pick a different piece of short fiction and I read it to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them and I hope you will too.

Yeah, it's true.

Y'all, I do read a fair amount of speculative fiction tales on the podcast.

But I really try to read whatever strikes my fancy and today that's a realistic fiction story

said in a modern day London written by Savannah Bernie.

Now this story was shortlisted for the Guardian and the Fourth of States B.A.M.E. Short Fiction Prize.

Savannah Bernie was born in Manchester to an Indian mother and a British father who was in the army.

She grew up in a number of different countries including Hong Kong and like yours truly, Germany.

She's currently working on her postgraduate diploma in social work and I'm not too surprised that she's in that line of work

because this story is so empathetic and observant of the elements that make up humanity our tenderness, our quirks, our habits.

The story is said in Ladbrook Grove, London in a kind of rundown bed and breakfast that caters somewhat unwillingly to all manner of guests needing a bed for the night.

The B&B's newest guests include some families displaced by a deadly fire in a public housing tower.

Though Savannah doesn't name it explicitly in the story, it's meant to be the real life, Grenful Tower Fire.

I love this story because the characters are drawn with such extreme specificity that I can't believe that I haven't run into them somewhere in my life before.

The main character is so firmly, comfortably settled into the rules and schedules and opinions that he's established over the course of many years.

He's created them in order maybe to not have to think in order to keep order in his life.

But I think the story also points out what it's like to have that instinctual habitual mind be poked, prodded, even turned on its ear.

So, without further ado and if you're ready, let's take a deep breath.

And again, spam by Savannah Bernie.

It was 1329 when Nelson dropped down into his armchair, a mound of mangled wood and cheap leather, less arranged and more dumped into the center of his back wall.

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