Catherine

Female | 30s | 3 to 5 minutes
Starts on page 14

EXTRACT: I sit in the gate lounge. I watch her. She is a generalised loveliness of perhaps thirty years old - at least twenty years younger than me. She wears no wedding ring. She's a tall, slim woman. My wife - my current wife - is of average height for a woman, as I am for a man. This girl - this woman - would be of equal height or perhaps slightly taller than me. Her features are classic - that is to say, straight nose, fine large eyes, determined chin, creamy white skin, Snow White/Ruby Red, red, red lips.

Michael

Male | 20s | 3 to 5 minutes
Starts on page 64

EXTRACT: And we turn again, on a right angle about 50 metres from the river and then there's this almighty bang. And I see like a fireball hit the front right hand side of the snatch. And I know what it is right away. 'Roadside bomb' as y' newspapers say. And I feel myself lifting up - up. Like a great arc. Like a bird maybe. Can't hear a thing. I can't feel it neither. I'm flying. And I still can't work out how I landed. How I can be on the ground, with just a bit of a bleed...