Students are scribbling jagged lines around the edges of the short story, back and forth, back and forth. They are tearing little pieces off the symbolism worksheet and rolling them into balls between their fingers. They are stabbing holes in the story with the tip of their pen and holding the paper up so that the fluorescent light shines through.

Byron steps up to the white line for another go. He’s a sturdy looking kid, on the footy team, and he’s got a good stance going, the weight on the back foot. He throws his arm forward and launches the ball. Thunk! Too high this time. The crowd sighs in disappointment.

The Busker has all the good lines. Afterwards, he talks about her lines, as she sits on the couch with her naked legs resting across his lap. He traces a finger along her thigh and across her stomach, then pulls one side of the lace top of her knickers down an inch, explaining how it changes the lines of her body, studying her like you would study an artwork.

“This in the bin bullshit,” there’s a ripple of semi-suppressed giggles, “ends now!”

She’d made that payment through the website, mesmerised by the testimonials, people overcome with joy, much like the ones she’d seen on the dating website, back when it all started.

I think I’m having a sexistential crisis. I’ve been having it since I last saw Tom. That was the night I got too drunk to perform. You wouldn’t think that could happen to a woman, but it can.

He’d pointed out a dark bay who was jogging up and down as if on springs, throwing its rump this way and that, while the wisp of a girl at the lead dug her heels into the ground and clanked the bit in his mouth, trying to anchor the horse to her.

But McGuffin is a choice, and choice is McGuffin and if you chose to separate McGuffin from choice then that would mean that your choice is your McGuffin, and hence you haven’t really separated anything from anything.