After overhearing  a fierce, if undervoiced, argument of her parents', Cari lay awake well past midnight. Her father had left for a business trip, her mother had in all likelihood fallen asleep long ago thanks to the miracles of chemistry, and she had enough of her thoughts circling ceaselessly. She needed answers, but were could she get them - from a source she did not have to doubt?

Sylvie leafed through her diary, which was more than two three quarters full, wondering how small she could cramp her handwriting while still keeping it readable to strangers.

Nora had not seen her grandmother in over a decade. Her parents had moved so far away visits were inconvenient, and were postponed to "next year", until it was too late.

The conversation with and between the rest of the family was awkward, punctuated by sobs and too-long hugs. She turned her attention to the knicknacks around the room, and the memories the familiar one awoke. A box-frame holding a single feather caught her eye.

The phoenix feather. I remember. It was magic. Now she recognised it for a simple red feather with glued-on glitter.

After some careful negotiation with her father and his sisters, she took it to the funeral, to place it in her grandmother's coffin.

A year later, and in the second trimester, she stood in a crafts shop, in one hand goose feathers, dyed, in the other a small jar of duo-colour metallic paint, red and gold, contemplating magic in children's eyes.

Joan liked the feeling of insects crawling over her skin.

In Katie's garden everything grew. She first put this to a test planting jelly beans, being rewarded with a miniature tree bearing sweets. Post-it bookmarks grew into a plant with rectangular leaves in neon colours. An USB stick buried sprouted small chips covering the ground, moss-like. A pin was a seed for a silvery bristling cactus.

Everything grew, bigger every day, until there was hardly any room to move left. The plants were starting to spread beyond the boundary.

Katie planted a coal. It brought forth fire, blooming brilliantly.

What would YOU plant in such a garden?

Jessica spent most of the morning sketching. The stack of filled sheets had grown. Near the bottom they were neatly stacked, and held roughs for scenes or portraits, none of them satisfying. Towards the top, the stack sprawled, and the sketches degraded into doodles. Patches of hatching, and bouquets of swirly lines.

After lunch she went for a walk, and to pick up a new sketchpad. Following an impulse, she bought some paints.

Back at home she grew frustrated with the small sheets. Should have thought of that earlier, darnit.

She wanted to call it a day, but... Go on. You know you want to. Do it!

The desk was light and easy to move.

Some hours later the wall was decorated from the ground to as high as she could reach with flowing lines. Tentacles, or vines without leaves. It was a chaos she might have called beautiful if it had not been her own work. And it made her bedroom smell of paint. At least she had not bought varnish that truly stank.

That had been a bad idea. What had ridden her to actually go through with it? The house was not hers. She'd have to paint the wall white again, and who knew how many layers that would take.

Certainly not today, though. She wiped the paint drips off the floor before they could dry completely, and left her window and door wide open while she cleaned the brushes.

I need to get out more.

Gina sat in a chair, glaring at her son over crossed arms, slowly tapping her foot. The fact it did not make any noise just added to her irritation.

"You really thought this was a good idea, yes?"

"Mum-"

She leaned forward, her legs partly sinking through the chair as she lost sight of it.

"I thought once you moved out you'd learn to stand on your own feet, but you've kept bothering me to tell you what to do for the last forty years."

"But mum, you're the wisest person ever. I need you."

"Good god, Quentin, I don't know what I did wrong, but you're such a failure. If even me dying didn't give you the push you needed..." She shook her head.

He was close to tears, and the technician took the initiative to switch off the projector.

"Sir, maybe we should adjust her self a little. It would be no problem to remove the awareness of being a hologram."

"Ah. No. Not right now, anyway. I'll think about it."