Two stressed housemates, a pile of post-it notes and a cat called Howard. It can only end in tears …

For a few years I lived in shared houses. It was a mostly positive experience, sometimes fun, and I made some great friendships along the way. But, inevitably, there were times when the housemates fell out. Occasionally this happened in spectacular fashion – I can remember a couple of full-blown shouting matches – but more often there developed a kind of passive-aggressive war of attrition between people that, due to differing timetables and work shifts, might not actually encounter each other in person for days on end even though they lived under the same roof.

In one house, this involved said housemates writing notes to each other. Superficially a method of passing on information and (mostly) polite requests, there was an unmistakable subtext of seething resentment between the lines of these bland little missives. That was my inspiration for this story, A Polite Reminder, which is written in the form of an exchange of lists, the content of which rapidly escalate from icy politeness to … well, read and find out. Hope you enjoy it.