The Smell of Hollow Water The three men standing around the bed in the stone dark ward looked like upright coffin lids in their brown overalls. There was a dim light from a torch that needed new batteries and, it … Continue reading The Smell of Hollow Water
Themes and language some people may find upsetting. Alice liked how the sea here didn’t just look bright, it felt bright too. As if every part of it were a little crystal that jiggled and jostled its neighbours as the … Continue reading Dancing her black bones home
Pauline is at the office Christmas party, another dreary year almost over and 1971 getting ready to deliver more of the same. She is perched on a bar stool with her best blue handbag on her knee, feeling too old … Continue reading Home for the Queen
Content warning: story concerns neglect and abuse of people in long-stay learning disability institution. Amy watches the door; that grimy finger-stained gobbed-on portal to fleeting respite from the ward’s stink. The stink that makes her eyes water and saturates her soul. She tries to shift her bottom; to hold her limbs still for just long enough to hover briefly above the puddle of cold pee that has settled in a trough of rucked up rubber sheeting. No luck, she sinks back. Flails back, in truth; arms threshing, mouth grimacing and spit flying, onto the wet sandpaper of the twill draw … Continue reading Lovely girls – continued
“In smoggy 1960s Yorkshire, a world away from the psychedelics of London, Mo arrives at the dingy building in Dewsbury where she is going to be a temp. She is not welcomed, instead she is ridiculed – a fat stupid girl running about like a frightened mouse. Merv though, the charismatic co-Director of the company, sees something in her he wants and takes her aside to be his PA. He uses his power and smooth transatlantic charm to shape her to his needs, letting her into his high flying world where there is glamour she has only seen in black … Continue reading ‘Fat Mo’
Another somewhat sinister piece in the Lascaux Flash competition. Five things that are true and six that are not. Suzanne Conboy-Hill You said I would never want for anything. This is untrue – I want for a great deal. You said I would never have to ask for anything – you would give me everything I need. You forget that you made asking impossible so this is not true either. You said you could not imagine being without me. This is true. You have not had to imagine this for some time. You took my silence as consent but this … Continue reading Five things that are true and six that are not
