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Weekly Contest #370
Content warning: transphobic comments. It’s not the most rejuvenating sliver of peace I’m left with, but it’s as good as I’ll get and I need to savour it. Cars whizz by out the window sliced by the blinds. Around me the fridge hums and the gas oven lets off a low whine and the air fryer blasts. It would be wrong to call the kitchen its own space; it’s more an alcove scraped into the wall of the living room with only three steps possible in any direction. With four of us in here peeling potatoes and chopping onions and prepping a whole chick...
Weekly Contest #336
Cowardly. That was the name of the picturebook. I didn’t really understand the title when I picked it up, didn’t give it much mind. I was drawn to it because of the illustration style, the quick sketchy lines of David Walliams combined with these rich, saturated oils that didn’t much care for the boundaries the lines set. I extracted it off the shelf at the bookstore branch of Oxfam on Bond Street, two doors down from the part that sold clothes and homeware. Cowardly smelled of gloss. Its front cover depicted a burnt-orange sunset overlookin...
Weekly Contest #320
Cumberly Park was crammed with alders and hawthorns and English oaks, but it was tiny, to the point that, despite its density, it would’ve been difficult to mistake for true woodland. Crowding us in from all sides were the revs of car engines, the yelling of kids coming home from school, and smoke and smog rising above the leaf-barren canopy—wispy white and ashy dark bulging against each other, conspiring to turn blue skies grey. It should’ve been impossible for anyone to disappear here. A child’s body would’ve been dredged up within hours ...
Weekly Contest #317
The stranger sitting on my kitchen floor has stolen two things from us: a pot of Bubbles of Joy, and my mother’s face. I only know it’s not really her because of the mole swelling out on her nose, in the same place as mine, and the fact mum would never wear a three-piece of such drab black and white. The stranger grins as she places another spoonful of the mousse in her mouth. Her head cocks back, banging the cupboard door she’s leaning against, but she seems to register no pain. There’s a wealth of blood trickling down the side of her head,...
Weekly Contest #289
Two deep breaths. I’ve done this loads of times already. Binder on the chest. Suit and tie too long for my torso. I inspect the baggie of coke, and flick it twice because that’s what I’ve seen my new friends do. I tie a long string around the door lock, and check on all fours to make sure nobody else is in the men’s. The floor stinks of bleach. I get up and exit with the string over the door. I leave my knee-length black skirt and satiny white dress shirt in the stall, along with the baggie. I close the door and give the string a tug. It lo...
Weekly Contest #267
You shake the waterskin. Only a sip or two left. You pass it to Mel. She shakes it, passes it back to you. Your mouth is sandpaper, your throat like you’ve swallowed shards of glass. You shake the waterskin, pass it back to her. You make a game of it, sisters stumbling through the desert. Heat boils your insides. Sand billows up to form mini-tornadoes over dunes far and close, a prelude to a storm. Mirages speckle the horizon with pockets of oases. You know better than to trust them. As you keep passing the waterskin between you, there is ...
Weekly Contest #252
I clenched the bird feed, quickened my pace. The fog was thick, enough that the streetlights flickered to life at 1:00pm, turning the pavement ghostly-white. Just one other person was here, and there were no cars to shake away the silence. It wasn't the kind of day for going out – that meant fewer crumbs for the pigeons if I hadn’t come. It was also because it was so quiet that the man fifty meters behind me was as obvious as he was. He wore bulky black sunglasses that covered half his face. Was he trying to be noticed? I'd followed all t...
Weekly Contest #247
I My wife dies at 3:45pm. Natural causes; we’ve been at that age for a while, so it isn’t surprising. I call the Undertakers at 9:53pm. They arrive five minutes later with their white gloves and black veils over their heads. Always in threes, they come: one to Mourn, one to Comfort, one to Watch, then all to carry away. Death is sacred in Vigil. The next morning they send Roger, my son, to fill in the paperwork. “I thought they weren’t supposed to send relations,” I say, staring at my fingernails. I’ve let them grow out, get yellow. It’s har...
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