Things That Hurt
Received one of seven honourable mentions in the ‘Fish’ Flash Fiction Prize from judge Michelle Elvy
One year since the thing and six more to go until I’m made of stuff you’ve never touched. Seven, to be new, one year less than you. Even still in those strange mornings as I balance along the edge of sleep like that tightroper over Avenue of the Americas before he was just a splatter of stuff that won’t be touched again I remember that I can do everything I like. Pour whisky in my morning tea, have tiramisu for breakfast, a french omelet at midnight. Walk around my kitchen in the buff or wear a ball gown in the bath. Waste the sunshine away, come alive under the moonlight. Walk all the way to Leith and back or jump in a train - either direction - and sit until I hit the sea. Everything you like, that’s what you said I was. I didn’t realize how close it was to nothing.
And today I’ll walk and instead of going food shopping I’ll pace to where my parents used to stay and back and if I do it right I’ll get that feeling like I’ve got someone waiting for me at the other end. And it’s all a daze because there wasn’t anything in the house for breakfast or dinner last night or that morning or the evening before but I did have milk for my tea. And Quavers.
The days will pass like this. I’ll lick my fingers to turn a page and gorge myself on lullabies and nurse the hunger like an infant, I’ll rock it back and forth and tuck it into the cradle of my rib cage so it will grow larger than that pain you left behind until I’m smaller like you liked and quiet like you wanted and nothing like you said.
