Lisa cheated, leaned so far forward you could see the flamingo pink of her
knickers as well as the flap of her arm. She always was one of those girls, standing
barefoot in the river, toes turning blue, her enamelled nails like freshwater pearls.
She gave the boys a gape like salmon.
When her stick got wedged, you made a rope of your muscles, and she slid
into the mud with its heart suck and gurgle like the final gasps of a frog. Of course
you followed.
“Back in a tick,” you winked, disappearing under the troll bridge with its rusty
cans and rat shit. Minutes passed in a daisy chain you chucked downstream. “A
cemetery for lost shoes down there,” you said when you finally emerged, hair flecked
with brick dust and not a trace of the stick.
Lisa hung back, blinking at the light, nose wrinkled with the stench of the river.
“What happened?” I asked, afraid of her silence as she took in gulps of the gnat
infested air, her mouth opening and closing like fish bite.
Emma Phillips grew up next to the M5 in Devon, which lured her to cities and airports in search of adventure before she landed back in 2013. Her flash collection Not Visiting the SS Great Britain is out now from Alien Buddha Press.
This story was shortlisted in the April 24 Monthly Micro Competition.