The Other Party Has Raised a Number of Concerns
by Linda Grierson-Irish
For instance, the way Sally wears shoes one size too large so she can double up on thick socks. The way she sings answers to difficult questions, typically in the 6/8 time of lullabies. Her latest habit of collecting dead bugs, nestled onto cotton candy, each with a name tag: Charmaine, Leanne, Cordelia.
The other party has a bloody nerve. Sally remembers a winter evening, laughter chattling through the ward window, a young nurse accepting Nick’s wet-lipped cigarette. Time has woodwormed his platitudes. But the chill in her chest never thawed.
She shreds the letter. It’s not as though she’s seeking custody of the child who never was. Nothing she can harm. Just her due, liberation, after these years of mismarriage. She punctures Monday’s pill packet and tops up the wonky mosaic beneath the aspidistra. Then grabs her bug box.
The dead beckon, beneath the moon, aching to be named.
Linda Grierson-Irish’s short fiction has appeared in the Best Small Fictions anthology and elsewhere. She lives in Shropshire, UK.
This story won 1st Prize in the January 25 Monthly Micro Competition.