Through Strangers and Ghosts
A Micro Fiction by Jenny Gaitskell
You insist flea market, knowing how much I dread. Can’t explain as you’re talking. Nothing to be afraid of etcetera. You’ll take care of me, what old friends are for. But here we are.
Strangers crawl racks of junk they want to want so they’ll forget what they need. Echoing exclamation points. Labyrinthine. Smells like ghosts.
Never mind that. Your outdoor voice is indoors leading the way you only buy second hand or artisan now and grow your own. How much better you feel.
Maybe you always spoke down to me, but it’s easier to hear from a distance.
You’re over there trying on ghosts’ hats (bowler, pith helmet, pickelhaube). Teehee while I try to keep my heart inside my ribs. Where am I?
This wee lighthouse cool in my hand. Cut from stone and polished. Tiny bricks, diamond panes, circular handle on the door. It opens inwards. Stairs spiralling up to the lantern room. Lamps waiting to light, foghorn ready, though for now sky and sea all the best colours of each other. I can breathe. A cormorant flies low over its reflection, lost soul sending blessings. White noise of waves on rock and faraway gulls.
Guess what, you’re telling me. All your junk you want me to want until I forget.
My needs shy as a grey seal’s smile, true as tides. The lighthouse keeper hums a secret song. Wicks to trim and glass to polish. Eyes closed to observe isobars and hours pass into constellations. Oh, I see.
Through strangers and ghosts. It’s you I dread.
I leave you with a foxed mirror, recounting some dream of me.
Author: Jenny Gaitskell lives in Sussex, UK. She loves old dictionaries, shingle beaches, and writing speculative fiction. Her work can be found in Beyond Words Literary Magazine, NonBinary Review, and upcoming in The Ilanot Review and Ghost Light Literary Magazine. She posts microfiction on Bluesky and blogs at jennygaitskell.com.
Love this line: Maybe you always spoke down to me, but it’s easier to hear from a distance.