When I woke, I found another tooth had come out. It lay on my pillow, glinting up at me with the reflection of light through the window, like a jewel.
After breakfast I packed a light bag. No point taking a heavy one, because eventually I wouldn’t be able to carry it, and I couldn’t ask anyone for help. The experience for them would be horrific. I didn’t need much. Pretty soon, I’d not need anything.
The train station had that buzz that comes after a Friday night; muted but threatening shrillness, like a wasp trapped in a tin. People bleary from too much drink and too little sleep, or if not, fuzzy from too little coffee. An old man was playing a violin opposite the ticket office. I noticed he had a rip in the back of his coat.
To the perfectly lovely strains of Elgar’s Salut d’Amour, which this current version of me once walked down the aisle to, I bought my ticket. The memory of my wedding was halting the process, slowing it. I felt an overwhelming urge to hug the old man out of hope, and relief I was still feeling something human.
The woman at the ticket desk said: “I wish he’d shut the fuck up; he’s driving me mental”, and the moment in me was lost.
On the train, I tried to sleep, but my body had other ideas. No one tells you metamorphosis is painful; that changing identity can bring such inner turmoil. In the carriage toilet I spat the rest of my teeth into the bowl and felt the razor-edges of their replacements. A sign above the toilet warned not to flush paper, nappies, your hopes and dreams.
Hopes and dreams. I used to have both, but soon I’d neither remember nor care. At least, the new version of me wouldn’t.
I turned on the hand-dryer and roared.
Author: Debbi is a full-time, writer, writing tutor and mentor, with flash fictions published online and in print. She had two novellas-in-flash published in 2021, Only About Love, and The 10:25. The former was shortlisted for the Arnold Bennett Prize in 2022. Her novel, The Reset, is forthcoming with Bloodhound Books.
This story is brilliant, Debbi. I hope it becomes a story in a longer NIF.
Wow! I love it and want more!