We met in a witch’s nightmare. I brought him ale, fed the pigs, waited. Later, his chainmail glittered on the floor. He had to leave, he said, while the moon was up. ‘It’s that wound’, he said, ‘makes me wander from place to place’. ‘Show me’. It was black with sores around it like wilting petals. ‘The pain isn’t the worst’, he said. I looked deeper: little villages, houses, tiny millers, tax-collectors, washerwomen, all cursed. He groaned and fell asleep. And I fell, into the wound, to a market square, to fool-search for a fast cure, into my whole life.
---
First published in TSS.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2024 Wigleaf Longlisting
Huge congratulations to Lisa Alletson whose 2024 FlashFlood piece, ' Translucent ' made the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist! You can read th...
-
I know it is Sunday morning because the paper lands on the driveway with a louder thud, masala chai whispers underneath the door, and the so...
-
We are delighted to nominate the following 2023 FlashFlood stories to the Best Small Fictions Anthology: ' I Once Swallowed a Rollercoas...
-
Huge congratulations to Lisa Alletson whose 2024 FlashFlood piece, ' Translucent ' made the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist! You can read th...
Love this! So magical and whimsical. My favourite line is 'his chainmail glittered on the floor'
ReplyDelete