Saturday, 6 June 2020

'Weight' by Lara Frankena

The child was perfect. Healthy lungs, eager to nurse, ten small fingers that curled in and out. Perfect but for one thing. Just under the surface, another baby shifted below the warmth of its covering skin. Skin so colourless, she could glimpse the stone child within – pebble teeth waiting to erupt, mica fingernails glinting. She could not bear its obsidian gaze, its heavy head that bobbled about, the cool cheeks that nuzzled her breast. She wrapped it in a towel and carried it to the bridge. River, let it sink.

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'Weight' was previously published in Mslexia in June 2017.

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