1.
Warm imprint of him. A hollow in the lair where his hairy torso had laid. Musty scent of spices and cigarettes, like voyaging in an unknown land.
Shielding from daylight shoving through cheap blinds, Goldie tries to sleep. She must rest before the night shift. Before Bear returns with a growling stomach to reclaim his nocturnal space in the cave.
2.
Goldie feels the disgrace of her relationship with Bear. She can’t tell her mother she goes halves on a mattress with someone she barely knows. How she glimpses him only when the sun rises, and then sets. Yet, her mother would probably be glad someone desires her after her breaking and entering charge.
Goldie discovers that Bear left Syria four years ago, losing his brother along the way. He writes from right to left, dreams of forest berries and his mother’s Fatteh with chicken. He tells her he can smell it in the air sometimes while unloading timber. Dust on sites not like dust back home.
3.
Goldie pats Bear when she returns reeking of cleaning fluid. Bear brings her mint tea before he slides paws into thick gloves and steel-clawed boots. The bed share in the flat share in the life share less shameful in these moments.
Warm impression of her in bed. A dent where her golden body lays. Tangy fragrance of bleach and apples, like voyaging to a new land.
Cheryl Markosky is a journalist who splits her time between the UK and a
small island called Nevis in the West Indies. She discovered flash
fiction during the Covid lockdown and has had stories published in The
Molotov Cocktail, Ellipsis Zine, New Flash Fiction Review, Maudlin
House, and National Flash Fiction anthologies.
'Goldie and Bear' was first published in Mslexia Best Women's Short Fiction, 2022.
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