'The Pressing Question of Bees and Their Knees' by Karen Jones

12 am: Set alarm for work, switch off light, cuddle into duvet.

12.30 am: The suit Jackie Kennedy wore when her husband was murdered is preserved in an acid-free container in a windowless vault. Wonder why you remembered that.

1 am: Mull over Kennedy assassination.

1.30 am: Exhale three, inhale six, hold four, exhale three. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

2 am: Remember that time in 1979 when Joan Bolton said your boobs were weird – said yours are pointed when they should be pear shaped. Remember how devastated you were that your boobs were wrong. Realise you should have said, “Well at least I’ve got boobs.” Congratulate yourself on coming up with perfect response, 47 years too late.

2.30 am: Consider buying cat. Think of name for cat. Worry about cat dying.

3 am: Try to recall names of all seven dwarves.

3.30 am: Exhale three, inhale six, hold four, exhale three. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

4 am: Try to remember theme tune to Magpie.

4.30 am: Go to toilet.

5 am: Try to remember full names of the characters in The Odd Couple and the actors who played them in both film and TV series.

5.30 am: Exhale three, inhale six, hold four, exhale three. REPEAT-REPEAT-REPEAT!

6 am: Dogs definitely have bollocks, but do bees have knees?

6.45 am: Tut. No point in sleeping now.

6.46 am: Fall into deep sleep.

7 am: Switch off alarm. Ach, well, time for work. Those planes won’t land themselves.

 

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Karen Jones won first prize in the Cambridge Flash and Reflex Fiction and second prize in Fractured Lit micro. She is an editor for NFFD anthology. Her Novellas-in-Flash, When It’s Not Called Making Love, and Burn It All Down are published by Ad Hoc Fiction and Arroyo Seco Press respectively.

'The Pressing Question of Bees and Their Knees' was first published in Flash Fiction Festival Two in 2018.