'Lilith' by Laure Van Rensburg

 She was the warm breath in your ear that told you to speak to the quiet girl at the end of the bar — the dare you followed until my number was stored in your phone.

She was the flame that lit your cigarette, the high that hit you when you took that first drag of the day, the black tar that stayed in your lungs long after you stopped smoking.

She was your love of Neil Young, Radiohead and Kurt Vonnegut. She was the references I didn’t get, the invisible pen that underlined all of my inadequacies.

She was everywhere, although you called her ancient history, but one whose words were etched on the tablets of your bones. There were tales that defined you that I didn’t know like that weekend in Berlin or the stained jumper you wouldn’t throw away.

She was the shadows shrouding the recess where you first kissed me — the puppeteer still moving the strings long after they had left the stage.

She was the pause in your questions, the delay of hesitation, the words you didn’t speak. She was the name never on your lips, but always on your mind.

She was the phantom fingers knotting in your hair, pulling you close as you tasted me for the first time. She was the hungry mouth trying to swallow me.

She was the flicker of ennui in your eyes when I suggested a quiet night in on the sofa, and the curl of your mouth when my hand slipped below the elastic of your pyjamas as Richard Attenborough lectured us on endangered species.

She was the scar slicing your eyebrow and the small dent in the plaster of the living room wall. I ran my fingers along the depression, licked the porous surface that stuck to my tongue.

She was the kohl pencil forgotten in the bathroom cabinet. The blackest shade that rimmed her eyes and your desires. A reminder that someone had been there before me, important enough to leave something behind, important enough not to be thrown away. A message to those who would come after her.

She was the storm goddess, the one who would never lose because she was an idea, a memory only made of the good parts of your history, an excitement like salt on a split lip.


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First published by Spelk Fiction.

'Bones' by Susmita Bhattacharya

She marinates the fish in salt and turmeric. The cat rubs against her leg, purring loudly. Shoo, she mutters. Filthy creature. She kicks it away, her eyes darting to the door to check no one sees this. She drains the rice in the sink, the steam enveloping her in its warm, aromatic plumes. She prepares the table and then announces that lunch is ready.

The family rush in, talking all at once – discussing the cricket match they’ve been pulled away from, commenting on the smell of the fried fish. Wiping her turmeric stained fingers on her white sari, she expertly whisks the golden-brown pieces onto their plates and watches them eat. The master – he chews quickly, the oil sliding from the corner of his mouth to his chin. He wipes the oil off with the back of his hand and spits the pulp of fish bones into the plate. The children eat less and talk more. The mistress sucks the bones till they resemble hair combs made of ivory.

She turns her face away and tries to think of something else. But images of her own kitchen in the village, the mud-baked walls soaked with the smells of her cooking, fills her brain. Her tongue longs for the texture of the meat, the melting flesh of the fish. Her eyes are desperate to see colour on her body instead of the widow whites. He took everything with him the moment he was gone. In that second that he died, she became a shadow – to not have any desires, any comforts, any say in anything. She now cooks for others to survive but has to starve herself of the food she loves.

The master clicks his tongue and the cat, who has been sitting under the table licking its paws, runs to him. He places the leftovers from his plate on the floor and it pounces on the scraps, finishing them off in no time. The children laugh and offer titbits until their mother tells them to stop.

The family finish their lunch and hurry back to the cricket. She clears away the table. The children have not eaten their food properly. She stops and stares at the pile of bones with generous helpings of flesh still attached to them. Her tongue screams for just one more taste. She is shocked by her own craving. What would her husband say? Oh, he’s dead, woman. Her mind cries out. No one will know. She quickly places a fragment of fish into her mouth. She closes her eyes and relishes the taste. It has been too long.  The cat protests – she is stealing what is rightfully his. It jumps onto the kitchen counter, trying to reach for the scraps. She eyes him, sucks out a fish bone and places it in front of him. The cat sniffs, then turns away. She watches with satisfaction.  She isn’t going to let that creature enjoy what she cannot anymore.

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First published in Spelk.

DEBUT FLASH: 'A Blank Page' by Tom Beck

A blank page is like a new apartment. It’s exciting to see and to think about. Where will all of the furniture go? How will everything be arranged? But then, it’s a lot of work. All of the things have to be brought up. They have to be transported from the old place to here. And it’s hot outside, or maybe it’s very cold. And everything is so heavy. Why do we have so much stuff? This is mirror is broken too—throw it in the trash. Just get everything inside, put it somewhere, we’ll figure it out later. And the space fills up and nothing is in its place. It’s all scattered everywhere and there is no way to get through it all, so you push things aside, make paths. And you’re done. It’s woefully incomplete and not at all how you imagined, but you’re tired and now it’s dark outside.

'Daylight' by David Brookes

I stare at the ceiling and see nothing but darkness. The only light in the small room comes from above the window, a mere glow where the mismatching curtains fail to join.

I have to pretend to see your arm stretched over my chest. The smooth dip and rise of your waist and hip. I can feel your breath against me in the darkness, and the gentle weight of your knee resting between mine. Your hair is cotton on my shoulder.

It took a long time to figure it out – why we couldn’t be together. Hours of floating in the sea, staring at the sky or the white beach or the ocean’s horizon, but rarely at each other. Talking without thinking, which is something we never learned to do. And why we were never ourselves.

Those times that we drifted, lying in the translucent water with our toes poking up like islands, our voices were flat and clear, uncontaminated by selfishness or fear of reprisal. We let the tide take us where it wanted. These new truths of ours were deep and far-reaching.

It took days. I can see the Thai islands in my mind’s eye. Green jungle, white sand, crystal blue ocean. Green, white, blue. Like a flag of surrender, even after the flags of truce failed.

I will not fall asleep. You have been resting, finally, for hours. You put your soft cheek on my shoulders, ran your fingers through my chest hair. I felt your tears, then you were gone, like something dropped out of sight.

I’m just going to hold onto you. Have waking dreams where there are no problems, no differences, no screaming. No reasons to be apart. No defects of character we need time alone to fix. Just us, like this, lying together in the cool darkness.

The air conditioning blows cold air over my legs. Where our bodies touch, intense heat soaks into my skin. Is this your heat, or the heat that just exists between us, those leaping Van de Graff interactions? I was always the one to get warm first, you always the one to get cold.

I breathe slowly. I don’t want to disturb you. We talked and cried ourselves to exhaustion, mainly out of shock and disbelief. Making the decision was rational, mechanical. So grown up. And then the realisation sank in. Tomorrow we’re going to be apart, forever.

I can tell from the glow around the curtains that the sky is getting brighter. The stars above the island are burning out.

If I turn a little to the right, my tears roll away from you instead of towards you.

Starlight turns to sunlight. The room brightens to shades of deepest blue and grey. I see your outline: that arm, that waist, that hip. You sleep upon me and this is my last glance, soon to be memory.

'Tails Entwined' by Ashling Dennehy

What he wants to say is: “How do you let it get this far? Can you not judge your own needs?” The thought seeps from him like pheromones and I can't get away from it, even when I lie back in the bath and squeeze my eyes against the burning in my legs.

He had poured in table salt, swirled it in sharp sweeps that slapped the water over the tiled edge. But the crystals have not dissolved and the ribbons of my calves merge and break over and over. I try to be still.

 In the next room, the Leau begins to stir and he slumps between the toilet and the sink, takes the baby monitor in his hand and watches it, as if we had been able to afford the video monitor he had wanted.

She is fully awake, hiccupping newborn cries, when he heaves himself to his feet. I have not moved. I take my hands from my thighs and the pads of my fingers gleam iridescent.

*

“We need the money Leau, I'll be home soon.”

He kisses our toddler and the sparsening hair at the top of his head tickles my chin when he leans into my clavicle, where Leau has laid her swollen face. I pretend I have not heard and tip my cheek toward him for a bone-dry kiss before he leaves.

My skin itches. I will need salt water soon and there is a secret jar of change under the sink for the sitter.  It is secret because the ocean is an indulgence.

*

Leau is screaming in the back seat. She wraps a length of her hair twice around her wrist and wrenches hard, a tantrum style copied directly from a new friend at school. By the time we reach the beach, my own lips are trembling and the air is thick with salt spray. She quietens when I lift her, and tilts her chin to the stars, inhaling slowly.

The sand is damp and the scales slice through the soles of my feet. Leau's arms cling to my neck and there is guilt-ridden pleasure in the pressure, the quiet. It reminds me of tails entwined.

I bring her so close that I worry I may beach myself.

A sudden sweep of headlights ends its trajectory a few feet from where we stand. I can hear him, calling stern into the night and Leau's head snaps toward the sound of her father's voice.

The crash of surf is urgent, it reaches my toes. Until she looks back at me, her blue eyes to my green, I am unsure if my legs are still beneath me or if we are already swimming.

'Home' by Gemma Govier

The men were there with the cement trucks and diggers, smoking cigarettes and brewing batches of builders’ tea, the electronic radio beats muffled by their drills and shouts while I played hopscotch in the playground in a country separated from them by wide water.  They carved the new estate from wild fields, giving each house a number, a garden, a garage.  I made daisy chains as they tiled the roof, skipped home from parties holding moist cake in a too-thin napkin as they hung the doors.  Maybe they laid the last brick the day I won the egg and spoon race and stood on the podium for the first time, elated and terrified in turns.  I wrote late night assignments at college, drank blue drinks and found love in an echo filled hall.  Bereavement became a feeling not just a word.  I found out all people were good and bad.  Families moved in, then moved out, but in the end it was always my house, waiting in the corner on the other side of the wide water.

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First published in Spelk, May 2019.

'How Souls Sound' by Karen Jones

I bought a woman's soul today. She had white hair tinged with nicotine stains and wrinkles like fault lines creasing her face. She’d lost her bus pass, so I offered to cover her fare, but she insisted I take something in return. £4.50 for such an old soul.

She kept it in her handbag, in a purple satin box just big enough for an engagement ring. I tried to refuse, told her I’d be happy to do her this small favour, but she pressed it into my hand, said it was all she had to offer. She gave a sharp nod and a half smile as the bus doors hush-hushed their way closed and I watched her go off on her journey while I waited for mine to begin. I put the box in my pocket. When my bus arrived I tried to settle, listen to music, but my fingers kept stroking the box’s plush material, worrying at its contents.

I planned to leave it in my jacket when I got to work, think about it when I got home, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, wondering what a soul looked like, felt like.

I put the box on my desk, my fingers still touching it as though they couldn’t bear to let it go. It started to make a keening noise, like a wounded animal. Maybe that's normal for souls. I wouldn't know. I took a deep breath and felt an emptiness expand and push my ribs apart. I reached for the silver letter opener – another thing I thought I’d never have any use for – and tested its sharp edge. The box burned my fingers, but still I couldn’t let go. The keening got louder, made me scrunch up my eyes and grind my teeth. I prised open the lid, gripped the knife and prepared to make space for something I never knew I’d been missing.