Monster Mouth fans his flames with ragged accordion breaths. Hisses. Grumbles. Shimmers yellow, trembles orange. Coughs up a Barbie, her zebra swimsuit charred.
The girl loved that doll. She gives the heater a good kick.
It bellows red, red, red, then red hot red with spits of blue, like hot flames on a gas stove pop pop popping fried chicken in an iron skillet.
She scoots back fast against the chilly concrete block.
“Now you’ve made him mad.” The boy tugs a toy soldier from his pocket. “Heads up,” he calls.
She looks at him looking down at her from where the flimsy floor vent gave way beneath her feet.
“For protection,” he says and drops the combat commando through the hole.
A box of tissues drops next, followed by a cookie. Oatmeal with a hint of cherry chocolate.
“Monster Mouth, he’s got a cold,” the brother tells the sister. “Give him the cookie and maybe, he’ll let you wipe his nose.”
The heater snorts. Snuffles. Sniffs back a sneeze.
“You wipe his nose,” she yells back and throws the cookie inside the monster’s mouth. She smells toasted oatmeal. Melted cherry chocolate. Browning brown sugar.
She imagines being swallowed by a bakery.
Saturday, 24 June 2023
'Monster Mouth' by Sheree Shatsky
'Telling' by Lu Han
I’m telling you none of us could have seen it going that way, when May first arrived it was almost fall, you could smell it in thickening air that had us buzzing, even Libby the queen of pretending to give no shits was laying out her outfits, we know this because when we went to her house (not nicest one but the one without cabinet doors going bangbangbang, which really messes with the ambience for Truth or Dare) we all saw the skirts fanned out on her bed like a poker hand, even though she tried to cover them up with her pilly comforter, like good friends we helped her pretend, though we each had our own reasons to look forward to school, back to the ratatat of sticks hitting chalkboards, back to the clackclackclack of Mrs. Greene’s patent leather loafers clicking across the floor of warped linoleum, the same kind lining the floors of our kitchens, chipped at the corners like our little brothers’ baby teeth, we all knew that each of us wanted out, so when May arrived with her wide eyes and half-braided brown hair that was both lush and frizzy, we were near-boil like those frogs everyone talks about, we were ready for an equation that didn’t add up, ready to rally for (or against) a cause, ready to take a bite out of something we wanted, or keep someone else from having it, ready to recognize the glint in someone’s eye when they weren’t just joking for chrissakes. I’m telling you, there’s no telling what would have happened to May if we weren’t so worked up, if apricot skins yielded less easily, if we could just exhale, if we listened for the fear lying under nonono, if we knew what to feed our hunger.
'Hetty Gets in Shape' by Nastasya Parker
Carb-cutting, aqua-pilates, horseback zumba. Give us this day our daily appetite suppressant. Hetty tried all this and more, but nothing had stuck—nothing had unstuck her from herself.
So she splashed out to press everything in. The New You Cookie Cutter had rave reviews from the most shapely Instagrammers. Just the other day, Hetty saw a woman in real life walking along with a heart-shaped Cookie Cutter body atop her legs. Men stared, imagining that point between the woman’s thighs, the symmetrical soft billows of her torso. Some on social media went for star shapes, compressing their legs and arms into spikes. Goodbye, ankle fat.
You could bake yourself into a perfect slim line, or New You had a spherical option if you wanted to go counter-culture. But this was Hetty’s chance for the hourglass frame of her dreams.
The edges were guaranteed not to erode or leaven for three whole years.* Long enough, surely, to snag a dream partner.
Hetty preheated the oven and laid out the hourglass cookie cutter. She’d only need to cram her trunk into it, and live with her arms and legs as they were. They wouldn’t be too incongruous; nonfat yoghurt and chin-up bars must be worth something.
She contorted herself to meet the sharp metal frame. It was cold, but baking would remedy that. It would remedy everything. And if, even with the ideal shape, she still spent her evenings alone, a pint of ice cream would provide solace without blurring her outline.
*Warranty exempt during the festive dining season. Not recommended for pregnant or nursing mothers. Offer void in Wisconsin.
'In Every Girl There is a Forest' by Jonathan Cardew
In every forest there is a cabin. In every cabin there is a stove. In every stove there is an ash pile. In every ash pile there is a bone. In every bone there is a story. In every story there is a yearning. In every yearning there is a prize. In every prize there is a cost. In every cost there is a cut. In every cut there is a ghost. In every ghost there is a home. In every home there is a witch. In every witch there is a girl. In every girl there is a forest.
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First published in 100 Word Story in 2020.
'That Time Before' by B F Jones
I was not that different to him as a kid. Not a million miles away. He was curlier. With a better nose. Lived in a smaller house, closer to the sea. Isolated in a not-yet-crowded plain of cheap builds with horrendous vis-a-vis. Did you know Cole from n. 25 has a moss green bathroom? Did you know he reads the Sunday Times Magazine on the toilet? On Monday mornings. I know. I don’t want to, but life has it that I live in a crowded area. That I have a potato-like nose. That at 49, I’m risking type 2 diabetes if I don’t watch it. I do like a lager or two. And waffles.
Previous me didn’t have a vis-a-vis. I doubt he knew what it was, aged 7, which is when he faded to black. Probably would have loved waffles if ever was offered one. I doubt that ever happened. I don’t know.
I remember him in strange mute fragments, in deep shades of maroon, in the jumpy fashion of a Super 8 movie abruptly coming to an end, the reel still running but the images gone.
I find it weird that I was him, once.
I remember him and he remembers the silence and that lone house on a slight incline.
In the top room, the one that was always dark, he could occasionally see the swiping beam of a lighthouse from that not-quite-concealed corner window. He always kept his eyes open wide, hoping to spot a boat listing on the mercurial sea, hoping to float away on it.
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'Together You Try' by Louella Lester
You pluck out-of-tune songs on elastics stretched up and over the teeth of combs. An unimpressive filter for the broken notes lingering in the darkening air. You dare each other to hold your noses and drink up strange concoctions of juice-ketchup-pepper or milk-mustard-salt in one long gulp. Not helpful for already unsettled tummies. You guess the words and shapes tiny fingernails trace on each other’s backs. The briefest of gentle distractions. Jump on the spring-poked mattress while swiping each other with well-used pillows. Not thick enough, when pressed against ears, to block out the rage seeping in under the door.
'What We Lost in the Tide' by Emily Roth
“We’ll keep her comfortable,” the nurse says.
I grip my sister’s limp hand, the diagnosis looping through my mind. Cirrhosis. Toxins in her bloodstream. Brain damage.
As I study her face, slack and yellow-tinged, the decades blur together, indistinguishable.
When we were five and six, a hurricane ravaged our town, churning our house into a pile of bloated wood. Sometimes I dream I’m the house, frozen in place as the waves beat into me, aware that I’m doomed to crumble.
We first tasted alcohol at a party by the pier, sipping from the same Solo cup. Later, when we struggled to crawl back through our bedroom window, she giggled and I shushed her, but my stomach hurt from laughing.
We couldn’t feel the tide swirling around us yet. We wouldn’t until it had long dragged us both away from ourselves. Only I found my way back.
I look at my sister and see every time we’ve splashed in the ocean together. I see a little girl hugging a waterlogged doll in the wreckage of our house. I see her in the front row the night I earned my twenty-year chip, her eyes shining.
I hold her hand like I used to when Mom sang to us at bedtime, before we knew the smell on Mom’s breath was whiskey, until, side by side, we floated off to sleep.
Outside the hospital window, I hear the drumbeat of palmetto leaves and, distantly, the humming of the sea. I think of my dream. The pain of the waves, the knowledge that the end is coming.