By Keren Heenan

Time is thick, achingly thick, but just for a moment, and then it rolls greyly on. They are released and their eyes shift away from each other. Mother and son and twenty years of trapped time bristling between them; busy with its rumblings and churnings, its hurts and hot, sharp words, its bitter hate-filled silences and regrets. All things unforgiven festering under false new skin.

She adjusts her glasses, as if they’ve let her down, shown her something unbidden – how small, how soft and clean he’d once been, all the world in front of him then. But she won’t turn, can’t turn. The back of his head across the crowded square, she knows this will drive the knife further into her chest. Your father is dead now, and I’m not long for this world the doctor says. She thinks the words, loudly, clearly, but can’t and won’t turn, and her feet take her further away, settling in to the rhythm after that pause, that brief hover of one foot as their eyes met across the heads of school children jostling and cursing and play-punching each other.

He wipes the back of his hand against his mouth, flings his wrist aside as if to dispense with it. Sinks one hand palm out into the back pocket of his jeans, something violent and obscene snaking into his skull, something on old legs and brittle as glass. He can’t believe it’s the same handbag. Remembers the brass clip at the top, can still feel the metal between his fingers as he unclips it, muting the sounds of the snap! Eyes on her back as she bends to the fridge or the bench, preparing another meal he won’t bother eating. The last one ever, thrown at his back as he leaves, no longer bothering to mute the snapped metal clip, no longer bothering to look aghast as another piece of jewellery goes missing, and through the red mist of his mind he takes her thin form and flings her against the wall not bothering to see if she rises. You have a grandson, and his mother keeps asking about you; who are you, where are you. He thinks the words, loudly, clearly, but can’t and won’t turn, and his feet roll on in their soft white sneakers, heel-toeing away from her half turned body, school kids shouldering her out of the way, bustling past with backpacks knocking her handbag. His feet find their rhythm as he rolls along.

When the hand on her shoulder comes, it’s electric.

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Author Bio: Keren Heenan has been awarded in a number of short story competitions, and has been published in Australian journals and anthologies, and in Fish Anthology (Ire) and Aesthetica Annual (UK). Follow Keren on Twitter @keren_heenan

 

By Gill Siddle

Eileen’s youngest wasn’t coming home this year; she was away at university, one of the good ones. Eileen didn’t mind, not really.

Eileen’s world was red brick and cobbled. She’d grown up two streets over and had moved into this house, bursting with pride, shortly after her wedding. She had raised four children, now grown and gone. Encroaching modernity had never stopped her doing things the proper way, the hard way but these days there was less to do and her hands felt idle.

A card and a gift arrived, postmarked from the sandstone university town that felt further away than it was. A simple card with a heartfelt message, nice. The gift was luxury hand cream. Eileen stared down at it in her silent living room. She climbed the narrow, steep, thickly carpeted stairs and put it in the bathroom cabinet. At dinner, she gently laughed off the gift as frivolous and unnecessary but a nice thought. Her husband silently nodded while he worked the beef stew around his mouth, an image unchanged for forty years.

As she cleaned her teeth that night, she moved the cream further back into the mirrored cabinet. Guests may see it, she thought, they might think she was showy. She dried her hands and looked at them. The story of forty domestic years was in her skin.

She lay awake. Sleep would not descend. Thoughts of her children frayed the edges of her mind. Where does it all go? Are the years, the work, to be smoothed away? Gently, subconsciously, her hands wrung each other under the heavy blanket. Her husband slept soundly, loudly. She rose and crept to the bathroom.

Under the harsh strip light, she opened the cabinet and took out the hand cream. She unscrewed its gold lid and filled her palm with the white perfumed lotion. She placed both hands together and squeezed, causing the viscous liquid to squelch between her fingers, some blobbed onto the pink rug. She repeated the action. She trailed the cream up her arms, dampening her nightdress. She filled her palm again and again. She smeared it on her face, layer after layer, until the heavy perfume stung her eyes. When the tube was empty she looked in the mirror. She was grotesque. Two sad eyes stared, marooned in the gelatinous mire. Silently, she took the hand towel from the rail and wiped it all off. She put the empty tube and the towel in the bin. She went to bed and slept.

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Author Bio: I don’t really have an author bio as I’m not an author but I do have a blog. It’s called Escape Grey and charts what happens when you quit your job and your flat in search of a life that fits. So far this adventure has, amongst other things, reignited a love of literature and language and has seen me pick up some editing work. It has been the experience of editing that has inspired me to pick up the metaphorical pen in recent weeks. I’m on twitter and Facebook too: www.facebook.com/Escape-Grey
@gilliansiddle

By Paul Alex Gray

We sit on the floor of my soon-to-be old room. My legs crossed with one hand keeping the tip of my skirt down. Marc’s leaning back, smug smile slathered to his face and I think he’s playing the unblinking game again. We hear the moving van drive off.

“Manitoba eh?” he asks.

He always thinks he’s so funny.

The window is open and I wonder if I should close it. We took down the blinds and dad insisted on putting back the old curtains that apparently hung there when we first moved in. They move lazily half translucent and casting tiny pieces of dust. I watch them glow and shine in the light.

“Let’s ditch this place,” says Marc. “In fact, let’s never come back.”

He guides me out into the hall, that first wooden board at the top squeaking like always.
We pass by my Mom, checking empty cupboards. Everything echoes a little too much.

“Just a few more minutes, Sarah”, she says.

Marc leads me to the porch. All the furniture is gone and I can see more of the bushes where we once found a hundred thousand ladybugs – or so it seemed. My skin tingles in the sun. I could be lying out back, baking slowly.

“Hope you packed your snowshoes,” Marc says.

“Honestly,” I reply, wanting to say more but feeling all out of breath.

Dad’s got the car all set up, ready to go, all four doors wide open. Knowing Dad, there will be a full tank of gas, a couple of juice boxes and snacks ready to go. He looks up at me, then down, then does a double take then turns back again. I’m sure I’m freaking him out now. He moves back around, busying himself with something in the car. Marc lets go of my hand and I grab it back.

“I’ll write you,” I blurt out “I’ll call you, when I get there.”

He smiles, and it looks like he’s about to say something profound.

“Oh, wait!” he says, dashing off.

Mom comes out and shuts the door behind her. She moves down the steps and out to the car. The light flickers through the trees. Things are going too fast. Dad starts the car.

“Let’s go,” he says, but softly and without any urgency.

I stare up the street, past letterboxes and bikes laying out on lawns and kids up the street throwing water balloons.

“You don’t want to forget this.”

Marc hands me the baseball. The one we both claimed we caught and somehow always seemed to end up back at his place. I take it, squinting in the light, turning the ball in my hands. The surface feels raw and the stitches flow like a story, round and round.
Marc squeezes my hand and I think I should kiss him. The wind is picking up. It rises and races through the trees and it makes the leaves shout in whispers I cannot understand.

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Author Bio: Paul Alex Gray enjoys writing speculative fiction that cuts a jagged line to a magical real world. His work has been published in 365 Tomorrows, 101 Words and Devolution Z. An Aussie now living in Canada with his wife and two children, Paul spends his days working in the software industry. Follow him on Twitter @paulalexgray.

By Margaret McGoverne

The end of school was in sight, and after the holidays, I was off to university. But for now, I had to do games. We had no money for sports equipment. Games were a distraction for me, and I was a disappointment to sport. I had asthma, I was clever, I was weedy. I couldn’t sprint; I was a plodder. The PE teachers disdained me. But I loved cross country running, bounding over brooks and swerving to avoid nettles. I surrendered to the dirty pleasure of the run.
In the playground stood the games hut; musty, crusty socks, lost shirts and football boots. Each week I walked to the hut, shamefaced, to borrow a hockey stick. The gym mistress, a powerfully built Australian with a jutting chin and a tanned neck, always barked the same question;

“Why haven’t you got a hockey stick? It’s a compulsory piece of kit!”

More than a hundred sticks hung from hooks on the wall of the hut, leaver-bequests and lost property. Without looking, I would grab the nearest one. My kit was stuffed in my school bag; gym top washed and bleached to a buttery cream. I didn’t have hockey boots; I wore black plimsolls. Cheaper.

I ironed my gym kit the night before PE in my bedroom. My father was visiting, drunk again, and angry with me for locking him out the night before. He had banged on the front door, glaring through the letterbox.

“If you don’t let me in I’ll….”

Tonight he told me I was no longer his daughter; he would have nothing to do with me anymore.

“Suits me!” I shouted, retreating to my bedroom to play records. I wrapped myself in scraps of beautiful words and music, a comfort blanket of art. I would escape to university and never come back. I dreamt of taking my mother away, but she would never break her ties with him. They loved to hate each other.

My father would cadge when work was scarce. With his drinking, work was always scarce. He had just been in hospital; his lungs were bad, but he continued to smoke. He was discharged just before my birthday. I asked for a hockey stick, but there was no money to spare. Inside my card, an IOU. Next week, mum promised.

Thursday morning; hockey today. This week, I had a plan: I would hide in the school toilets with a book for an hour. My mother’s scream brought me to the kitchen; my father, face down on the floor, still and cold. He bequeathed me nothing but guilty relief.

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Thursday. My first day back at school. He was cremated, dead and gone from the earth in seven days. Family travelled from far and wide for the funeral, and all promised to stay in touch. An uncle pressed money into my hand, “Buy yourself a treat lassie; some records, something nice to wear.” I bought a hockey stick.

This Thursday, I was equipped. Joining the queue to board the bus, the games mistress brayed, “Where were you last week? Hockey season’s over! Where’s your running shoes?”

I ran in my plimsolls, ruining them. It was alright. I was a plodder, but that was alright too; I would finish the race. I was in it for the distance.

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Author Bio: Margaret McGoverne is currently writing her first full length novel, while being distracted by short stories, flash fiction and her blog about all things writing.

By Odette Brady

On Valentine’s day I tried to make it work. I shut my eyes and thought of all the hunky men in my books, the many pairs of big arms packed into my romance novels. I wanted a big hand to cradle the back of my head and kiss me with a fresh, wet mouth. I thought imagining it hard enough might make it real. On Valentine’s day Keith forgot to put the heating on and I was cold. I had to make him hurry up, I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to be made love to. I just wanted it to be done with so I could roll over and sleep, and dream.

When we met we were young and we had fine facial features. As we’ve aged our faces have become fleshier. Keith’s face is all meat. His dreams are still refined. That’s all they are though: dreams. He told me he was taking me to Belize. I would have been happy enough if he’d dug the garden. The wet lawn and red blood in the skin of my eyelids – eyes closed and turned to the sun – would have been bliss. Dinner on decking, clematis on trellis. It would be ours. But he watched the rain and paced while I waited. He picked his nose and flicked through the sport channels while I read my books. He’d made snide comments about Christmas all through December, I thought he might cheer up by January. He looked miserable as sin when it came and it dragged me down. He trapped me in the slump of his jowls. Valentine’s day was his last chance.

Meanwhile, my sister was digging her own garden. She ruined her hands on her unvarnished spade and clogged her nails with black soil. Her elbows became leather in February’s frost. She took dead looking twigs and gave them time and affection. She threw seeds over the clay and she was patient, she waited, smoking cigarettes in the kitchen. In March I joined her and we waited together. We drank instant coffee and passed the time listening to the clock. We watched blade by blade of grass. Green overcame the black and shiny ground as days got longer. In return for her efforts purple flowers opened up and roses formed buds that were straight off the cover of a romance novel. By summer we had a lawn. In August we ate dinner on a blanket on the grass, closed our eyes and threw our heads back into the heat of the sun. Such was the bliss of my sister’s realised dream. I didn’t think about dinner on decking again. I forgot about clematis on trellis.

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Author Bio: I am a fiction writer from London with a fascination for everyday people and all the things that make us similar. More of my stories can be found at odettebrady.com. I tweet as @odettembrady and my weekly serial novel can be read at soapnovel.wordpress.com

By David Olsen

That had been four years ago. It was Christmastime again and, whilst the people of the world celebrated goodness and cheer, Julian found himself somber and melancholy at the result of his life’s efforts.

He’d said goodbye to Eileen. He’d said goodbye to a decent, albeit boring, job. He’d said goodbye to a family that never really cared about him anyway. Now he stood in an apartment a lot like his last one, looking out at weather that he thought he had left behind, preparing to go out to meet a new girlfriend who probably loved him even less than Eileen had at the end.

All of his problems had followed him to where he stood today. Or had they? Maybe Julian had simply travelled full circle from within one air of malaise to a new one; wholly different causes with exactly the same end result. It didn’t really matter. He was here now, dealing with his brand new but all-too-familiar anxieties.

What if he moved on again? Would that be a solution or would the same gnawing anguish track him down? He imagined a wolf with the smell of blood in its nostrils, tracking the emotionally wounded form of Julian across land, sea, distance and time. There was no escape from the troubles that were carried within you. Julian thought of this and smiled, in spite of the turmoil in his mind. He couldn’t be alone in this realisation. That alone gave him some comfort. Although he had his own issues that tore him apart, others suffered similar indignities. Julian was not alone in his loneliness. For that, he was grateful.

Still, the thought of moving to a new life once more was a tempting one. Wherever he went, however, life would follow him. The same old concerns would be there upon arrival. The same anguish and doubts would remain, deep inside, like an odd sock at the bottom of a suitcase you thought you’d unpacked.

Julian wouldn’t run again, not this time. In a world of uncertainties, that was the only thing he could be sure of. It was time to deal with the pain he carried daily, not by running away, but by charging headlong into it. Mastery of the feelings that crippled him would only come from addressing where his problems truly stemmed from. He was his own problem, not the world at large. Wherever he went, the sense of dissatisfaction followed. Where was it coming from if he was not bringing it himself? Could he ever truly be without them if they actually were a part of his soul?

Julian left his apartment building and walked out into the downpour. His umbrella left behind, the water soaked through his coat and plastered his hair to his head. Today was a day to make a change, or two, or several. He was tired of unhappiness, tired of listlessness.

Today was the day that he would rewrite his own story and chapter one would begin with a walk in the rain.

Part 1

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