Category Archives: Fiction

It was a night of long music that wouldn’t stop. Repeating itself like a circuit in time with my feet. I should have gone down the well like I wanted to when I first saw it. Now, followed, the only thing left was to seem not to be the one they were looking for. Three men walking behind me. So what. I’m over here, they’re over there. My life. Their lives. I have nothing to do with them and try to project that in my body language.

“He’s good,” I heard one of them say as if he was just then inside my head.

“How far is he going to go?” A higher voice. The kind that always belongs to the skinny guy advocating the loudest to hang people the highest.

I didn’t need to hear the rest of the conversation. People passing by, people who just happen to be there, don’t do a commentary about the nonchalant manner in which someone is walking. I bolted into the woods to my left and right into the arms of two officers who were waiting for just such an opportunity.

The canvasback truck jangled over the pine cones, wobbling down the uneven terrain. They were all laughing and threw me in the back under the canvas. I scrambled to the back and wedged myself between the gumball machines and some broken mannequins, just in case anyone had the idea of following me in and starting a beating. But the only one who joined me carried a large hunting knife that flashed blue only once when some unknown light hit it, and he just smiled like a raccoon.

“You boys will never learn will you?” He stunk of onions. “Back to Paladin’s Field for you now.” He was happy. The prospect of returning to the compound filled him with Christmas joy. “I don’t know why you boys run so much. If I had the guarantee of being fed every day, had a place to sleep each and every night, I’d jump at the chance.”

I don’t know why I said, “then why don’t you take my place” from behind my knees.

He went quiet. He had to think about it. Mull it over. Process my words. Just the kind of guy they get to do this kind of work. Perfect, in fact. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Don’t you have to do something, know somebody to get in?” His head was tilted like a dog. And these are our masters. “Or did you do something bad?”

“I was born in the city. I finished my schooling and here I was.”

“Because you knew someone?”

There was no point in answering. The truck jumbled along the bad road. Me beside the painted face of a naked plastic woman half my age. He didn’t wait long for an answer. In a few minutes, he forgot he’d asked one.

We reached the Field by morning unfed, half-awake, my legs as thick as paste. Only the braying of the hounds inside the fence and the truck gate slamming open broke my trance.

The men were lining in the yard. I knew what was to follow. I’d been caught before. Been brought back before. I already knew the speech I was going to get. The treatment I was about to receive.

After a shave and a shower I made a pot of coffee. I could hear the men marching outside my window. The morning cadence.

Fresh clothes. My good watch. Out the door to join them. Next time I’m going to jump down that well. The only reason I didn’t do it was because of the spiders. Not the idea of spiders but the look on their faces and the things I imagined them saying to one another once I broke into their hidden world. Staring at me with their diamond eyes. All knowing.

I passed the women chanting and praying in the coatroom and out my front door. My good shoes crunch the chipped gravel and a few of the men smiled in my direction. Mornings are neither a relief or fresh hope. They are only a bell you wake up to.

I caught the expression on Edward’s face. His eyes staring at me above a wicked grin visible all the way across the Assembly Yard. He was going to do something and he wanted me to do it with him. I read all this just from the squint of his eyes. We didn’t dare be obvious about it and had perfected subtle means of communication. Changing the color around our eyes like chameleons. A twitch at the cheekbones, a half-hearted wink. His lips were in a tight line, showing he was determined.

That face we all get. He believed he’d perfected the means of escape this time. I flicked my eyebrows. My response. Not me. I needed a shower and a hot bowl of soup tonight, my signal said. Need to lay low for a while. Let a few more days go by. And more days. And more days after that.

 

About the Author:

RW Spryszak’s recent work has appeared in A-Minor Magazine (Hong Kong) and Novelty (UK). He has been featured in small press magazines since the late 1980s and is the author of “Edju” published by Spuyten Duyvil (NY) in late 2018. He is Managing Editor at Thrice Publishing and has edited two anthologies in the “Surrealists and Outsiders” (2018 and 2019) Series.

 

An ex-wife is someone you can hate, but a dead wife is untouchable. Everything you ever did together is preserved in amber, mounted on the stage of your life for your friends and family to look at whenever they feel like it. That’s it, ladies and gentlemen, step right up! You don’t even have to buy a ticket! The greatest entertainment for human beings is picking over the bones of dead loved ones.

When their father died, his little sister went a bit crazy for a while. She would only talk to people in words or phrases their dad had used. Coming into a brightly-lit room, she would turn the light off and say, “It’s like Blackpool Illuminations in here!” When their mother bought a new dress and shoes for the funeral, she opened her eyes wide and cried out, “What do you think I am? MADE of money?”

Their grandmother had ticked her off for that one. It was almost funny watching a six year-old wag her finger at a septuagenarian and growl, “You’re not too big to go across my knee, young lady! Now get out that door and straighten your face unless you want your arse skelped!”

David had been mortified at the way his mother had sobbed, and had kept his head down all day. He was keeping his head down now. He spent his days under the covers, in the bed that still smelled of Her. His mother called round every day to check he hadn’t “done something silly”, and to bleach the benches. She talked to him about the extension she was having built and what food she’d put in his fridge, but he heard it all through a bubble.

*

‘At least it was quick.’

‘I’ll say it was quick, it took her bloody head off!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, is there any need to be so flippant?’

‘I’m not, I’m just saying-‘

‘Well DON’T “just say”.’

‘He’s in a state.’

‘Wouldn’t you be?’

‘I saw him round the Co-op. He’d forgotten what he’d come in for.’

‘I do that all the time.’

‘Yes, but your wife hasn’t just died, has she?’

‘What had he gone in for?’

‘Does it matter?’

*

People kept telling him that they would have to “go for coffee”. He hated that expression. He hated coffee. An invitation to coffee wasn’t about you, and almost always never came to anything. They said it for themselves, not for you.

*

Take as much time as you need –

            ⁃           but don’t leave it too long, because we’ll have to pay a temp if you’re off for more than two weeks.

How are you really?

            ⁃           can I have the juicy details you haven’t told anyone else?

She won’t have felt a thing, you know.

            ⁃           apparently, Anne Boleyn‘s lips kept moving after her head was cut off.

Eternal rest give unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace, Amen.

            ⁃           sorry, I’m afraid that’s the best we can do.

Have you given any thought to when you might be back?

You can stick your bloody job.

*

Six months went by and he lived off his savings. She’d been killed in their car, so he walked everywhere. He lost weight, and had to buy new clothes. The money for the new car sat in the bank.

*

Eight months after her death, he had to catch a train to London to attend the funeral of an uncle he’d never been close to. He paid extra for first-class, hoping for peace and quiet. But someone was threatening to kill themselves, and the passengers started to complain. They had more important things to do than hope a soul would stay anchored inside its host. David got off and vomited on the platform – yellow bile, and the complementary croissant that the passengers who were Worth More got. The prospective suicide was apparently averse to the sight of bodily fluids, and changed their mind.

A middle-aged woman asked David if he was alright.

‘My wife was killed in a car crash.’ Oh, that’s not what she meant, he thought.

‘Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!’

He could feel the mist lifting. The woman was speaking to him and he could hear the shock in her voice clearly; he didn’t have the bubble around him anymore. No more conversations about extensions and what do you want for tea. When he got to London, he would buy a new suit for Uncle Donnie’s funeral.

‘It’s alright.’ He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. ‘She was leaving me for someone else at the time.’

*

He enjoyed the funeral. The service was short, the buffet was plentiful, he hadn’t been close enough to Donnie to feel terribly sad, and after all, the man had been ninety-seven. The phrase “good innings” was bandied about a lot at the club afterwards.

He didn’t know his London family very well, but they commiserated with him over his wife’s death, clapped him on the back and bought him whiskies.

‘ ‘Alf a lager when you’ve got a minute, darlin’!’

‘Two double rum and cokes over ‘ere, sweetheart!’

‘Packet of pork scratchings, love! And a smile wouldn’t go amiss!’

The barmaid was on her own, and she was getting more irate by the minute. David watched her through the warm glow of the three Irish whiskies he’d had. He’d never seen anyone so spectacularly ill-suited to the task of pulling pints and looking pleased to do so.

‘What are you doing? You can’t come behind here!’

David was behind the bar without quite knowing how he’d got there. He’d removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

‘You’ll never get this lot served on your own; they’re three deep as it is.’

She narrowed her eyes, watching him serve the double rum and cokes to the man with a face like a plate of varnished corned beef. ‘Well…you seem to know what you’re doing.’

*

An hour later, most of the mourners were belting out songs of the Motherland. ‘The Fields of Athenry’ had been sung four times.

The barmaid, who was called Michelle, was flirting with David. It had come as a surprise to him, after months of seclusion, that he was worth flirting with.

Michelle casually mentioned that she had a day off coming up in three days’ time, if he was still around. Just in case. If he was at a loose end. If he fancied doing something.

‘Yeah,’ David lied as he tried to recall through the haze of whiskey what time his train home was the next day. ‘We could go for coffee or something.’

 

About the Author:

Frances Holland has been writing ever since she was five years old when she realised that putting an amusing caption on a drawing of her dad could get cheap laughs. Her inspirations include folklore and mythology, as well as the everyday lives of the people around her. She lives in Northumberland.

Memories are an environment, don’t you think? And the longer you live the more that environment grows; like bindweed perhaps or, if you’re lucky, roses tangled round a trellis. Now I find that no new experience comes alone: each arrives enmeshed in things of the past.

 

I think of this as I walk along the river, the water silver and grey, ochre near the bank where it reflects the autumn foliage. A cluster of small craft float, moored together in midstream, still as an island. Mist lies on the water like silence, and I think of the day, the early summer afternoon, the very quiet, still moment, when Geraldine kissed me. For a few seconds I can even feel the press of her lips on my cheek.

*

It was the other girls who’d started it, although the boys soon joined in. Puberty was the problem – it’s easy to see that in hindsight. Previously she’d been as inconspicuous as the rest of us. She and I had sat next to each other right through junior school and on into seniors. We had borrowed each other’s pens, caught each other’s bugs, and shared whispered answers to tricky questions, so that often we gave the same wrong answer.

 

I didn’t recognise her sudden blossoming, I genuinely didn’t, although now that seems inexplicable. I did notice the small gifts that started appearing on her desk. And the way some of the other boys began to stumble with their words when they spoke to her. They, I suppose, were the shy ones. Others started to ply her with embryonic chat-up lines, while she reddened and shrank.

*

I could tell she didn’t like it. Her head dipped and her long dark hair began to fall forward like a plea for privacy. Before long she stopped putting her hand up to answer questions. She spent more and more break time in the library. I could feel her withdrawing, even from me. If our shoulders touched when we shared a text book she would start and retreat, and soon there was an unbreachable inch of space between us, never before needed or even thought about.

 

Everyone’s skin is permeable. I know that now. Perhaps hers was more than most. She just didn’t want to stand out, and suddenly, unavoidably, she did. I can still frame her face: the lustre in her hair, the particular blue of her eyes and the small extra crease beneath the lower lids, the simplicity of her mouth and the default gentleness of her expression.

*

‘Stuck up cow.’ That was the moment it broke out. Before it had just been an atmosphere. Cora MacDonald, standing over her, staring down, Geraldine with her head bowed, not wanting to be seen. Teenage accusations are often wrong, or at least misplaced, but they’re fertile nonetheless. From that point on Geraldine did not fit in, would never regain the chance to.

 

Cora MacDonald was loud and physically strong. She had her coterie. They quickly fell in behind her. It wasn’t subtle, but it had no need to be. That very rare thing, a pure unblemished beauty, wished only to be invisible. All that was needed was to call attention to it.

*

Inevitably the boys started too, joining the pack, their teasing blunt with spite. What they couldn’t possess they could at least take part in destroying. I tried to protest and got my lip split. Geraldine looked at me and, almost imperceptibly, shook her head. Anything I did could only make it worse.

 

So I sat beside her – that was my one option: a single witness, each of us in our own form of exile. I watched as her spirit drew in on itself, as the space around her contracted, as the sense of her nearness diminished.

*

It stopped abruptly – the day our form teacher announced that Geraldine would be leaving at the end of term. No reason was given. Perhaps, in the moment of victory, the hunter finds compassion for their victim. Or perhaps that final brittle conquest allows them to see just what it is they’ve done. There were even some clumsy attempts at reconciliation, although it was clear Geraldine didn’t want those either.

 

The imprint of her lips fades from my cheek, and my mind returns to that final day of term, the last time I saw her. I’d said goodbye and walked away, but then heard footsteps running after me. When I turned she was there. She reached up, the press of her closed mouth gentle and deliberate, and then, somehow, I found myself alone, and for a few moments the world around me was silent.

*

Perhaps that was her parting gift: silence. She knew it better than most. The river mist is damp on my hair and clothes, the ash path still as a cloister, and I can hear no sound from the water.

 

About the Author:

Mike Fox has co-authored a book and published many articles on the human repercussions of illness.  Now writing fiction, his stories have appeared in journals in Britain, Ireland, America, Australia and Singapore. His story Breath, published by Fictive Dream, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2019. His story Blurred Edges, published by Lunate Fiction, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2020. His story The Homing Instinct, first published by Confingo, was included in Best British Short Stories 2018 (Salt). His story, The Violet Eye, is available from Nightjar Press as a limited-edition chapbook. www.polyscribe.co.uk or @polyscribe2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mama packed the bags days ago, but she won’t let me tell anyone.  She says people will be jealous, but I think she’s worried about getting in trouble with school.

I can tell she’s excited, she can’t sit still and runs for the phone every time it rings.  It’s never Papa though.  He’s not allowed to call.  Mama can’t wait to see him again.  She says he’s at the end of the journey.  Two trains and a boat and then another train.  I’ve never been on a big boat before.  I keep asking when we’re going but Mama gets angry and snaps that she doesn’t know.  I can’t wait to see Papa.  His face is starting to get blurry in my brain.  I can remember his smell though, like leather and soap.  A warm smell.

There’s a knock at the door.  She nearly jumps out of her skin.  It’s Peter.  I have to call him Uncle Peter.  He’s not really my uncle.

“Get your bag,” Mama tells me.

Halfway to the station, I realise we’ve left Martha behind.  Mama tells me it’s too late, we’ll have to leave her, but I start crying and Peter turns the car around.

“We should still make it,” he says.

I don’t go in to get Martha, Peter runs in and finds her on my bed.  I say ‘thank you’ and put her safely in my bag.  I wonder if Mama’s got Martha’s ear – she still hasn’t sewn it back on – but I don’t dare ask.

Peter drives much faster this time and Mama keeps looking at her watch.  I see Peter take her arm and squeeze it.  I don’t like that.  I’ll tell Papa.

Peter stops in front of the station and we get out.  Peter has the tickets and he runs with us through the ticket hall to the platform.  He tells the ticket-collector he’s just carrying our bags.  Mama keeps looking over her shoulder and Peter is sweating.  The ticket-collector frowns but lets us through.  Peter is bundling us into the carriage when a whistle blows and I think the guard should have waited until the door was closed.  Then Peter is yanked back.  His eyes go wide as he disappears into the crowd of men.  They’re all wearing those horrid black uniforms and shiny boots.  One of them steps forward.  His hands are behind his back and he’s smiling but his eyes are like stones.  Mama’s hand starts squeezing mine so hard it hurts.  Her hand is getting slippery.  I can hear Peter shouting and then his voice stops in the middle of what he’s saying.  I can see him again.  Two men are holding him on each side, dragging him down the platform like a big dolly.  Some of the people on the platform have turned to watch but most are hurrying away, their heads down.  I reach inside my bag to make sure Martha’s ok, squeezing her softness.  The smiling man steps towards the train and holds out his hand.  He’s wearing black leather gloves.  I can smell him now he’s closer.  Sausages and cigarettes.

“Perhaps Papa will come to us now,” he says.

There’s a skull on his hat.  It’s smiling.

 

About the Author:

Matthew Roy Davey was the winner of The Observer Short Story Competition 2003 and winner of the Dark Tales competition (August 2013). He has also been long-listed for the Bath Flash Fiction Award (Spring and Autumn 2017), Reflex Flash Fiction competition (Spring 2017) and Retreat West Quarterly Competition (Summer 2018).  His story ‘Waving at Trains’ has been translated into Mandarin and Slovenian and been published in anthologies by Vintage and Cambridge University Press.  Recently he has been published by Everyday Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, Odd Magazine, and Flash: The International Short-Story Magazine.  He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

 

Alana heard frenzied scratching on the other side of the door as she turned the key in the lock. She barely had it open even an inch when Walrus Face forced his bulbous head into the gap, his eyes rolling in every direction and his tongue flapping wildly in his mouth. Alana nudged him back into the apartment with one foot.

“Jeez, Wally, calm down.”

She pulled the door closed behind her. The dog flipped around suddenly, throwing himself at the floor and bouncing up again and again. Alana rolled her eyes at him and threw her bag on the counter.

“You dork.”

She knew she shouldn’t be annoyed with him, and she wasn’t. Not with him anyway. She wasn’t sure what had irritated her, but that wasn’t unusual. These feelings often came out of nowhere. Still, that annoyance, the unsettledness got to her, it itched at her brain. What is it, Alana. Something must be wrong.

She’d felt fine when she went to work that morning. Well, maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe she’d been feeling this way all week. But again, it was hard for her to tell. Anyway, she’d felt seemingly fine today when she went to work. It was the last day before their brief holiday vacation, and that meant no one in the office was focused enough to get anything done. Everyone was preoccupied sharing holiday plans and traditions.

“I’m having an ugly sweater party tomorrow, if you want to come” Rebecca said. She was the girl who sat at the desk behind Alana’s, and she was the chattiest person at the office by far. It was Rebecca that’d started the whole conversation about the holiday vacation in the first place.

“I can’t,” the girl who sat across the aisleway from the two of them, Maya, said. “I’m leaving early today. I have a flight to Michigan at four.”

“Oh, that’s exciting! You must be excited to go home this year.”

“I am, but the airport is just going to be chaos today.”

“Yeah, that does kind of suck. What about you, what are your plans, Alana?”

“Oh, I’ll probably just stay home. Hang out with Wally.”

“Oh,” Rebecca said. “Well, if you’re not doing anything, you should come to my party tomorrow. I’d love to have you there.”

“Thanks. That sounds like fun.” Alana knew when she said it that she would not be going.

It wasn’t Rebecca’s pity for her Christmas plans that annoyed her. She didn’t care what the other girls thought. It was something in the air—wherever she went lately, she couldn’t get away from it.

There’s no place like home for the holidays . . .

It followed her as she left work at the end of the day. But on the drive home it was more of the same.

No matter how far away you roam . . .

It sank like stones in her stomach.

I’ll be home for Christmas . . . you can count on me . . .

Alana turned off the music. Her heartbeat echoed in her empty chest, and she made the decision to avoid the radio for the rest of the holiday.

Now that she was finally home in her apartment with Wally, Alana kicked off her shoes and felt the coolness of the hardwood floor through her socks. She shivered and made herself a cup of tea. She breathed in through her nose and counted the things in her kitchen that started with the letter “s,” and she willed her shoulders to release. She carried her tea carefully across the room to the couch, Walrus Face twirling around her ankles. She sat down gingerly, and Wally leapt up beside her and rolled onto his back so his bulging stomach rose above his flattened snout. Alana half-heartedly reached out to scratch his belly before she turned on the television.

Here, too, there was that feeling. On the television was a holiday commercial for a big box store, showing small children in their matching pajamas squealing with joy as they opened their presents. Their parents looked on with bright smiles as the melodic sound of bells rang in the background. Alana rubbed her head with one hand.

She remembered her own Christmas like that, in her matching PJs. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. She knelt on the living room floor, tucked half under the Christmas tree, looking up at her older sister, mother, and father who were sitting on the couch.

“Alright, Alana, hand out the next one,” her mother said.

Alana stretched out her arm. She grabbed a box that was heavy, and she could hear something grainy shifting inside as she pulled it out. “It’s for Mom.”

Her mother took it from her. It was clearly a gift from Alana’s father—neither Alana nor her sister were skilled enough to wrap their presents so neatly. Alana’s mother opened the box carefully, almost weakly, and her face remained neutral and still like a doll’s.

“A set of bath salts . . . and lotion . . .”

Alana’s father leaned back against the arm of the couch, his voice stern. “Vanilla. It’s your favorite.”

Alana’s mother’s face still didn’t change. “Thank you. Would you go preheat the oven for breakfast?”

Alana’s father got up without a word and went to the kitchen. Her mother tucked the gift under the couch and shook her head. “Anything but vanilla. I hate vanilla. Gives me a headache. Pull out the next one, dear.”

Alana reached back once more. This gift felt thin like paper, and it had her name on it. She tore it open. It was a monthly calendar with pictures of puppies on it.

“Merry Christmas,” Mariah said.

Alana didn’t say a word. She looked up at her sister, who laid against the back of the couch with her arms crossed. She appeared to be staring into space, tuning all of them out. Alana checked underneath the tree. There were no more presents for them to open.

“Do you want me to heat up the mashed potatoes?” her father called from the kitchen.

“Ew, I hate mashed potatoes,” Mariah sneered.

“Yes,” Alana’s mother called back. She turned and gave Mariah a light smack on the shoulder. “Would it kill you to not be so ungrateful? For god’s sake it’s Christmas.”

Mariah shrugged and rolled her eyes. Alana stood and went to the table for breakfast.

 

Alana changed the channel. The next channel was a news station, and a middle-aged reporter popped up on screen in front of an image of a crowded airport.

“Airport traffic is at an all-time high, and massive snowstorms are threatening to delay hundreds of flights across the country as travelers rush home to visit their loved ones . . .”

Alana muted the television. She watched the reporter’s mouth move in front of the image of the crowded airport. Beside her, Wally, still laying like a log on his back, had started snoring. Alana could still hear the tin sound of the music in her head.

I’ll be home for Christmas . . . you can count on me . . .

Massive snowstorms are threatening to delay hundreds of flights across the country as travelers rush home to visit their loved ones . . .

Alana reached for her computer on the coffee table. She went through the motions slowly, nervously. It was a lot of money, but still possible to get a round-trip flight on Tuesday. There was still a little time, if she wanted to. But she wasn’t sure. She felt sick to her stomach, and so weak she couldn’t stand, couldn’t do anything else until she’d thought about it from every angle.

She could picture it, almost. She could see herself sitting at the kitchen table, her skin crawling and unable to control her fidgeting fingers winding around her coffee mug. Her mother circled around the kitchen, moving cases of food from the fridge to the oven to the counter and back again, all while watching Alana without turning her head.

“So . . . do you like your therapist?” she set a timer on the stove. “I mean, she better be good. Too expensive not to be.”

“I don’t want to talk about therapy, Mom.”

“You know what I was reading? I saw online that there are these vitamins that you can get that are supposed to support your . . . emotions. Hormones, stuff like that. That seems good, yeah? Vitamins? Maybe you should give that a shot.”

Alana buried one hand in her hair and tried to remain composed. “I don’t need vitamins, Mom.”

“Well, I’ll send you the article about them anyway. Let me know what you think.” She glanced over at Alana with her lips pursed. “Couldn’t you at least act like you’re happy to see us? At least smile? It’s Christmas.”

“I’m just tired.”

Her mother shook her head. “You could at least try to be in the holiday spirit, Alana. This is your home, you know.”

Alana didn’t respond. She squeezed the mug in her hand and looked deep into her drink. Her eyes felt warm and lost. When it was clear her mother did not intend to say more, Alana got up and took her coffee into the dining room.

Her sister looked up from her phone when she entered. Mariah didn’t say anything, but Alana felt the urge to leave like the force of a wave rolling off of her. She was about to turn around and retreat to her old room when Mariah spoke.

“So.” The dreaded ‘so.’ It bit her like a thumbtack in her lip yet again, the twentieth time this trip. “Mom says you’re in therapy now. What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Alana said. “I’m going to my room.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Mom says you have anxiety.” Mariah leaned back in her chair, her eyes back on her phone screen. “But I don’t see how you’re any different. You’ve always been antisocial.”

Alana’s head started to pound. She blew out a strained breath. “I need some air.”

“If you were just going to avoid us the whole time, why did you even come?”

Alana clenched her jaw and turned back the way she came. Hot and tight with anger she marched past the living room, where her father sat motionless in his recliner watching the football game.

On Christmas morning, Alana awoke and put on her fuzzy socks. She wrapped herself in a blanket and went into the kitchen, and Wally joined her, trotting in circles around her feet. She moved from cabinet to cabinet and pulled things out of the fridge for her breakfast. She listened to the bubbling of the pancake batter and the sizzle of bacon on the pan. She brewed up some coffee, took her medicine for the day, and piled her pancakes onto a plate. She dumped on syrup and covered them in whipped cream—ridiculous amounts of both, almost too sweet to eat. She took her plate to the couch and hummed to herself.

There’s no place like home for the holidays . . .

She sat down, and Wally hopped up beside her. She pulled a few bacon strips from her plate and set them on a napkin for Wally. He gobbled them up, slobbering a little on his front paws. Alana pulled her blanket around her shoulders and settled in.

THE END

 

About the author:

Emily Huber master’s student at New York University living in Brooklyn, and an editor on their literary journal Caustic Frolic. I have had fiction published in the literary journal The Foundationalist.