A few microdoses - thanks
for the prompts!I’m currently writing a book… it’s been a long time coming - I’ve been trying to get it done since completing my MA in Creative Writing. This story seems different, like it’s writing itself - I suppose that’s a good thing really!
The night of the funeral, Addie lay stiffly in her childhood bed. Shadows danced across the magnolia ceiling, and the old boiler growled with a comforting familiarity. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept in that bed, but her body remembered—the same old lumps, the same creaks, as if they had been waiting for her all along.
Her eyes burned from exhaustion and too much grief. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t drift off. She took a deep breath and held it, lying still. She exhaled slowly and then inhaled again, searching for it—the scent. Orchids, lime, bergamot. Her mother’s perfume. Faint, but there. Haunting.
“Mum?” she whispered into the darkness.
She took another breath, and the scent grew stronger, wrapping around her like a warm blanket. She closed her eyes and let it envelop her, let it creep under the sheets and soak into her skin. In that moment, it felt as if her mother was there beside her, watching over her, protecting her from the dark. The ache in her chest eased, soothed by the lullaby of her mother’s presence.
Finally, she could breathe again. Sleep came—deep, dreamless—a place where her mother still existed, and everything else faded away.
Eyeing the shark, she smiled. Throughout the years she’d built an iron fortress, each bar a result of hardship. From the time Maya White took her favourite Barbie doll one warm Saturday in the park, to the time her favourite teacher humiliated her in front of her Year 12 class. The recent years had been no less cruel, leaving their mark with a black eye and bruises like ink spilled across a page, spreading slowly beneath her ribs.
She watched the shark circle closer, its eyes dark and fathomless. Still, she smiled. Closing her eyes, she let his shouts wash over her like a wave breaking upon a shore. Fifteen years had taught her that a cage might keep her from venturing out into uncertain waters, but it also kept others from finding a way in. In the cage’s cold, unyielding embrace, she had discovered her own kind of safety.
The January frost clawed at her skin, but she refused to cry. Tears in below-freezing temperatures meant that her eyes would seal and she’d have no idea of where to dig.
A full moon hung in the midnight sky like a beacon, its rays shining down, casting its glow upon her, highlighting the protrusion of vertebrae along her spine.
Her feet, swallowed by snow, burned as if on fire, though she felt nothing. Across the graveyard, perched upon a crumbling tombstone, he watched, cloaked in smoke, laughter curling from his lips.
How she longed to hit him, beat him around the head with the shovel, but her strength waned - she welcomed the end, to lie down in her self-dug grave, sinking into the hollow she carved from the frozen earth, curling into its embrace as though it were always meant for her. Finally at peace
“If you look closely, just close enough; you’ll see them move. You’ll need to pay attention though, they’re sneaky little devils! I can remember coming here with my brother when we were 10, we turned away, just for a moment, and one of them had made his way from the very top of the cathedral all the way down to the road! He must have smelled the coconut biscuits in Colin’s jacket.”
Dad winked at me, a mutual understanding; I remember him telling me the same story when I was Daisy’s age. I wonder, if like me, she’d covertly cross her fingers behind her back hoping to witness one of the gargoyles come to life.
As ever, a huge thank you for reading! I really enjoy participating in these prompts! 🌸🩷🌸
Love and light!
I love these microdoses, like pieces of flash fiction. So excited to hear about your upcoming book, let us know when it hits the shelves.
Wow, so prolific! These are great, thanks for sharing.