Tag: ataraxicat

Deep Impact

When she said it, the air left. It was as though the exact words she’d spoken had rung something out from inside his head. The grey matter of his brain, rinsed, like an old dishcloth. He couldn’t believe it, what she had said. 

Then everything felt brittle. Soundless. He wondered momentarily if, in some alternate universe, he was living through one of those scenes from the movies he loved: the ones set in outer space; the kind he’d watch over and over and over, where the big red button gets pressed, mistakenly, opening a hatch that vacuums out the crew into the gaping maw of space, and then maybe they’re okay, but maybe they’re dead. He wondered which he’d be, but – mainly – he just couldn’t believe what she’d said.

For a bit, the only sound he could hear was the sonar sound of his heart from inside his ear: the sonorous thud of each beat, landing like a dull missile, and it wasn’t until he looked up and around him that he knew that nothing had happened – no explosions, no rapture, no dread. For the first time since she’d uttered the words, he looked up at her. He just couldn’t believe it, what she’d said. 

Continue reading “Deep Impact”

Pieces

I remember when I stole
a piece of your jigsaw puzzle;
slid it across the countertop
like a miniature credit card;
half inched it like a thief
and hid it in the cat’s basket.

I watched you work for hours;
lay down bit after bit, unwavering
in your focus, unaware of my small
hostage, as you spread out across
our dining room table, smiling
at each of your fresh conquests.

More days passed as the picture
became clearer, and I remember
thinking: at some point, this will
all have to end. Then one day
I looked up to see you shovelling it
back into the box, as if you had
known it would come to nothing:

and just like that, it was forever undone;
it wouldn’t be finished, and neither had won.

White Sky, High

There’s something
about a sky like this.

Your mother’s clean cloth
laid out like a map –
it’s lace landmarks, hazy.

A ghostly flag, hung half mast,
to the four corners of
your eyes, pinned with pearl.

We walk into it, and it’s as if
our heels lift upwards –
blown far, like paper or steam

and I feel buoyant beside you, as
we walk lighter, lean in together
towards a sky like this.

Chalk Circle Short Story Competition 2020

https://www.chalkcircle.org.uk/competitions-judges-report-2020

Read ‘Teacups Are For Girls’ here: https://ataraxicat.com/2020/04/05/teacups-are-for-girls/

https://www.chalkcircle.org.uk/competitions-winners-2020

Lunar You

when we find ourselves
together, I glow

like the moon

sometimes, it seems
so perfect – a soft light

like the moon

our shapes wax
and do not wane

like the moon

but then I reach out
and can touch only air.

I wonder about the eclipse
of you and I, and turn pale

like the moon

Stage Fright

Gunther did not remember much about his death. In fact, the moment had passed somewhat uneventfully and, had it not been for the audience’s few gasps of surprise and an ill-timed giggle, he might have thought he’d dreamt it up altogether. 

Emily had been sat in the second row, slightly left of centre stage – not that he’d been able to see his wife during much of the performance itself. The stage lamps had masked the audience from the players with a brilliantly intense void of white light. He had felt the glow draw conspicuous beads of sweat to his forehead almost the instant he had taken his first steps on stage, like the rapid onset of fever. It had felt like being in the presence of a dying star. 

Continue reading “Stage Fright”

The Pigeon

I was seven when
the neighbour’s cat caught a pigeon
and dragged its twittering, tattered trunk 
through our kitchen.

The cat and her mouth,
now clean and empty, seemed innocent,
but the errant trail of crumpled feathers
gave it up.

We hid it from mam,
stayed up in shifts, fostered and fed it sugar
water from a spoon, playing each other’s 
game of nurse.

I remember the thrill
waiting for the magical renewal we were
led to expect: a resurgence promised that
would never come.

It fell still then,
its beak soaked, sticky with sugar, as its
drowned and silent body lay between us,
ruined and scrap.

Sometimes I wake from 
shadowed dreams to see the smothered thing
in its throes, and I do not sleep. We were not
what you think.

Some Give

I don’t feel bad about how
the world might be ending –
and I don’t feel guilty,
if that’s what you’re getting at.

I’m more concerned about how
I can feel myself bending –
a little like this, at first
and also, somehow, like that.