Reunion by Sheila Scott
It’s unusual to get a table seat to yourself at rush hour. Maybe this is the good omen I’ve been seeking since I got up this morning. This particular day has…
It’s unusual to get a table seat to yourself at rush hour. Maybe this is the good omen I’ve been seeking since I got up this morning. This particular day has…
I rub my finger over your hand as you stare blankly downwards. Your skin is much rougher now than it used to be, mottled and calloused. I frown as I examine the…
Alice stares out of the window and lets the blackout curtain embrace her, as heavy on her shoulders as her familiar school duffle coat. It traps the draughts fingering their way around…
The wind is changing. Early morning traffic spurts like water from a stuttering tap. I have no memory of sleep, but the dream threads tell me otherwise. When you left for work,…
Foam spatters Great Uncle Ben’s folded-up trouser hems as he splashes towards us through the shallow wavelets. Shell grains glitter his marbled feet. The receding tide washes over his footprints with salt…
Torn, from scissors on the umbilical cord, from nails without scratch mittens, gums cut from teeth breaking through, forehead and nose grazes from learning-to-walk bumps and falls, and on knees and hands…
My brothers lifted up the mattress on my bed and weaselled in my hairbrush, a couple of hard plastic baby dolls, three Enid Blyton books, Dad’s metal ashtray and discarded pipe, an…
Jake Mathews was the king of the trailer park. 19, good-looking, charming, always knew what pretty words to say to the young girls. He liked the power he had, the ability to…
A man in a funny hat rang the doorbell so I hid in the bathroom but then mom let him in, just like that. He carried a tweed case and I asked…
The nursing home calls to tell me my tenderhearted mother has taken up rage coloring. She presses down so hard she leaves tiny gravesites of torn paper and crayon rubble wherever she…
I know the sea should be blue; intellectually I know this, of course I do. Yet as I sit and watch each salty, foamy roll of seawater build to its crescendo before…
What’s a little arson between friends? I only meant to melt a few things of my own. Maybe, ok, maybe melt a little bit of Bob’s flat too. He lives above me…