Mother
My mother was sitting in her chair, her favourite chair. She was just knitting, the same jumper that she had been working on for three years now. The concentration on her face as her needles clacked together was a look I knew well.
She turned towards me and gave me a big grin. Different than usual, more dangerous. “Sit, we have a lot to talk about.” She gestured to the couch.
The movement shifted out of focus. But I was frozen. My brain had slowed to sludge, and I wrapped my hands tighter around the urn containing my mother’s ashes.
Through A Filter
The world looked grey and murky. It moved in and out of focus. Sometimes the sun was out and sometimes it was just the stars. I could never tell anymore. Everything tasted like ash and smelt of smoke. Sounds wobbled as if they were passing through broken glass and the burning in my chest never left. It has been this way for so long I almost couldn’t remember what it was like before. Before my car wrapped around a tree. Before the electric shock to my chest was enough to keep me near the world but not part of it.
First published by Black Hare Press