Listen to the author reading this story:
Sarah likes to walk around the apartment naked.
When she was twenty Sarah posed for a painter in Paris. They’d had sex afterwards but he told her it was like making love to a corpse. But you told me to stay still she thought. He made her a light omelette, turning it until it was firm but with a liquid sheen. It was the most delicious thing she’d ever eaten.
A man called Colm had loved her but hated how she smashed boiled eggs open from the top. He made her feel she was made of glass, caressed her with light touches, watched her in the bar among his friends, his face sliced with anxiety. When she moved he put out his hands as if to save her.
Oh but she didn’t need saving.
The first time her uncle Malcolm put his hands on her where he shouldn’t she thought he was joking. When she was little he’d helped her with sandcastles. But he wasn’t very good at it, she remembered the sand being too dry and everything spilling away. But he’d found some razor shells, put them on top so carefully so they wouldn’t break.
Her father had had to go out, he always had to go out. He asked Malcolm to mind her. No-one had minded her since her mother. Malcolm had climbed into bed beside her and told her she was special, that her skin was so soft…Later she put her hands on her stomach and whispered all the phrases from her mother she could remember. ‘There, there. Sleep tight. You’ll be better in the morning.’
As a teenager, she’d walk her father’s greyhounds, dragging them round, wheezing and choking, ropes too tight, friction sores materializing under the hair. When her father found out he hit her around the back of the legs with his belt. He’d been sorry after. He cooked her egg and chips.
Once the teacher made her stand outside the classroom for writing her name on her hand.
At twenty-five, she got a tattoo below her naval. The pain didn’t bother her. When Colm saw it something changed between them. Making love to her, he scratched her neck. She thought of the greyhounds.
One day a glass smashed. She was tempted to draw the sharp edge across her skin, to see a thin red line appear in a bland landscape of flesh.
The apartment is hot. Opening the balcony’s sliding door Sarah feels the air travel over her skin.
The baby snuffles and mewls. Colm had taken his hands away, backed off. She hadn’t broken.
There’d been a difficulty with the birth, they’d sliced her open under her tattoo.
Sarah puts the baby’s mouth to her breast, his clear skin against hers. Outside a vapour trail slices the sky, its sharp edge morphing to soft rings as it tails off. The baby holds her finger in his fist, traces her face with his tiny hand. Sarah thinks of shells, she thinks of glass.
Alison Wells hails from Kerry and Bray and is an enthusiastic public librarian. Pushcart prize nominated and Hennessy and Bridport shortlisted, she was an Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair finalist in 2020. Her writing has appeared in The Stinging Fly, The Lonely Crowd, Literary Orphans, Crannóg, UK National Flash Fiction anthologies, Skylight 47 and New Island/RTE Arena’s New Planet Cabaret. Her debut short story collection Random Acts of Optimism was published by Wordsonthestreet, Galway in 2023. Alison’s blog and classes explore creativity and resilience: https://alison-wells.com/
She is working on a flash fiction novel.