Category: Fiction

May Grier is from and lives in London where she works as a nurse. She has had poetry published in Ink Sweat and Tears, The Soliloquist and has upcoming poetry in Gastropoda. This is her first published short story.

The River Jacks have been at it since half three, and I’m gonna flipping kill someone. That’s the long and short of it.

“Danger”, the notice said. “This is a construction site. Keep out.” Underneath, a black stick figure in a circle had a red line cutting through it. “No Trespassing”.

The Muji phase had begun in summer. She’d go there on Saturday mornings, study each object, and fill her basket with shirts, notebooks, lamps, anything she’d, by some undisclosed decision tree, deemed worth buying. The people at the store knew her, though they never showed it overtly – she could tell from how they followed…

My body was always trying to keep up with my mind. I wish my body would carry me. Instead, I have to drag it. The damp cold made it all worse. I tried to fight it by contracting my muscles. But I’d heard that was pointless – counterproductive, in fact.

Tomorrow, the papers will finally post an obituary about her: amateur artist, full-time freelancer and weekends-only volunteer at the Art History Museum. Friend of Kim Jeong, Director of said museum. Genevieve Sutton, they would say, was featured in some local art magazines and had a few original pieces that [may be considered a notch above…

The sound of a cock crowing pierces through the thick blanket of silence. My eyes snap themselves awake, looking for a fixed point of familiarity. On the chair slightly to my left is my outfit for the day. Black sweatpants. Black t-shirt. Black hoodie. Black sneakers. My courage. Today is the day. Its enormity wears…

“HELP, PLEASE!” The chattering of Sam’s teeth made it hard for him to get the words out, but he carried on screaming, panicking and staring at the discarded Gregg’s bag that someone left hours before, when the winter sun was still smirking at them.

Nestled into a hillock, emerald green and trimmed in a giggling lace-white spring, the estate bungalow he called home, overlooked four hundred acres of a tea plantation. It belonged to one, Mister Peacock, who looked nothing like a peacock. Kelum would know.

I have always wondered what it would be like to eat my brain. Not quite in a suicidal way, nor in a scientific way – more a thing of idle fascination. I imagine it will be a rainy day, and I will be dressed in pink, craving something warm.