Category: Webzine

Lucy Goldring

The Brian Blessed belch I once found hilarious is reverberating around my parents’ tiny dining room and I catch your expression which says ‘yes-I’m-burping-without-restraint-because-I-reject-society’s-arbitary-conventions-and-don’t-care-if-I-am-embarrassing-you-because-I-am-being-real’ and your forearm is crumpling my mum’s best napkin and it still bears the lyrics of adolescent rebellion and as the flabby bass note sustains the room shrinks and shrivels and it’s not my family’s revulsion I feel but my own despair curdling in the warm juice of your gob-hole and if you will never meet me halfway I may as well stay where I am and where are your principles now you’ll accept work from ‘any-posh-cunt-stupid-enough-to-fork-out’ and I hate you using women’s body parts as shorthand for vile people and you are powering the belch through to its foghorny climax and your moth-eaten Anarchy t-shirt is clinging to your second trimester beer-baby when I’m the one who should have a bump to nurture rather than a man-child who suckles himself nightly on homebrew and conspiracy theories and homebrewed conspiracy theories from the safety of a skip-dived swivel chair encrusted in crow shit which is the only thing you have contributed to our so-called home and your booming Brian bugle is diminuendoing and the ribbity undernote is moving to the fore and as your lungs finally empty I realise the burp is not the only thing to have tapered off and a foggy silence reclaims the air and I think about my cosy teenage bedroom and Mum’s spag bol and later I will tell you if you really want to live in an echo chamber how about an empty flat with dodgy wi-fi and a crap-stained plastic throne and then my once enchanting man you can sit on it and swivel down down down into the murky depths of your very own lonely rabbit hole.

Lucy Goldring is a Northerner hiding in Bristol. Lucy has a story in Best Microfiction 2022 and features in Dr Tania Hershman’s 2023 charity flash anthology. She’s been shortlisted by the National Flash Fiction Day three times and twice selected for their anthology. Find her on Twitter (@livingallover) and her website.

Lizzie Eldridge

Snapshot

I was a bonnie wee lassie growing up in Glasgow. My Dad taught me not to be sectarian when it came to football. Hatred doesn’t mix well with anything, he said, passing me the ball in a moment of shared joy. I was a bonnie wee lassie with a Dad who showed me how to live.

Lament

Bagpipes are traditional at a Scottish funeral, but I’d never buried my Dad before. Melodies aching of bleak hills and glens left me standing, alone, by a cold mountain, scanning the empty landscape to find him there again.

Lizzie Eldridge is a writer, actor and human rights activist from Glasgow. She has two published novels, as well as poems, CNF, stories and flash fiction, and she cares deeply about language, truth and social justice. 

Cathy Ulrich

Where They Found You 

That part of town where the snow never melts all winter. Cackle-crows chatter something that could be your name. Your body a prayer. Your body a comma, a hyphen, a dash. When I knew you, your hands were never colder than mine. 

Other Worlds Than This 

After their son dies, Helena’s husband becomes an astronaut. Finds a spacesuit online, buckles the helmet over his head. He sits on their rooftop and stares up at the stars, mumbles. Helena thinks he must see their son’s face there. She is in the quiet kitchen, holding an empty plate and a naked fork, listening to the scrabble of her husband’s hands digging into the rooftop tile. He is talking about building rockets, she thinks, he is talking about taking to the sky. 

Cathy Ulrich doesn’t know anybody with hands colder than hers. Her work has been published in various journals, including Black Fork Review, Wigleaf and Pithead Chapel.

Lu Knight

When everything feels wrong, you try to fix it – or move on or even ask for help. They prepare you to problem solve all throughout your school years – trying is better than giving up and giving up is better than admitting that you need help – because who would want to help the little dirty girl that’s been on this bus for hours on end?

I’ve watched adults come and go and come and go. I’ve watched them drag their noisy families up the stairs of the bus as their children point fingers at me. I’ve counted the times we passed N Judah Street. Seven times I’ve thought about getting off this bus. Seven times I’ve remained on this bus, digging my nails into the skin of my hand.

Lu Knight is a creative writing student at Appalachian State University.