Words by Andie - Fiction

Rashelle lay on her stomach, head in her hands, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. The swirly pink covers beneath her had been with her since childhood. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to will herself out of this impossible situation. If I can’t go to the afterparty, her squeezed eyes let out fresh drops, falling onto the ridiculous pink pillowcase, my friends will all drop me. They already call me a baby. I’m nearly 18, for Christ’s sake! A familiar anger spread through her chest and upper back, radiating out to each fingertip. This isn’t fair. Conflicting smells wafted upstairs, her father preparing his usual terrible dinner. Bacon carbonara, probably – he never listens. Doesn’t even care that I’m trying to go plant-based. She bit into the pillowcase and screamed. Padding downstairs, Rashelle let her hunger win. I hate him, she thought. Doesn’t he know pigs are as intelligent as dogs? I’ll tell him tonight— As she approached, her father stood at the stove, the blue flam...

  Leg outstretched, Tiff washed herself, scratchy tongue pulling each fibre of glamourous black fur clean, leaving a smell of fresh laundry. The common servant, who occasionally refered to herself as “Mother”, sometimes remarked that Tiff and her sister eat only fish, yet they smell of “nothing”. Well Missus, Tiff tutted to herself, if we bathed only once per day, as you do – foul heathen – we would probably emit quite the odour ourselves. But some of us have a little decorum. Her perfect limb clean, in keeping with her other four and in appealing contrast to her cream-coloured chest and abdomen, Tiff turned her attention to regard her sister. Smaller, scrawnier, with an unsightly chunk missing from her left ear – terrible misunderstanding, that one – Co leered down from her position in front of the coloured box Mother liked to watch, her blue eyes ablaze in the quickly fading afternoon sun. Co had made an awful embarassment of herself this afternoon when the girl came to visit ...

  *** TW: The below story contains reference to pregnancy loss *** The door slams. On one side of it, the other side, Leonora’s entire life. Chris has evaporated from their life together, that much is clear. The pregnancy she was carrying is now over. Her head feels full of crushed ice. Leonora sits on the chocolate brown couch, purchased because it was unlikely to show stains of a future child doing childish things, dropping ice creams, spilling drinks, smushing playdough into the sides for fun. She sits on the edge of the couch, perches, hands clenched into fists on her knees, as if she were a young rugby player waiting for a team photo to be taken. She stares blankly ahead. After a moment, reacting to the sound of a quiet engine starting, Leonora looks to her right, out of the large bay windows, at the grey Mitsubishi Outlander reversing out of the driveway. A car chosen for its high safety rating. It doesn’t matter now. “Look, Leo,”  she can hear Chris in her head, feeling...

  Ted lowered himself slowly into the old, rickety chair, arranged as one of about 20 in a circle. Posters had been lovingly set up at the front of the room, with irritatingly uplifting phrases on them. One banner embarrassingly loudly proclaimed “The Twelve Steps”. Ted glanced around his periphery, not wanting to appear to stare, not wanting to accidentally draw someone else into conversation. This gaggle of misfits was about the sorriest sight he’d ever seen. Though – some of them looked, somehow, normal? A banker looking type, a Mum whose young daughters quietly played with their Barbies in the corner of the room, a woman wearing the outfit of a librarian and the pained expression of a woman badly in need of a drink. Across from Ted glowered a tall, solidly built bloke, who had clearly left his Patch at home but had not forgotten his face tattoos. Ted avoided eye contact with this bundle of joy the most. He breathed through his enormous nostrils, reminding Ted of being nose to n...

  “Love is a verb” she repeats to herself, taking deep breaths, desperately trying to regain emotional control. “So act like you love her”. Her hands, balled into fists, cover her eyes as the tears of frustration start to fall in the darkness and privacy of her grandmothers spare bedroom. She silently conjures her mother, memories faded after years of not physically seeing her, separated by death. “Make me be caring like you. Make me like you. You can do this, I can’t. She’s your mother”. This version of Nana, it turns out, can’t hold onto a piece of information for longer than a few minutes. The repetition. The confusion. The question marks around the state of the house and car. None of us knew how bad things had gotten. This is the woman who baked shortbread and Afghan biscuits because her grandchildren loved them, and it made them smile to see the familiar burnt orange coloured Tupperware’s, with layers of the precious biscuits beneath wrapped in crinkly baking paper. Who hand k...

  Kathy paused outside to take a deep breath. Who has a pool party after 40? She had debated wearing her swimsuit and sarong to the event, rather than awkwardly getting changed on arrival, and had then decided her yellow sundress over the top of her black one piece would be sufficient. To think she used to go to pool parties in those silly little triangle tops and barely there bottoms, now the infrastructure needed to hoist her breasts up could power a small city. Not to mention the price required for said infrastructure in a swimsuit. She sighed, again. Focus. We’re not here for a pity party. We’re here for Tina’s birthday. She could smell the chlorine from outside the house mixed with the sea air wafting from over the cliffs she had parked next to and wondered, not for the first time, how Tina and Michael had managed to afford this house. As she approached, she recognised the literal white picket fence that surrounded the house, the gloss on the paint seeming luminous on the hot ...

  The door groaned as Rupert pushed it gently open. The eerie creak sang out into the darkness, foreshadowing what was to come. He called out, “Daniel?”. His apprentice wasn’t usually so hard to find. Rupert groped for the oil lamp that was always positioned on the stout bench next to the fireplace, a deep and foreboding sense washing over him. This wasn’t like Daniel. He was always in his quarters at this hour, where the two men would meet before heading down to the local public house for a swill of mead. The horses in the stables outside began to whinny, high pitched and deafening. Something was wrong. As Rupert crept around the corner, a growing sense of dread and repulsion snaking through his veins, had a deep sense of knowing immediately what he would see. Could smell the strong, gag inducing stench of vomit, acidic and nauseating. There lay Daniel, on his back, pale faced with a twisted expression. Rupert, despite his large size and intimidating physique, wanted to flee. Disg...