writing

Jess downloaded photos of scene kids from MySpace and painstakingly coloured their hair in rainbow colours, then we went on Chat Roulette until we saw a penis and Jess got scared and turned off the computer. Her mouse pad had a picture of Hello Kitty on it. She had coloured in its clothes black and added Emo make up, and crossed out ‘Hello’ with ‘GOODBYE’ in red felt tip.

I watched her fingertips stroke the flame. It bucked at her touch, stuttered, and recovered. The glow cast her shadow onto the floor, throwing the slightest movement into a dazzling gesture.

It was cold. Bloody cold. The kind of cold that makes your ears ache and your teeth jitter, so we held hands to keep warm. I picked up a tiny shell, all pink and pearlescent with a frilled edge and you found a perfect little pebble, smooth and round. You went down to the water’s edge to wash off the sand and grit and gave it to me.

Our father found a kitten on the road home from the oil rig last year. We named her Fariah, meaning friend. She was a dirty, scrawny little thing that was probably just a few weeks old. We took it in turns to feed her scraps from the kitchen, and she tried to suckle our fingers with her gummy mouth. She grew up to have kittens of her own, but she was too weak to look after them and she died under the tree house. We only found her because of the smell. 

Before I cashed up, I saw some hand soap by the counter. We’d run out at home and I had been using dandruff shampoo to wash my hands, my housemate and I refusing to back down first and go to the corner shop for a new bar. The label said it was fig leaf, but it smelled more like my dad’s aftershave. I bought the soap, a matching body spray and hand cream and the shop assistant wrapped them and the new jumper in the bag. I imagined a trio of figs nestled in the soft grey sleeves, held gently while they ripened and released their sweet perfume.