'Love Notes From My Mother aka Why I Hate Strawberries & Cream' By Davena O'Neill

 

You left a note every day.

On the kitchen table, cleared after baking, one small flour covered corner, a perfect heart in its centre. You are awesome, in rainbow colours on the chalkboard. On the glass, after bath time, steam covered and dripping, a smiley face, or HI!

Letters on the fridge spelled I love you. It’s nearly home time, on a scrap of paper, pressed between pages of a schoolbook. It was always what I needed, something silly, or sweet. I saw your face and perfect hands, knew you sealed it with a kiss.

SMILE, printed on tissue paper. Sweet dreams, written in stars, left on the pillow. I saved all the ones I could, placed them in a box by the bed. You ran your hand along it and smiled. Said we’d have to get a bigger box as I got older.

But we didn’t need to. The box was big enough.

The last note was a treat for me to enjoy while you ran to the corner shop. A strawberry heart with a whipped cream smile. I had licked the plate clean, then vomited after I heard, pink and red running like blood down the kitchen sink.

As you lay broken beneath twisted steel, I had drawn a picture of us dancing. Oversized smiles on oversized faces, hands and feet tangled so that we seemed to move as one. It was intended as a thank you, became a parting gift, lying with you now between fingers entwined.

'Black Birds or One For Sorrow' by Adele Evershed

'Dad, did you know wind is made by birds flapping their wings?' Jill glanced towards the

windows. 'Well,' laughed her father, 'It must be a parliament of magpies tonight, all waving in

unison.” Her father perched on the edge of Jill’s bed as if waiting to hear bad news. 'Or a grind

of blackbirds or an unkindness of ravens,' Jill said, her voice sticky and stretched like bubble

gum on a hot road.

'Did you make those up?' her father asked. 'No, Dad. It’s an unkindness of ravens, promise,

cross my heart, hope to…' the rest was cut short by a bout of coughing. Her father held a glass

of water to Jill’s lips; they were flaky and bloodless. Her father chewed his own lips, 'Hush, get

some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning', he said. He wanted to say much more, but the

words glopped together in his mouth. He tried to move them over his teeth like mouthwash, but

he couldn't spit them out, so he just repositioned the bucket closer to Jill's bed. As her father

stood up, Jill asked, 'Will there be pancakes for breakfast?' Her father smiled and said, 'If you

feel up to it. It would be great to get some solid food into you!'

The wind vibrated like malevolent whispers. Jill started chanting to block out the voice calling

her to leave. 'A parade of elephants, a tower of giraffes, a prickle of porcupines,' but nothing

could distract her from her craving. It had always been an animal that defied collective nouns.

She jumped up, inadvertently kicking the bucket as she left.

In the morning, Jill's father whistled as he beat the batter. Outside, a magpie flapped its wings,

and the wind screamed.

NFFD 2022 Prompt #6: Blue Poles

 

 Blue Poles

 This is National Flash Fiction Day's eleventh anniversary, so this year, all our prompts have something to do with the number 11....

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Jackson Pollock's painting Blue Poles is also known as Number 11, 1952.  The choice of title has been the subject of much discussion; from Wikipedia:

According to art historian Dennis Phillips, the specific rather than ambiguous title "limits our field of comprehension and does the painting a singular disservice. Because we look for the poles and miss much of the rest, the name is simply too distracting."

For this prompt, we challenge you to write a flash and find two different titles for it.  Each title should bring out something different in the flash, or make the reader think about it in a different way.  (You are welcome to veer into prose poetry or hybrid work if you like.)

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 6: Blue Poles.

You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 19 June 2022 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In.