'The Encore' by Chris Albin

I’m a masochist. I could be anywhere in time and space, yet I come back here to this moment. I know it by heart now.

There’s the Kid at the front of the crowd; fifteen, overweight and with long curly black hair. He wears a black trench coat even though it makes him sweat like a pig. On his wrist is a black Naruto- bracelet, he still thinks counts as Metal. Currently, he is headbanging his little dweeb heart out.

In the back, there’s me; thirty-five, still overweight, slightly less black, and slightly more red plaid. I’ve been nursing the same lukewarm beer for a while now, watching him go at it. Avoiding eye contact.

God, he looks so happy.

I want to leave, but the envelope in my pocket keeps me anchored. Then, on cue, the final riff dies off and the crowd goes wild – the Kid is the loudest. I cringe and take one final swig, before moving in for the kill.

I elbow my way through the crowd unnoticed because I’m a tourist in the Kid’s world. In here music only matters when it’s loud and screaming. In here having a depression makes you interesting and the only place to show positivity is in the crowd and nowhere else. Here rebellion is conformity.

I hate how happy he looks.

But I’m just a ghost. I slide the letter into the pocket of the coat, and he doesn’t even notice I’m there-

Then the band breaks into the encore, I take a final beer to go and step into the December night. I don’t fade away, nothing timey-wimey. Just another tourist to the Kid’s world, leaving.

Only the letter in his pocket remains – two sentences. 

Keep trying, bud. Maybe you’ll find it for both of us.

'Eating like a sanskaari girl' by Vijayalakshmi Sridhar

 Don’t smush the rice; don’t make a ball. And don’t eat with your tongue lolling out like a dog’s. No; it doesn’t justify your passion for Amma’s Kara Kuzhambu. The tanginess of it ringing a bell all the way through to the stomach, the spice making you salivate and eat in quick successive mouthfuls. 

Always have subtle table manners. Sit down, cross your knees. Touch the food. Scoop it making a spoon with your fingers and put it in your mouth.

Remember how you stood by the table and stared at Papa’s wedding plate and the way he ate? You stared at Chithi- Papa’s new bride and stepmother’s plate too. It brought out a lot of sad, sympathetic pauses and stares back at you. Most importantly, it made everyone blame your dead mother too. How could she die leaving this bud alone? They gossiped as throughout the night as Papa and Chithi entered the wedding room and you crouched on the staircase and slept.

When it came to having a traditional feast, the semi-dry Kuzhambu and curd rice won’t be a problem. But rasam needs all your care. When you eat, there will be more rice in each mouthful; the evasive rasam would slip and would like to be left in the plate. Don’t slurp; not aloud. 

Sneak the banana from the plate; you can have it when your stomach isn’t too stuffed and needs a sweet treat. Have the dessert at the very end of the course; Ammama said that seals your luck and privilege for becoming a Maharaja in your next birth. Maharaja; not Maharani, ruling over a loved heart

'My Dearest You' by Tilly Greenland

You are autistic.

It’s why no-one makes sense. It’s why you feel like you don’t belong. It’s why you are an alien from another world, only visiting. Constantly learning acceptable social norms. Why nobody understands. 

You will learn to mask who you are, to pretend you are normal, live a lie. Eventually you will not know who you are; personality buried, a ghost behind the mask.

Don’t do it. Don’t allow them to kill your soul, decimate your spirit, destroy your very being. People will come and go, they won’t stay. Appeasing is easy, but the cost is too great.

Be free, be brave, be freak, be wonderful. Most importantly, be you.

With much love and thorough understanding

Txx

'Releasing the Locks' by Emily Macdonald

In the flying—flying through time and space—I see my hair streaming behind me, tresses curling in my wake, Botticelli’s siren blonde locks, and wings too, white feathered, beating the wind in strong measured strokes.

My hair, it lay on his shoulder. Sometimes he cupped it in both of his hands, lifted it from my neck while he kissed me, a prospector feeling the golden weight, precious ingots held in his fingers. 

“Don’t ever cut it,” he’d said. “One day I’ll climb your hair, I’ll take you from here.” 

I smiled at him, and we kissed again, me blinded already, lost in the wilderness of him.

My scalp is shaven, the skin freckled and creased, probes plastered in place. I’m strapped in this chair but flying and free, soaring back to the source of myself, over the river’s twists and turns, the rushing rapids, and the still opaque ponds. Streams and rivulets, brooks and burns, dams and springs, oxbow lakes looping in on themselves. 

I fly towards the golden tendrils of hair, twisted, and plaited like rivers winding through deep sided ravines, bound, and pinned fast like canal water trapped in a lock or flowing free, spreading easy and wide where the estuary meets the sea. 

And when I find myself there, I lift the hair in two hands, feel the weight and marvel once more at the gold of it. I lift higher, clear of the mollusc of my ear, and I whisper there into the shell of myself: “Cut your hair”.

'The Same Mistakes' by Debbi Voisey

She’s over in the corner, where I knew she would be. My, her, our favourite seat, which is near the door so she can drink her lager and black and keep watch for him at the same time. I can smell, from here (maybe it’s my imagination), the White Musk on her neck and the mild BO from her armpits. I know they’re damp. I know her heart is racing. I know she really wants to see him. And I’m here to stop her. 

It's weird seeing your younger self. I don’t think I could really describe it to anyone. The young girl who doesn’t have all my experiences and memories yet is fresher of face and smaller of frame, and looks so familiar and at the same time a total stranger. How I am now is a total distortion of this young person nervously and excitedly checking the door. It’s like someone took her, twisted her, kicked her around a bit, and turned her over time into me.

That person was him. The note I’ve written tells as much of the story as I had the stomach to tell. It tells her about my life from the moment he walked in that pub door, through the sex later that night that was normal then, through the many other times the sex was not, through the beatings he swore wouldn’t happen again, and again, and again…

And it tells of what happened last week. When the beatings went too far.

I don’t want her to die at his hands.  I didn’t want to die at his hands, but I didn’t have the benefit of foresight. Maybe this note can stop it, change it. Give her the strength I never found.

I just need to convince her to read it.

'Things I Wish I’d Known When I was Your Age' by Lynda Mcmahon

You wouldn’t recognise me now even if you’d known me from when you were born. I’ve changed. A lot. Almost unrecognisable. You don’t think you’ll ever change but you will. It all seems so fixed to you now, I know. You think a decision made is for life. No going back. I’d really like to tell you that you’re so wrong about that. My lovely girl, life will be so different when you are my age. You won’t always be awkward in your own skin. If you want to you’ll have purple hair and wear Doc Martens with huge flowers on them and you’ll dance in the rain! OK, I’m making the last one up but you get my point? I know you’d shudder at the idea of being so visible but you don’t like invisible either do you? It’s not either/or, my darling. It’s finding out who or what you are and being it. But you’re learning all the time. What do you want to be? A writer? An artist? A candlestick maker? You can be all three or none or one today and another tomorrow. You choose. You don’t think you have a choice but you do. When your path shows you the way you’ll know it’s the right way to turn. How do I know? How will you know? You’ll feel it in your gut. Trust me. Trust yourself. Be bold. Be brave. I’ll be waiting for you when you get there.

‘To pervert the perpetual’ by Joyce Bingham

The path from the water is gnarled with tree roots, I know you will be here soon. I catch a glimpse of your/my blue shorts and the stripy top with a ship embroidered on it. I stand motionless as the trees around me, you walk past, intent on keeping the water in the jar of tadpoles from spilling. I tell myself that this is for the best, that this will work, but my heart thumps and my hands tremble. The note is ready, laboured over and written in your/my hand on lined paper torn from one of your/mine own exercise books. I wait for you to fall.

The jar smashes as you trip over a root, your/my knee stings, the graze blooming red. Tadpoles flap, collecting pine needles and dirt. I know you will cry over them, Ma will kiss your/my bleeding finger better, I can feel her soft lips, the sting of the cut.

I slipped the note into the back pocket of your shorts, as you watched the tadpoles die. I know you will find it at bedtime, and you will snuggle down with your/my bear to read. You will pin it up on the wall, but underneath a poster, a small corner peeking out to confirm it is real. When the day comes, will you obey, or will you repeat the mistake and doom us you/me to this perpetual dance in time.

'A Note from Egypt' by Suzanna Lundale

S,

It will change. Just keep dreaming. Keep learning. His insults are lies, and his lies are finite. Your words, your stories, the worlds you will create – they are not.

Why should you believe me? How do you suppose that lady at the bookstore knew about the Egypt story, when only your cat knew? (By the way, when you’re 14, get your mom to board that cat. Don’t leave her with Ann. It wouldn’t be Ann’s fault, but you’d never see Katie again.)

I believe in you.

NFFD 2023 Prompt #4: Time Travel

 

Time Travel

Welcome to The Write-In!  This year, we're celebrating the 2023 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology theme of time.  Throughout National Flash Fiction Day, we'll be posting one time-related prompt on the hour every hour from now until midnight (BST), for a total of 25 prompts in all.  You have until midnight on Sunday (BST) to submit your responses for possible publication here at the Write-In.  We'll start posting responses on Sunday, 25 June 2023....

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You’ve travelled through time and encounter a younger version of yourself.  You want to leave them an anonymous note. What life lesson would you share?  Feel free to write from the point of view of yourself or a fictional character, whichever you prefer.

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 4: Time Travel.

You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 25 June 2023 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In.

You can claim the badge for this prompt until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 2 July 2023 by going to the here (hosted by the NFFD website).