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| The Visit
by Sara Crowley
Betty in a hospital bed, pillow too flat, mattress uncomfortable, operation over. Eighty-six, in pain, her dead brother holding her hand.
“Bugger off Peter.”
A cold dread crawled up her body, goose bumping. Betty lay, frozen, wondering why it was not her late husband or perhaps her mother who came to take her.
Betty in a rocking chair in her kitchen. Everything to hand. Someone will fetch her dinner in later. There’s a hot pain deep inside. Her mouth is full of sand, her limbs heavy as rocks, dragging. She wishes she’d gone with him.
View
by Sara Crowley
Birds drip from the trees; dark mixes with reds and yellows, blue oozes from branches. Feathers lay matted around trunks, tiny eyes - still open - shine on their bed of leaves.
There is absence. It’s not immediately obvious; cars, people, planes, mowers, dogs continue their own noise. There is a silence though. A lack. No tweeting, squawking backdrop to normality.
Pooled blood congeals. Jellied innards are exposed. Sludge, foam, stink.
Copyright © Sara Crowley 2009.
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