breath & bone

3rd Prize in Fish Flash Fiction Award (2025)

I don’t want to be a burden you say and I tell you you’re not a burden and we both know it’s a lie, and we put on our brave faces and the day begins.

I count the pills while you describe your fractured night and I feed you yoghurt and you snarl be-cause your mouth hurts and your lips flake and nothing tastes the same, so you do another vicious rant about the NHS and the cruelty of being left to die, then attack Dad for being deaf and buying the wrong flavour Complan, and the phone rings and someone asks you how you are and you take ma-cabre pleasure in saying, I’m dying, how do you think I am? and I try to remember it’s the alien force in-side you guzzling your liver and lungs that’s making you so angry, and when you don’t make it to the loo I clean you up in the corridor and carry you back to your chair and you weigh nothing, just a skinful of breath and bone, and then the steroids kick in so you do an impassioned speech about Donald Trump and order things online you’ll never use, and you don’t tell me to wash the windows or de-mould the bathroom—you hint instead—so I have to offer, and when I do you tell me I’m your angel, and then I walk the dog even though I hate the dog, and when I come back you’re in bed with a quiet terror in your eyes, so I tuck you in and kiss your puffy cheek.

I don’t want to be a burden you say and I tell you I love you and we both know it’s the truth, and we take our masks off and another day ends.