Flash Fictions
By: Ewen Glass
The Cost of Living Underwater
includes heating, filtering and feeding, and there was so much living being done down there. The aquarium's Angelfish Investors saw no need to step in when energy prices geysered, dressing up their own worries – as gulf-weed occluded pristine commercial goals elsewhere in their portfolio – as aggressive disappointment in the aquarium’s manager Mica. I found her watching the sawfish in Tank B one Friday after all the schoolkids went home (taking approximately 81% of their stickiness with them). The sawfish could cut through the water with the best – and rest – of them, but there was something superfluous about his body too, like he could snag himself on a rock, or on himself, at any minute. If we closed down, Mica would have to find a home for him and all the others. I hit her with my idea: what about a Jaws Tax? Every time someone says ‘duhh-duh duhh-duh’ within sight of a shark an alarm would sound and Wayne (maybe with a fin on his back?) would appear with a card machine and– she started crying and I didn’t know what to do and I said something lame about the salt content of her tears matching the water in Tank B and she laughed mournfully and said maybe the sawfish could live in her tears then and I thought that was kind of lovely. We got the email a week later.
Eighties Fabric
A fire threatens to start every time I move. The carpet has an anti-stain polypropylene finish and I’m sitting there in my favourite wind suit, age 4 - 5. Combustion seems a reasonable price to pay, however, for being able to fidget. A social worker is asking us if we’re okay living with Mum after the divorce or. The question falls to ellipses and for the first time in my life I discover that I have agency, power even. I could shuffle, I could move, I could start a fire. I shrug and fidget with the zipper on my top. Sometimes the feeling of power if enough.