Flash Fiction Award 2025
Winner
'Destination'
by Cathy Eberle
Anna’s ancestors left her a ticket.
She decides to fly now, pay later.
Lonely nights are spent hugging the toilet bowl, spewing out loss and longing. The side effects of translocation skulk beneath her silky-snug blanket of fortune, in a suitcase bulging with goodbyes.
Fleeting relapses bring stinging release, images snatching her into exact moments, nostrils attentive to fleeting scents of home breathed in a scarf, the tart taste of absence on her tongue. Licking her lips, she savours its trace.
She polishes her ornaments with memory, but her contrary genie has taken a leave of absence. She can see her face in the gleaming surfaces but is not entirely sure who it is she sees. Whipped into numbness by coastal winds, she breathes on fingers purple with loss, stiff and clumsy, unable to hold her dreams.
Shedding salt slows slightly, for her well is as dusty as the Namib, and her hard, flat tones roll into a rehearsed rhythm. Her tongue thunders over local names, words crunching like dry savanna grass beneath her feet. Stormy, she exudes heat, feels cold, is persistent as the bright desert flowers.
Tightly curled bud in her gut, her claim stakes itself in pain. Feverishly she pans water, swirling it for hints of gold, hope folded neatly in her chest. Her sun sets on belief and promise. Darkness partners despair. Spring is not in her step, although it screams in green, erupting like acne. Birds mock her in tittering tribes yet still the ill winds wind her tightly in their chilled arms, holding her close, folding her in a mourning sheet.
The street sweeps its slate clean with swathes of grey dampness. Upright and white, the calendar politely counts belonging, keeping her cauldron half-full, spirit rising with the steam from her aromatic coffee, bereft of images in her non-existent tea leaves.
Cleaving apart longing and purpose she chops doggedly away at her frosted windscreen. Unseen she moves like water through sodden grass which closes in soggy clumps where her feet pass. She struggles to find any trace of herself other than a fleeting glimpse of a face in a bus window. Only the clock moves a rigid hand in greeting.
Midnight strikes. The portals open and she passes begin. Accepted, adopted, allowed in, she feels belonging blossoming in her womb. Clutching a ticket to Ever After, treasure collected, she’s through the gates, the citadel awaits her. Half-turning as she heads inward sensing the prize, a final inhalation of musky animal, tickles her nose, deep throaty grunts rumbling in soundwaves against her inner ear beneath the roll of scattered bones. Campfires and stars burn against her lids, lulling her to sleep without dreams. Her heartbeat’s a green blip against the dark screen.
Slinky in black velvet, the moon, two-faced, Northern Lights twisted in her pale hair, grins smugly, casting her spotlight on a slipper, sparkling, on the ascending stairs leading to her throne. From the shadows, a hand reaches out, picking it up.
"Destination" © Cathy Eberle 2025. Published under license.
Banner image © Judy Darley 2025.