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The Casket of Fictional Delights

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A Womb of One’s Own

by Rosie Canning

2017 Flash Fiction Competition Runner-up

PodcastFlash Fiction Optimistic, Thought-provoking

I kept away from WP 468 where the Uterine Disease books were kept with their bloody illustrations. No shelving was done by me that day. Instead I thought of Virginia Woolf and my novel, that lay like an abandoned child, an orphan, in the bottom drawer where I used to keep my secret stash of baby clothes. The morning of the operation, using indelible ink, I drew a womb on my stomach. The last thing I said before I went under was: Every woman should have a womb of their own. The anaesthetist grinned. The world turned red. There was no pain, no scars. No proof that I was womb-less, womanless. My skin would become like the shell of a walnut and I would shrivel like an old prune. I wanted to wrap myself in bandages like the invisible man. I dreamt Virginia Woolf was holding my womb in her hand: ‘…a woman must have money and a womb of her own if she is to write fiction.’

A friend asked if there was anything I needed. Something to cover the windows, so I could open the curtains.
“I know just the man,” she said.
Derek fixed up the nets in no time. I made him tea and he told me about the lost love of his life. I told him I’d stopped writing when the ‘trouble’ began.
“What you need is a 4b pencil. Here.”
It was still warm.
“Ring me,” he said. “If you need anything, fixing.”

A week passed. I opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a package lovingly wrapped in the palest pink tissue. I removed the layers one by one and waiting for the tears to stop, hugged the manuscript to my breast. With Derek’s pencil in my hand, I turned the first page.

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You are listening to
A Womb of One’s Own
by Rosie Canning

https://thecasket.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/A-womb-of-ones-own.mp3

Story read by Esther Wane for The Casket of Fictional Delights.

About Rosie Canning

Rosie co-founded the Greenacre Writers. She has written several short stories and flash fiction pieces which have been long/short-listed in competitions: Spilling Ink; The New Writer; Flash 500; The Yellow Room and The Word Hut and published in York Tales, Mslexia, and non-fiction in a local community magazine. Rosie is studying for a PhD at Southampton University.

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Everyone at The Casket is hoping 2021 will be a better year than 2020.  We have some great short stories and flash fiction lined up for your delight.  We kick of the year with a story by Lydia Unsworth “The Smallest Boxes” and then for Valentine's we have a story by Dylan Brethour which will also be available as a podcast. Later in the summer we have a new Flash Fiction Summer Collection which will be published online and as podcasts read by Menna Bonsels and Richard Hodder.  We hope you enjoy the stories we have for you and look forward to welcoming you back regularly.

Joanna & The Casket of Fictional Delights Team

 

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Please consider making a donation to The Casket of Fictional Delights.  All content on the website is free and widely available to audiences worldwide.  We do not receive any grants and all our content is Ad free.  The Casket of Fictional Delights specialises in producing high-quality podcasts which are recorded by professional actors/voiceover artists from around the world. We hope you enjoy reading and listening to the stories and finding out about Joanna’s varied brooch collection.

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Text & stories © Joanna Sterling 2021
Stories © various authors
Audio by Menna Bonsels
Brooch photography by Mark Colliton
Other photography by Rosie Marks
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