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Mam and She Worries

by Douglas Bruton

2017 Flash Fiction Competition First Prize

PodcastFlash Fiction Poignant, Sad

Mam worries ‘bout stuff. Smallest things sometimes. Like when Mrs Kinnear was having her baby and she was rushed to the daytime hospital and no-one had opened the curtains on Mrs Kinnear’s windows.

‘You keep curtains closed when someone’s dead, not when they’s more alive than they’s ever been b’fore.’

I was sent over to Mrs Kinnear’s – she keeps a spare key under a plant pot beside her front door. I took my shoes off, creeping through the house like a thief, and I gently drew open the curtains, all like mam told me to.

Mam worries ‘bout everything: cracks in the pavement, needles in haystacks, spilled salt – everything.

So, today, when I came home from school, and mam’s in the kitchen, slumped at the table, I first thought she might be worried ‘bout bread rising in the oven or watching in case a pan of milk boiled over. Then I looked again and I knew it was more than bread or milk. I knew then it was our Billy and mam’d had news; I worried then.

Billy, gone almost a year and mam not sleeping all that time. She worries ‘bout Billy, see, prays for God to keep him safe over there. We get a newspaper delivered most days, just since Billy left, and mam frets over reports ‘bout the fighting. Day and night she frets.

And from the shape of her, all crumpled and slack, prayer-hands folded, I know it’s bad. Mam hears me come into the house and she says, her words just whisper and breath, that I’ve to close the curtains at the front. I creep, quiet as a thief like before in Mrs Kinnear’s, pulling all the curtains closed, and mam don’t need to say a thing more, not to me or to no-one.

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You are listening to
Mam and She Worries
by Douglas Bruton

https://thecasket.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-Flash-Fiction-Competition.mp3

Story read by Vivien Taylor for The Casket of Fictional Delights.

About Douglas Bruton

Douglas describes his writing as throwing words together, sometimes they make sense and sometimes they even make stories. He has won The Neil Gunn Memorial prize 2015 and the William Soutar Prize in 2014. He has been published by Aesthetica, Fiction Attic Press and Brittle Star Magazine, as well as in Flash Magazine, The Irish Literary Review and Northwords Now. Douglas won The Casket of Fictional Delights 2017 Flash Fiction competition.
Visit Douglas Bruton on the web

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One response to “Mam and She Worries”

  • Marissa says:
    November 9, 2017 at 9:41 am

    A beautiful story, full of emotion. Well done

    Reply

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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.

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Text & stories © Joanna Sterling 2021
Stories © various authors
Audio by Menna Bonsels
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