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Speaking in Tongues

by Rosie Garland

2018 Flash Fiction Competition First Prize

PodcastFlash Fiction Unsettling, Weird

When he gets home, he slides you into a goldfish bowl. You think there’s no way you can fit, what with the tail and fronds, but the water accommodates like a glove.

Morning and evening, he shakes a plastic tub. The food falls in a drift of salty confetti. You flick your clever tongue and catch each flake. You grow long and sleek. He has to move you into the sink; by the end of the week, the bath.

He feeds you from a tin of sardines. Holds out a fork, says: here comes the aeroplane. When your lips close around the tines, you taste sweat on his fingers. You eat, and grow. Your tentacles climb the tiles around the tub. You pool the floor with slime.

At night, you rest your head upon his knee. He combs your hair and whiskers, smoothes the creases from your frills where they have wedged against the sides of the bath. You wrap your tongue around him, squeeze till he gasps. You watch him gazing in wonder at the marks you leave. His skin is parched, his tongue small and lacking in muscle.

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You are listening to
Speaking in Tongues
by Rosie Garland

https://www.thecasket.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Speaking-in-Tongues-mini-version.mp3

Story read by Bethan Dixon Bate for The Casket of Fictional Delights.

About Rosie Garland

Rosie is a novelist, poet and sings with post-punk band The March Violets. With a passion for language nurtured by public libraries, her work has appeared in Under the Radar, The North, New Welsh Review, Rialto & elsewhere. Her latest novel 'The Night Brother' was reviewed in The Times as “playful and exuberant... with shades of Angela Carter.”
Visit Rosie Garland on the web

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As autumn approaches, we have some cracking great short stories and flash fictions coming up by many of our regular writers including Alyson Faye, James Stark and Susan Carey. And we round off the year with another story featuring quirky librarian Susan Tate.

There are many other short stories and flash fictions available to read and listen to in our Stories and Podcast sections.

Joanna & The Casket of Fictional Delights Team

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    Text & stories © Joanna Sterling 2023
    Stories © various authors
    Editing by Joanna Sterling & Alyson Faye
    Audio by Menna Bonsels
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