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The Casket of Fictional Delights

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The Bubble

by Anna Nazarova-Evans

Flash Fiction Mischievous, Playful

Pop is our favourite word. We listen to pop music, eat popcorn, suck popsicles and lollipops. You pop over to mine and we watch TV until we fall asleep on the sofa, bubble gum wrappers stuck to our faces.
It was the lipsticks that gave it away.
“How can you afford them all?” you said looking at their glistening bodies scattered along the bottom of my draw like seashells.
“I can’t,” I said and your eyes flickered and your skin was powdery and smooth like a mannequin’s.
We dare each other to go one step further on our weekly missions. I walk into a department store and walk out in a new coat. You lift a bedside lamp and put it in your shopping bag. The closet in the attic spills ‘borrowed’ clothes onto the carpet. We parade in front of each other, sucking in our cheeks, pretending to be supermodels.
“What do you girls do up there?” Mum shouts up the stairs. When we giggle in response, it sounds like happiness.
This is how this will end. We will be called to the principal’s office. Our mothers will look concerned. We will be embarrassed. We won’t be allowed to speak to each other. I’ll be relieved. But, when a new class mistress sits us at the same desk, you will write the word awkward in my notepad and I will flop it closed – the sound of a bubble popping.
Or perhaps this will never end and, when I come to your baby shower, I’ll bring a dozen pocket sized items as a present. You will then ask with your eyes only. I will wink and, for the first time in my life, I will know exactly what I want to be.

 

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About Anna Nazarova-Evans

Anna won the InkTears Flash Fiction prize in 2017  and the TSS competition in 2015.  Her fairy tale took second place in Vernal Equinox Flash Fiction Competition in 2018.  She was also published by the National Flash Fiction anthologies, Spelk Fiction, Café Aphra, Reflex Fiction, Spontaneity, Visual Verse and Firefly magazine. Anna Tweets @AnitchkaNE

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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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