The stories in this volume compose FAB = -FBA, the second volume of SUM FLUX. See more stories, and check out the authors featured in this edition here.
She eats her dreams from the inside out.
It’s all she has done since whispering:
I do . . .
She wonders if it will ever cease. She doesn't think so, can’t picture it.
A sheen of sweat rises on her upper lip on those days when she puts in extra effort, to make everything just so. Steaming the curtains into symmetrical waterfalls. Reaching into the depths of the pantry for the last jar of pickled beets. Running to catch the last post. Pounding bread dough, ensuring a good rise. Buns. Loaves. Baps to house bacon for a weekend breakfast treat. Sometimes, she still glows with the joy of it, lost in the moment.
But. . .
It will never be enough. She will always get something wrong.
***
All this cowering under the stairs. what is it all about, and why does she replay it? Day in, day out. What has she done to deserve this?
Stay out of my way or you’ll regret it . . .
This had never been her plan. It isn’t the calm, quiet life with a modest house, with money left over for the weekends and outings to the seaside on the off-chance of fine weather. Maybe an ice cream. Perhaps two. With a Cadbury’s Flake, if she’s lucky.
The reward for all her work, all her kindness, all her silence is fists and jaws and beer cans and cigarette burns and unpaid bills and pretending:
Everything’s alright, Mrs Jones. . .
When the shouting becomes too loud for the almost deaf neighbour to ignore, and the pounding follows. Vibrations travel through the air, ripple her skin, raise the hairs on her arms. They follow the grain of floorboards because trees still talk to each other long after their demise.
Can you prove they don’t?
She waits — she watches, scrimps, saves, and pinches pennies. And when he twists her wrist behind her back and suffocates her screams with muscle and bone and indifference, she thinks of her bulging purse, and grits her teeth.
And she hides her emergency bag in the laundry basket because she knows he’ll never look there. He earns the money and deserves to go down the pub of an evening for a drink and a smoke and a laugh with the lads, and:
Don’t you come crying to me about women’s business. It’s your job to wash the dirty knickers round here, ain’t it?
She thanks a god she barely believes in for that blood. It’s one thing her body can do right. It knows, rejecting the burrowing, nestling cells, protecting them from a damned, broken life. And so she washes her underpants by hand, watching the water run and run until it is almost clear, leaving the faintest stain in the crotch. She stops. The tidemark mouths an apology to the children she must not mother, let alone caress. And yet, her breasts still ache for their absence.
He’s only ever lifted a hand to grasp her neck, to punch her chest, to teach her a lesson, to help her see where she’s gone wrong. She’s always learning, each lesson a bruise that blossoms and fades, or a cut that leaves a silvery scar, or a broken bone that slowly heals. Until the next time.
***
Anyway. . .
It’s a fine Sunday, with daffodils in the window box and the radio murmuring on the sideboard. A momentous day, for she’s somehow managed to eke a proper roast dinner out of the housekeeping money.
Her hand floats over the handle of the carving knife, fingers caressing varnished wood. Her palms sweat.
The blade slides through flesh, humming as blood arcs in rhythm with her heartbeat. He collapses onto her and the knife, his weight sinking, dense as the life he pressed upon her. On the plate, the beef lies still, ringed by asparagus spears, carrot batons, and peas scattered like stray thoughts.
She’s always wanted medium-rare, and she doesn’t remember how—how can years of hell fit into a single thought? How much can your purse hold, and how little your womb?
The limp floorboards lift easily enough. She pushes him into the space between the joists, sighing a little at the thump, at the hollow sound as his body settles. She thanks the elusive god for the house’s shoddy construction — a miracle void big enough to swallow him whole, and only earth beneath.
Only earth.
***
And now his body seeping, and now floorboards sagging, and finally, the threadbare rug on top. She strokes its worn fibres, pressing her palms on the space in the pattern where she knows his mouth lies agape underneath.
And the house is quiet.
So quiet except for her ragged breaths, and her pounding heart, and the St Christopher pendant shuddering against the cage of her thin chest. And the ripping of flesh as she picks up the meat in its entirety, pushes it into her mouth and tears at it with her tiny white teeth. She chews and swallows the horror of a life and wipes her bloody hands on her apron. Which she places on the laundry pile, folded, just so.
She pats it and sits, sipping at her cup of tea, rattling the saucer, just a bit. Tapping a neat foot to the ticking of the clock staring from the mantelpiece.
There is plenty of time for running.
I like to think I'm a good writer.
Then I read another writer's work and think, "why am I even doing this?"
What a mood. I knew you'd give us a killer ending and wow, it blew my mind.