She closes the door. Goes to her nowhere place. Burrows in. Finds lines in stories where
friends dwell. Not alone, if only for a while. Daren’t fall asleep—morning will be there,
screaming her name, teeth bared, before she knows it, and she’s not ready. The old house
quietens, and with each turning page she becomes the noisy one. It’s too soon when she sees
grains of light from the gap between the curtains. Slowly the line of animal skulls on the
mantle of the blocked up fireplace begin to appear. Every damn time the light comes too
soon, sneaking in, storming in. Like bad news, a worry, a suspicion, it can’t be, it can’t
be—it’s here.
*
Alone, deep midsummer’s night, she stands at the end of her driveway. The sky is orange and
mauve where it touches the blue hills, clear white up and overhead. The moon isn’t quite full.
She can only see the stars if she looks hard. The bass beat from the disco at the marquee
dance over the hill echoes round the valley. Not invited, she doesn’t know it then but later
finds that no one is ever invited to these country dances—they just turn up. Scents of
honeysuckle and dust are thick in the air. The periodic shouting and laughter of the revellers
jars her. Her hand brushes the cool, hard bone of stag’s antlers at the doorway as she goes
back inside. Later there’s a convoy of cars as folk head home, and finally silence. It’s the
longest day, once she might have made a wish or performed something ceremonial, but she’s
done with grand gestures. She sleeps well into the next day, never knowing if it gets full dark,
telling herself the nights will be drawing in soon.
*
Waiting, she lies flat on her back on the wet grass. She calls the ring of stones her stone
circle. She’s laid a sheep’s skull she found in the field between two of the stones. None of
this belongs to her though, and it’s the remains of a sheiling that they are lying in, not a stone
circle. She only remembered that the Geminids were forecast late in the evening. Blind at
first, full of the television’s brightness and chatter, they stumbled up the hill, tripping over
stones and trying to avoid rabbit holes. Bundled up in layers of wool and waterproofs the
frost only reaches her bare face. Light from the nearby town glows—sulphurous devil fire on
the skyline. Shepherds used to shelter here with their animals long before that glow burned so
brightly. An owl screeches down in the wood, moving fast. Cars rev and roar on the road. Her
eyes aren’t quick enough. Peripheral vision is best, but when they come the Geminids just
fall. No shooting, they drop, silently, without a soundtrack. She counts eleven then turns her
head to look at the moon, reaches out her hand to her companion. He’s seen thirty or forty he
says. He takes off his glove and she feels his warm skin against hers.
First published online by Mojave Heart Review, 2018
It’s rumoured that F. E. Clark is currently writing a novel, living her artist-girl-summer/goth girl autumn, and mourning the ashes of her year-gone paintings. She lives in Scotland. Inspired by nature in all its forms, she tweets photos/diaries her daily-ish walks #FromMyWalk. With a story on the Best Fifty British and Irish Flash Fiction 2019-2020 list, she is a 2x Pushcart, and Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions nominee. Her poetry, flash-fiction, and short stories can be found in anthologies and literary magazines, including: 404 Ink, Matchbook, Retreat West, Cheap Pop, Poems for All, SNACK Magazine, Molotov Cocktail, The Wild Hunt, Spelk, Bending Genres, Kissing Dynamite. Her most recent work is out in: Soor Ploom Press, Micro Podcast, The Eemis Stane, and anthologies about Joan Eardley, and Bob Dylan. More details can be found on her website, www.feclarkart.com, and she tweets intermittently at @feclarkart.