a literary journal

FICTION

Posts in Catherine Hurcombe
The Last Prayer

It has grown cold here. And dark. I try so hard to tune out my senses, but they always seem to come back, nagging away at me like unanswered prayers.

I am hungry.

I am tired.

I am lonely.

I hear others shuffling around sometimes – muffled grunts of pain and dirtied rags trailing along the floor. It does not matter whose. It does not even matter who is left.

My fire is small, scarcely more than a candle, but I nurture it as though it were the Sun. I dare not add more kindling, though there is nothing else around me but ruins. I do not want the others to see. They will take my tiny flame, try to steal it for themselves, and they will fight and squabble over it until they are simply fighting over ash.

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The Art of Writing

“Write it.” 

“I’m…trying…”

Your voice is hoarse and weak. You don’t remember when you last drank. Or ate. Or slept. But adrenaline propels your fingers against the keyboard. You suspect the sun has set, but you daren’t look up and check.

They will be waiting if you do.

“He isn’t going fast enough,” one of them whines, “I’m hungry!”

“We have waited too long. We must be released.”

“He will finish soon.” You feel her icy glare on the back of your neck, and suppress a shudder, “If he knows what is good for him.”

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Selkie

You do not remember what life used to be like. Or rather, you remember it, but it is hazy now, as if you are seeing it through a curtain. Some mornings you wake up and think you can feel seafoam on your skin, waves pushing against your breast. Some mornings you wake up with a smile on your face, but it is not yours. It belongs to some past you, some other you. And you are not her. 

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