#SelectedFlashFiction – August

As August whispers of the coming autumn, we are reminded of the cycles of change and the constant renewal of inspiration. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Lucy Aur and Elizabeth Kemball for their foresight and passion in selecting this month’s featured works: “Wedding, Sirmione” by Lara Frankena and “Self-Portrait” by Court Ludwick.

• Lara Frankena‘s narratives, steeped in the experiences of life and the imagination’s flights, have graced the pages of Mslexia, Brittle Star, and more. Her work invites readers into a dance of words and wonder.
• Court Ludwick is not only a writer but an artist and educator, engaged deeply with the exploration of the self and the other. With work featured in prestigious journals and a dedication to the craft that spans disciplines, Court offers readers a glimpse into the complexities of identity and existence.

Wedding, Sirmione – Lara Frankena

L’après-midi

My one-year-old won’t walk on her own. She waits for a passing hand to hold, catching a lift with a stranger in the hotel hallway. 

The Italian bride sweeps her up and into wedding photos. Neither French nor Italian, our dark-eyed daughter is Anglaise, I explain to the French grandmother wrestling Étienne into his pull, who asks, car il fait froid, if I brought a jumper for la petite fille. 

Le soir

I have forgotten, had I ever known, the French for travel cot, but I recognise the bulky object in granny’s embrace. Mon soupçon: little Étienne will cry himself to sleep in the castle’s donjon as my daughter is passed around the table in the great hall above. 

Le lendemain matin 
By breakfast my daughter’s cheek is furrowed from a fall onto a gravel path. We are sat next to la grand-mère on the terrace. When her children were small, she always carried a first aid kit, avec arnica. Have we any? Malheureusement non. I will my husband to go to the loo so I can tell her, in the correct conditional tense, that if I had been walking la pauvre, I never would have let go of her hand.

Self-Portrait – Court Ludwick

The wall placard says do not touch the art but I step closer and do. The colors are wet, an oil slick that stains my skin, and I look around, confused. The artist has stitched Titanium White and Payne’s Grey into bone. Black Spinel is eye hollow shadow in skull. A skeleton, I wonder: why is this death so fresh?

My fingertips become slick with it. The painting becomes more abstract. The still-life becomes less still, and I lose my balance, and I rush into the forbidden colors, and believe me when I say I smile, showing teeth, but only for a second, falling past the heavy, gilded frame. 

And then I am canvas. Bleeding. Bare but only so everyone else can see. Spilling my truths all over the place when a couple walks up. They hmm and they ahh and the man scratches his chin. 

See how the skull is detached? 

See how the bubble floats above the head? 

See how the fresh cut flowers only fill one challis, how empty it leaves the other side? 

Pretentious, I think.

See the wheel of torture, thin spokes of burnt umber, barely there like an afterthought? 

What do you think it all means? his girlfriend asks in wonder. When was it painted? Do you know if the artist is well known?  She takes a photograph, but I have no hands to raise. No way to flip them off.

They leave. I am embarrassed. Later, they will zoom in on the holes in my bone. Now, I feel like the Joker you pull from a deck of cards because you forgot it was there. An art teacher told me once: paint yourself like the master’s did. Disfigured? I remember asking. Honest, she always said it was okay to hate your backwards reflection in the mirror. A bad hookup asked me once after good sex: why do you care what strangers see? 

A woman stops in front of my large grin, yellow teeth, rotting bone. Alone and without a camera. Alone, I need to know what she thinks. I still smile, though my jaw feels unhinged. She steps closer. Notice my fresh paint? Only to read someone else’s half-right description.

Vanitas Still Life […] refers to human folly. 

When she walks away, I stay on the bench in the middle of the room and people watch until I tire. Before I leave, I go up to place my hand flat on the dried paint. The man was right. You can barely see the wheel of torture in the refracted bubble.