How to Gut a Fish by Sheila Armstrong

Author:Sheila Armstrong [Armstrong, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2021-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

lemons

High-flung handfuls of white polystyrene shapes, falling in gentle waves.

A package has come early for Christmas, and the two children have stolen away the S-shaped filling to make snow showers in their small, street-facing garden. Leaping into the air from balled toes, they catch pieces in their mouths, biting down so hard their teeth meet in the middle and slip to the side with a dry, squeaking noise. The taller girl spits a chunk of soft plastic out, and the other copies her in echoing delight. With it comes a smear of blood; a loose milk tooth has left a pinkish trail across the surface. She begins to cry, in fright, and panic fills up her eyes.

The older one laughs at the sight of the blood; she is eight years old and afraid of nothing, fierce as the sun. A thick headband scrapes her hair back against her skull, and she is barefoot through the cold grass, weaving around the thistles stippling the cramped front lawn of their terraced house. Her sister’s brief terror subsides, and they resume their dance. They are whirling together in a snow globe, and they must catch each piece of polystyrene and launch it skywards again; if all the pieces fall to the earth at once, they will become figurines, frozen in place forever.

Across the road, a wet-lipped man leans against a grey cement windowsill and watches the handfuls of soft foam float down. His right hand is hidden in his dark jeans. He has cut a hole in the scooped lining of his pocket so he can grab himself through it, to pull and pull and pull.

The girls look up as one, sparrow-like, to see him staring. The older one becomes suddenly uncertain, unsettled by the man’s jerking motions; a marionette moving without strings. They run inside, hand in hand, and the last of the polystyrene settles down on the lawn to wait for the wind to carry it off and up against the chain-link fence.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.