Flash Fiction by Anika Carpenter
Rhonda Montgomery is a Bouquet of Flowers
She dropped out of fashion school in the first semester. She’d met an artist. Became his muse. Still life got stale. Rhonda retrained as a couples therapist. ‘What are you guilty of?’ she’d press her clients, her blooms inappropriately romantic. Things got nasty. Wounded partners flung her against the wall, breaking stems, damaging buds. Rhonda resolved to prioritize creativity. Join an electro band. The Neuro Mules mixed the hum of bees’ wings beating beside lilies, and the leatherlike creaking of tulips growing, into dance floor hits. But, they had no time for floral vocals. Rhonda celebrated quitting the music scene with lunch at The Ivy. The servers knew to dip sprigs of a diner’s gypsophila into prosecco, to slip morsels of tender meat between their petals. Rhonda rolled a bite of braised lamb round hot pink chrysanthemums, shook a little tiger lily pollen onto the rim of her plate. The sight of yellow-orange on white porcelain, smooth as a good night’s sleep, was fried egg-like. A mockery of the beige shell meant to hold it. An inviting thing, perfectly round, faultless as a mirror that no one has yet looked into. Rhonda Googled second hand kilns. Maxed out her credit card.
Rhonda Montgomery makes ceramics for people with drooping hearts and lives browning at the edges, whose dreams are a crumpled confetti of faded pinks and yellows left in a trail on the way to the bathroom. Rhonda fashions comforting shapes, vases round as a belly digesting fresh pastries, as proudly curved as a chest filled with lungfuls of sea air. Clients hug their water filled containers, hum tunes, wait patiently until the water is warm enough to dive into.
Cast Aways
No one kept track of the old-age passengers, not back then. But Rose hid anyway, her head ducked well below the windows of the cruise ship’s only lifeboat. The stooping aggravated her arthritic hip, made her more cranky than usual with Gloria, who was sat upright where anyone might see her, blithely checking the contents of her handbag; crisps, pork pies and apples swiped from the all-day buffet. Gloria struggled to believe this meagre hoard could last them. To strengthen her resolve, she craned her neck for a better view of the quarter-deck. Sooner or later someone would climb the rusted guardrail, throw themselves into the ocean, make the near inaudible splash of someone experiencing serious cognitive decline making their escape.
Jumping was encouraged. It freed up cabin space.
Minnie, Grace, and Ella kept as far from this spectacle as possible. Took up position in the middle of the lifeboat. Resplendent in mildewed life jackets. The sight of them reminded Rose of the centerpiece at her father’s funeral – orange gerberas, white lilacs. But her friends weren’t fond of reminiscing, so she stayed quiet while they made up stories about elderly mermaids, and swore at the stubborn cork that kept them from cheap Prosecco.
Each of the women carried a photo, edges fingered soft. Portraits of grandchildren, children, lifelong friends. Beloved people, prohibited from waving them off at the port, or inheriting their property, or commemorating them with a headstone, a park bench. Instead, they’d received non-transferable lifetime discounts on their energy bills, and a certificate commending them on their part in helping to create a more sustainable society.
The ship’s engineer had paid through the nose for his mother’s Covert Assisted Living. If it were legal, he’d have found a way to do the same for Rose. She’d never told him he leads a selfish life, that he could have, should have been married three times over by now. On his nights off Rose had taught him how to play gin rummy and shit head. There’d be no more card games.
While kitchen staff scraped the remains of supper from chipped crockery and cleaners gave the restaurant’s worn seating a cursory wipe, the ship’s engineer launched the lifeboat and its wayward passengers into the ocean.
No one was informed of the women’s unsanctioned evacuation. Friends and relatives were not given the opportunity to picture their celebratory new life on a faraway coastline. Musicians never wrote folk songs about shipwrecked seniors, welcomed ashore by islanders who celebrated intimate histories. Cinemas did not screen a film featuring octogenarians stars who, in the last scene, kick off their shoes and tread their names into warm, giving sand.
Anika Carpenter lives and works in Brighton, UK. Her stories have been published by Ellipsis Zine, Fictive Dream, Molotov Cocktail, Janus Literary and others, and have been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Prize and the Bridport Prize. You can find her via her website www.anikacarpenter.com or on Twitter @stillsquirrel
Flash Boulevard is edited by Francine Witte. Banner photograph Wes Candela.
Flash Boulevard 