Competition Nineteen Winning Flash Fiction: Scenes of War and Other Things I’ve Forgotten by Adele Evershed
Someone abandoned a grey cardigan in front of ‘Scenes of War in Medieval Times’ at The Met today. It was as if they couldn’t bear the warmth of wool next to their house-bound skin when naked women were hanging like dirty washing over rocks and horses in Degas’s painting of misfortunes. Nobody picked it up, and I could see people wondering if it was part of the exhibition, like the pile of bricks at the Tate. It was more interesting than the bricks–curled over in an exaggerated manner, hinting the body that shrugged it off was humpbacked and well fed. One of the cuffs was slightly frayed, beckoning with a come hither insouciant tempting you to pull the loose thread and gallop away so all that would remain would be buttons clattering like bones on the parquet flooring.
A docent approached, picking it up between finger and thumb like an artifact or a used tissue. “Someone has dropped a grey cardigan,” he said. I nodded and smiled to show he was right, but he assumed it was mine.
I thought, surely I don’t look like the sort of woman who would wear an oversized cardigan the color of misery, but as he handed it to me, I was surprised to find it smelt of comfort—cigarettes and the perfume my mother used to wear.
I wanted to wrap it around those discarded women and whisper everything will be alright, even though for women in wartime, it never is.
I felt a nudge and turned to find my daughter.
“You found your cardi then,” she said, “Oh Mom, why are you crying?”
“I’m thinking about your grandmother,” I told her. She wrapped the cardigan around me, saying, “Everything will be alright.”
But we both know it won’t be.
Adele Evershed was born in Wales. Her prose and poetry have been widely published. She has been nominated for the Best of the Net for poetry and the Pushcart Prize for poetry and short fiction. Finishing Line Press published Adele’s first poetry chapbook, Turbulence in Small Places, in July. Her Novella-in-Flash, Wannabe, was published by Alien Buddha Press in May. Her second poetry collection, The Brink of Silence is available from Bottlecap Press.
Painting – Medieval War Scene, by Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
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A lovely and very moving piece. Thank you.
Delightful story. Thanks for writing it Edele, and thanks fff for publishing it. Eamon