Competition Sixteen Shortlisted: This House Knows by Heather D Haigh
A splash of crimson roses. A bubbling of saucepans—like the drumming of hooves on sand, like the blatter of wind-whipped bunting, like laughter across the bay. A clink of long-stemmed glasses. A rapture of scents: deep earthy asparagus, sweet tangy raspberries, musk. A smear of chocolate fondant.
The slither of pooling silk, the sigh of a yielding mattress, the purr of a zip, the whisper of breeze on perspiration-dewed skin, the rasp of flesh on flesh.
A jingle of house keys, a natter of hex keys, the tip-tap of panel pins. The giggles. The dammits. The fucks.
A silence broken only by the turning of a page, the snip-snip of scissors, the scratch of a pen listing seven skeins of thread. A finger-prick ouch. A kiss.
The hustle and bustle of days.
A silence scattered by the slop-scrape-slop of spoon on bowl, of clicks, hisses, whistles and slurps. The clatter and clunk of knives on plates and lids on bins—like the rattling thud of chains. The grind of well-worn teeth.
One Home Sweet Home sign, one narrow-eyed needle, a mouthful of pins—silver-sharp.
The acrid smell of burned lasagna. The hurricane of a roaring extractor—like the rumble of thunder, like an earthquake, like a train.
A telephone unanswered. Eleven pings.
The crack of a hammer. The patter of plaster scree. One sign bearing a picket-fenced cottage and three drops of blood, hanging in a battleship-grey hallway.
The sulk of neglected dust. A boneyard of abandoned coat hooks. One raincoat flapping in the draught of an open door.
A silence, unbroken.
The promise of filler, sandpaper, a tester pot of Daffodil Yellow. The burbling of a single pan on a six-ring stove, like the gurgling of a very small child.
Heather is a sight-impaired spoonie and working-class writer from Yorkshire. Her work has been published by: Reflex Press, Pure Slush, New Feathers, Mono, Anansi Archives and others. She was nominated for best of the net in 2022.
haigh19c.wixsite.com/heatherbooknook
Photo by Iza Gawrych on Unsplash
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What an incredible piece of writing!
So many beautiful gems like “The grind of well-worn teeth,” “The sulk of neglected dust” make me want to read it over and over.