Competition Thirty-Two Highly Commended: I Wake on Our Tenth Anniversary to a Slate-Grey Saturday and Tom Already Running by Chris Cottom
He used to sleep in the spare room only before a race, in case I snored or woke up crying. Now he’s training so hard he’s there every night. While he fartleks up Slitherstone Hill, I butter a baking tin, weigh everything carefully. I sift flour and cinnamon, like the Queen of Sheba once she reached Jerusalem with a caravan of camels laden with spices, gold, and precious stones.
It’s past lunchtime when Tom messages, ten minutes from what he insists on calling base camp, asking me to get his ice bath ready. Afterwards, I feed him anniversary apple cake, spiced with cinnamon and glazed with caramel, like I’m still his queen. He finishes his second slice, pushes his plate away, says he’s entered the Alaskan White Mountains 100. He says I can’t join his support crew, because I’m not tough enough.
With my husband snoozing on the sofa, I jewel myself as gorgeous as the Queen of Sheba when she talked with King Solomon about everything on her mind. Instead of Alaska, I’ll take a camel train along the Spice Route from Kerala to barter in dusty bazaars, sniff cassia and cardamon, plunge my arms into sacks of peppercorns and grains of paradise. I’ll sunbathe beside the Arabian Sea, baste myself with bergamot oil, let a Persian merchant prince kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
Golden glazed, and baked as hard as star anise, I’ll wait til Tom’s on his Alaskan start line to ping him a photo of anniversary apple cake. I’ll tell him we won’t need another.
Chris Cottom lives near Macclesfield, UK. Recent work appears in Aromatica Poetica, Bending Genres, ELA Literary, Flash Frontier, MoonPark Review, Gooseberry Pie, and Trash Cat Lit.
@chriscottom.bsky.social
chriscottom.wixsite.com/chriscottom
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