Competition Thirty-Two Winning Flash Fiction: Penance Plaid by Rosaleen Lynch

I do not have the memory that is in the photo, I do not feel the ribboned flowers pinned by mother to my head; white for pure, white for clean, white for the confirmation I do not want, and I do not smell these three carnations, not because they’re fake or because they’re overpowered by the perfume my mother wears, this lily of the somewhere valley, as she leans over me, makes me bend, pushes in hairgrips, and not because by now, my rebellious attire, is damp with adolescent sweat, a body trapped, that has, since it was bought, outgrown the grey plaid skirt and waistcoat, though it’s new, though buttons and zips hold me in, though collars, cuffs and waistbands clutch and choke and constrict my growth that day, for which I have to compose myself, just these few hours, I hear my mother say, and I feel the sway of my skinny grey plaid tie, hang loose, and the woollen unlined A-line skirt, flare from my hips and the waistcoat’s open arms stretch at my chest, this material that will scratch, and make my skin react, bring me out in hives, and might have that memorialised morning, if the white shirt and tights did not save me—save me like they say my baptism did, like they say my communion did, like they say my white wedding will, but they don’t know, it’s a wedding my mother won’t attend, a wedding with two in white, you in a dress and me in a white plaid trouser-suit, with a white carnation, that I’ll eat, petal by petal, like a sacrament, and every sin with you will feel like resistance, and for my penance, each sin will scratch and smell of warm damp plaid.

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Rosaleen Lynch is an Irish community worker, teacher and writer in London with work selected for the Wigleaf Top 50, Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net and is currently exploring the power of stories to promote social change.

@rosaleenlynch.bsky.social

52quotes.blogspot.com

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Image – Pixabay

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