Competition Twenty-Four Shortlisted: Bubble Man by Graham Rice

There has been too much science in her life of late, and so little magic. Beeping machines and tubes and porters’ wheels and hand gel and sterile surfaces and grown-ups with warm smiles and cold hands. I sit with her on the too-big bed and she leans into me, her left hand resting on my right thigh. She’s light, like she might float away.

He is an unlikely magician: paunchy and bald. His costume has seen too many children’s parties. His Act is worn smooth and flat by the repetition. But in her eyes, he is a Sorcerer.

He forms bubbles with his hands, through a straw, on the floor, in the air. He births these breath-quickened, oil-shimmering organisms and her mouth is open in disbelief that such things are possible. This one he fills with coloured smoke; this one with a hundred smaller bubbles; this one with just enough helium that it hangs still in the air, momentarily permanent. I can feel the life coursing through her skin: she’s enchanted.

She takes me with her. I see through her eyes. I am no longer in a room with ammonia-scented air and rainbows painted on trolley-scuffed walls. I am with her, floating in suspension, our skin a-shimmer. I flow and contort, feeling her lightness as air passes through the core of us. I too am filled with joy. Each new miracle dances for just as long as the edges can hold, then is gone.

Afterwards, she yawns and sinks deeper into me. She asks me if we can see the Bubble Man again – when she’s better. I move her hair where it’s fallen across her eyes and tell her we can. That we will. We sleep then, afloat above the too-big bed.

Graham Rice lives in Croydon with his wife and daughter. He is hurtling towards his 40th birthday and doesn’t know quite how to feel about it.

Photo by Lanju Fotografie on Unsplash