Competition Twenty Shortlisted: TAKE IT AWAY SNOW-WHITE GIRL. IT’S ALL YOURS. IT’S ALL YOURS. by Emily Macdonald

The Hollywood mirror mocks her, squalls, appalled. It highlights lines, puffs, and sags.

“Fuck you. I own it,” Queen retorts. “No more Pritikin, Atkins or Keto!” She spins a pair of silver scissors and admires their infinite helix reflections. She stabs at gaseous kimchi, stabs at traitorous red apples. Stabs the privy council of grim oily fish, stabs at swollen chia seeds stuck between the gaps in her teeth.

Queen leans into the mirror and tuggles a wiry hair, springing from under her chins. The tug smarts, but she’s perfected the prick-tease of pain while letting the hairs rampage and remain.

“No more jolly nasty little men. No more princes’, pretenders or prancers.”

Queen leans back. She rocks on her sturdy legs, braces to ride the sudden heatwave rashing her body in a wet glow. Glossy sweat she admires like anointment on a prize fighter, or on a marathon runner, arms aloft, triumphant over the line.

“I win,” she rages. She buns a fistful of brittle hair in one hand and brandishes the silver scissors. She smiles, satisfied with the sound of serration she hears with each snip.

Emily Macdonald has stories published in anthologies including the Bath Short Story Award 2023, and online journals such as Fictive Dream, Ellipsis Zine, Raw Lit, Roi Fainéant Press and The Phare. Her collection of driving related stories, Wheel Spin and Traction, is out now with Alien Buddah Press – click here for info.

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Illustration by Eva Mackenzie

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