I. CAN’T. BREATHE by Jack Morris
Some woman’s doing a protest on the High Street. Nearly gave Mick a heart attack when he drove past. She’s pulled up a paving slab, somehow, and planted a tree. Chained herself to it, wearing a full-on gas mask.
She’s got a sign. ‘I. CAN’T. BREATHE.’
‘At least she weren’t glued to the tarmac,’ Mick says. But it’s not fair, risking accidents like that. What’s the point, exactly? People need cars. Mick can’t work without his van. What’s the flipping point?
*
Mick’s right, she’ll give our Ella nightmares with her weird, alien bug eyes. I’ve started a petition to get her moved on. Her and her bloody tree. Why should me and Mick have to work all hours for a new van, whilst some people sit on their arses waving placards? I CAN’T BREATHE some days either, but do I go on about it? Do I?
She never speaks, not even when I rammed her ankle with the pushchair. Well, what does she expect? It’s a right squeeze to get past now.
*
Ella’s on steroids, for her chest.
‘Keep her inside,’ Dr Chattergee says. ’The air’s bad this year.’
On the way home, Ella points out of the rainy bus window.
‘Ant lady.’
Massive mirror eyes. Blank plastic mouth. ‘I. CAN’T. BR-‘ smeared into wet, red nothingness.
*
No-one knows for sure, because of the mask, but they reckon she’s the one whose kid died of asthma. They leave used inhalers by the tree. The pile’s waist-high already. I’ve taken down the petition. Didn’t seem right, in the circumstances. I still wish she’d get out of the way, though.
*
Mick thinks he might get a new van. It’s hard knowing his old one is churning out all that crap when Ella’s up all night, coughing. Maybe she has got a point, Ella’s Ant Lady.
A few of us club together to buy a brolly. We leave it, Christmas wrapped, near the inhaler hill. She doesn’t say thank you but her mask looks like it’s smiling, a bit.
*
There’s quite a crowd. Playgroup mums. People from the estate. Dr Chattergee. And her – Ant Lady. I. CAN’T. BREATHE. Nothing’s changed, not even her stupid sign. Only the tree’s grown – and that’s going to get cut down. Poor tree, it never stood a chance. Like Ella’s chest. Like how we never get anywhere, however much we bloody try. I kick the inhaler mountain so hard I send it skittering into the road.
Blaaaaaaaaare. A van. Fuck. Now I’m for it. But the man next to me yells, ‘That’s for our Freddie,’ and then we’re all at it, inhalers flying, traffic honking, blue and brown plastic crunching under tyres. Ant Lady, silent in the middle of it all. Us, reflected in her big, black eyes.
Jack Morris lives in the UK with three cats, a dog and sometimes other family members. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the Open University (2021). She came second in Propelling Pencil Summer Charity Competition 2024 and has two Pushcart Nominations (both 2023). She is co-editor of Neither Fish Nor Foul.
Image – Breathless by Anne Anthony
Anne Anthony is a digital collage artist living in North Carolina. She’s been published in Grief Diaries, Fast Flesh Literary Journal, Blink-Ink, After the Pause, and Anti-Heroin Chic. She was the Artist-in-Residence for Neither Fish Nor Foul in issue two. Her digital collage, Forest Hawk, was featured in the 2024 Saving Our Savannah’s Community Art Exhibition and the 2025 Birds of North Carolina: A Community Photo Exhibit at the North Carolina Botanical Gardens. Her photographs Following the Rules, Deer Shadow, and Traveling Life’s Highway placed in the 2024, 2023, and 2022 Carolina Women’s Photography contest. Her photograph, Lonesome, was nominated for 2025 Best of Net by phoebe lit journal. Her artwork will soon be featured in Mad Swirl, 3 Elements Literary Review, Graveside Press’s Illustrated Poetry Anthology, and Mom Egg Review. She works as the senior editor and art director for the online literary magazine, Does It Have Pockets. Follow her on Instagram @anchalastudio.
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