Lost Balloon

The other woman showed up at our house, braless, on Mother’s day. Her t-shirt looked like a wax-paper envelope with messages to my mother visibly enclosed. We’re younger, perkier, winning, they said. Babies haven’t suckled us. Your husband’s a different story. I was just a girl. Still, I understood.

I tried to slam the door in her face. My furious father let her inside anyway—just as he had the first time, every time, since they’d met at hiking club. My mother served charcuterie while the woman talked about how to shit in the woods. Creamy slices of dill Havarti. Camembert. Crackers on a wooden board. Salami. The woman squatted in the corner. I wondered if she would actually defecate near the philodendron I’d bought Mom as a gift. She was here to mark her territory, after all.

Now I nurse my newborn daughter while my husband frosts a cake meant for me, downstairs. Belly full, my baby fills her diaper, and the smell reminds me of that woman’s body odor, like stinky cheese and pheromones—pungent—even though the memory is stale. Not this Mother’s day. I close my eyes and watch this Mom club the unwelcome guest with the cheese board; there’s splintered wood, and a patch of skin opens like a present.

E.M. Hubscher is a writer and toxicologist from North Carolina. Her work has appeared in Eunoia Review, as well as several scientific journals and a textbook. You can find her online at http://emhubscherauthor.weebly.com or @emhubscher on Twitter.

Gerald crawls out.

He got the idea while stocking shelves at ShopMart. It closed to customers at midnight. From then till 4 a.m. the cleaners and stockers took over. After that the store was empty till 9:00. Not even a security guard prowled the premises so confident was management in the door sensors and glass break protectors.

One morning Gerald clocked out at 4:00 with everyone else, but couldn’t bear the thought of going home. So he quietly ducked into the men’s bathroom and waited for the night crew boss to go through her routine and lock up. Then he crept out into the store to the huge mountain of toilet paper packages. It reached nearly to the ceiling and sprawled across four aisles. Valuable real estate for sure, but it was practically a tourist attraction. Hell, it was a tourist attraction. People posed in front of it, came from out of town to see it, and put make-a-wish sticky notes on it. The staff even decorated it for holidays.

He carefully repositioned eight-packs to create a crawlway to the center of the mountain. Once inside, he removed and re-stacked packages to hollow out a living space. When he was finished, there was room for him to stand and more than enough for sleeping and moving about. It was good enough to live in. So he does.

He likes knowing there’s so much commotion outside, yet the super-absorbent walls muffle the noise of the busy store to a soft relaxing murmur. He passes the time sleeping, taking advantage of the store’s free WIFI to browse and listen to music on his phone, and reading by light of a lantern from Outdoor Life. A bucket gets him through the day.
During his 4-9 a.m. excursions, he takes care of hygiene, charges his phone, and pilfers supplies — usually chips, candy bars, peanut butter, and cola. He strolls through Magazines, his personal library. He’d take in a movie, but too many security cameras eye Electronics. Same for Jewelry. There’s a necklace his wife would have loved. Ex-wife. “I want more, Gerald. You just don’t have any ambition.”

Maybe she was right. He looks out as dawn creeps across the parking lot. Maybe he should strive for more. A magnificent mound of paper towels is taking shape over in aisles 42-46. It would make a real castle. Maybe then he could convince Doris to move back in with him. It’d take a lot of work to make it livable though, and he doesn’t care for that side of store, he thinks, as he posts another sticky wish and crawls back inside.

David Henson and his wife have lived in Belgium and Hong Kong over the years. They now reside in Peoria, Illinois with their dog, who loves to walk them in the woods. David’s work has appeared in two chapbooks, Literally Stories, 365 Tomorrows, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Dime Show Review, among others. Find him online at http://writings217.wordpress.com.

I never went to school. My mother hid me away. She’d refuse to let me play in the street with the other children. Some days I’d refuse to speak.

The black nights were my escape. We lived close to the river, and I’d sneak to the water’s edge, shivering as velvet mud wormed between my toes and sucked at my heels.

After my mother died, I made sure the whitecoats didn’t catch me. It was better to be a circus freak. The Feltz Brothers signed me up as Flipper Boy; set me next to Snake Tongue and the Bearded Lady. They were my new family. Each afternoon and evening the punters came to gawk at the sideshows. Brave men stood close with their beery breath. “Devil’s spawn,” they’d hiss, and cross themselves.

I was glad to join the Tumbling Billies, clowning in the ring. My limbs learned to flow round my feet. I can still hear the crowd’s roar.

My old bones release me into the dreaming dark, and I push through musty midnight curtains. Half-lit phantom faces loom from front-row seats. I launch myself onto my palms, cartwheeling first one way, then the other. The smell of old sawdust fills my head, the echoing voices of the Billies sing out around me, and my body whirls.

Dust rises. I am spun into light and air. You can see clear through me.

Ali McGrane lives in the UK and is an emerging writer of short fiction and poetry. She has studied literature and creative writing with the Open University and works in a university library. Her work has appeared in Fictive Dream and is forthcoming in Ink Sweat and Tears.

Papa said it wasn’t good to keep secrets so the morning after my nightmare I told him about it.

He told me not to worry. “It’s normal to dream about your Mama.”

I had woken up crying and my eyes felt crusty along the edges. I picked off the dust. “Do you dream about her?”

“Sometimes.” He turned back to the nook in the wall he called the kitchen and flipped the eggs. “Just means she’s on our minds is all.”

The lake water cast reflections that glittered along the ceiling in the morning sun and it made me remember my dream again. Mama used to call those Glimmer Fairies and we’d pretend to catch them in jars when I was little. She’d put the mason jars out on the front porch that overlooked the lake. At night, she’d say they’d gotten out. “You can’t keep them captured up for long. They always get out.”

Papa put my eggs on a paper plate and ate his right out of the pan. We’d been at the cabin for four weeks now and I was starting to think we may stay here forever.

“We’re just going to get away for a while,” Papa had said as he packed my duffel bag back home. “A change of scene would be good, right?”

I’d nodded and told him yes, and hugged him around the neck and waited for his arms to wrap around me. I let go when they didn’t.

I thought we’d go somewhere new. A vacation somewhere warm maybe. I thought maybe Papa and I could drive down to North Carolina or Florida, somewhere with a beach, and we could lay in the sun and both of us not talk for a while. I thought of us giggling over salami sandwiches (“more sand than wich” he’d say) and slathering on sunscreen.

I didn’t think we’d be going to Mama’s cabin in Michigan. It took us hours to drive there from our house in Ohio; Papa drove slow. I watched the sprawling green and yellow farmland roll past, one ocean of vegetation looking the same as the next.

It was the first time I’d gotten to make this drive in the front seat, but the view looked the same. Just less tinted.

It didn’t seem right, being here without her.  She’d grown up in the cabin, coming here with her own parents on weekends and holidays. Then she took us here, letting us shape her place into something that was ours. Now it was ours and not hers. We’d stolen it.

I wondered if people still owned places after they died. I’d gotten her costume jewelry, scarves, and a few antique pens she’d loved. They were packed in a box somewhere – Papa had put them away.

We ate so quiet I could hear a boat’s motor rev up across the lake. The dead-wake hours must have ended. I wanted to ask Papa to take me in the fishing boat. I wanted him to ask me to go on the boat. He’d been working on the engine in the motor for days, cursing and spitting over the gunwales, hands streaked with oil. Once our old boat was up and running I wanted him to take me through the canal. I wanted to go fishing in the lake that connected to ours; it was bigger and had larger fish, or so Mama used to say. But Papa hadn’t gotten the motor started yet, so I didn’t ask him.

During the day there wasn’t much for me to do. Papa worked on the boat and I fished off the dock for minnows using breadcrumbs and a large net. After I caught them, I threw them back. I didn’t need bait.

I shot bottle rockets at the ducks floating by until Papa told me to stop the racket and let them be. I tried talking to Papa and asking if he needed help but he told me go run off somewhere. Where would I run?

I didn’t want to be bored. I wanted to find something engrossing, something that filled me with such interest that I didn’t mind that his back was towards me as he leaned over the glossy black motor.

I was dipping my net back into the water when I heard Papa yelling and the engine spitting into life. His hands were pumping above his head, and he leaned back in a way that could only mean victory. He was still holding his wrench, and for a moment I worried he’d drop it on his head, but then he tossed it aside and clapped with a whoop. He turned around to face me. “I got it,” he said, a smile spilling across his face.

And just like that I felt a lightness grow within me.

I knew he’d take me on the boat tonight and we’d watch the stars come out of a dusky blue sky and make our own constellations. I knew he’d tell me stories about times they went camping and then he’d coast the boat towards the middle of the lake. I knew I’d fall asleep on the leather seats, lulled by the rocking and the smell of gas and lake water.

I knew I’d put my mason jar out on the front porch overnight and see if the glimmers stayed, just this once, until morning.

Madeline Anthes is the acquisitions editor for Hypertrophic Literary, and her work can
be found in WhiskeyPaper, Third Point Press, and more. Read more about her at madelineanthes.com or follow her on Twitter at @maddieanthes.

“It should be rockets,” says Sandra.

Smoke slips from her mouth with each syllable. We’re standing outside the back of The Essex Arms, watching the sky turn a sickly yellow.

Up above I see one star that’s been shining bright these last few days. Maybe I’ve been mooching off longer on my breaks and spending more time outside. I remember my dad telling me something about Venus being mistaken for a star.

“At least that way there’d be some sign they’re going away.”

Sandra stares way off into the distance, over the mostly empty parking lot past the dumpsters and into the dried-out woods behind. One of the cars has had its wheels taken overnight. It leans over, surrounded by shattered glass.

I don’t mind that everyone’s leaving. Quit their jobs and abandoned their houses. Even their families. Every day the numbers go up. Hundreds of millions plug into the virtual worlds of The Grid. All the ads say it’s paradise, and a lot of people I know have given up on this place for good.

Already pollution is way down. Electricity companies complain they’ll see catastrophic losses. Stores are upset that fewer people come in to buy holoscreens and robots and other shit.

“I saw this thing the other day,” I say stubbing out my own cigarette. “Some scientist. Said imagine we were all back in medieval Portugal or wherever. And some dude comes up and he’s all ‘Who dares travel the deadly seas with me. The journey will be perilous and we’ll probably die but if we make it I promise it will be amazing!’”

There’s a loud cheer inside. The crowd tonight is rowdy. Rough. Spoiling for a fight. For anything.

“And?”

Sandra waits on me like, come on.

“So the scientist says imagine some other dude comes up,” and I pause and do my best fancy accent like the science guy. “’For half a doubloon I’ll transport you safely to any world you wish. Verily, you may be a king or a queen and every desire you’ve ever had will be yours.’”

Sandra takes a drag on her cigarette, the cherry right up close to her fingers. She stares at me all intense.

“Like, I guess he’s right,” I say. “If you could safely go to some sweet-ass virtual world that’s probably better than dying on the way to the real one, yeah?”

“Wouldn’t you rather find something real?” asks Sandra as she flicks her cigarette and opens the door. The sound spills out, laughter and shouts and under it all the raw groan of not knowing what to do.  We need to get back inside. Hank will already be pissed. People want their fries and wings. Mourning the slow end of the world is thirsty work and thirsty work needs greasy food.

I reach for an answer but take too long and she’s gone.

She’ll plug into The Grid eventually. I figure everyone will. I hear a tinkling sound and watch as the breeze sends a crushed plastic cup jittering along the pavement.

Above me, the star that might be Venus shines and I think of how much everyone’s said about it and thought about it and it probably barely thought of us at all.

Paul Alex Gray enjoys writing speculative fiction that cuts a jagged line to a magical real world. His work has been published in Spelk, 365 Tomorrows, The Wild Hunt, Between Worlds and others. Growing up in Australia, Paul traveled the world and now lives in Canada with his wife and two children. He’d love to chat about writing with you on Twitter @paulalexgray or you can learn more about him at www.paulalexgray.com.

Taro awoke with watering eyes from a shallow sleep. Another dream of being back in his childhood village. Running over grass towards the old temple with his brothers. The scent of spring in the wind as it blew through pink flowers. Everyone smiling. Fresh takoyaki and cherry ice wafting from food stalls. A dangerous dream to have floating over dark water. Images could drive a man crazy while he breathed stale cabin air and had salt permanently etched in the folds of his skin.

He’d lost count of the days. The Antarctic waters were unforgiving, but he finally had enough money to get back home. That’s all that mattered. He’d been gon—

It took a few heartbeats to process Kazuki standing over him. The grip on his hair brought things to clarity as his head smacked off the wall.

“I won’t tell you again. Get up! Have you no idea what’s going on?” Kazuki screamed. Had never seen such panic in the old man’s face before.

The boat jerked and Taro was thrown out of the bunk. He pulled on boots and rushed up the stairs. Rain pelted the deck. The boat was leaning, fast taking in water. The waves were choppy with every third pouring over. The sky thick with black clouds.

“What happened? Where’s the captain?”

“I don’t know. He and the life boat are both missing. Get over there and help Jiro,” Kazuki said.

Jiro was frantic and trying to get the nets back on board. Taro held the edge and pulled towards the starboard side. Kazuki was shouting on the phone in the pit. He was slapping himself and kicking the steering wheel.

“What do you mean? Do you not understand our situation? Hello? Answer me. Answer me!”

“Taro get me a knife from the kitchen,” Jiro shouted. “We need to cut the nets.”

Taro nodded. The boat slammed against the waves. Before falling down the stairs he saw Jiro flying overboard.

Taro held onto the bunk as the boat swayed and water rushed into the room. He managed to kick the door closed. A noise like breaking metal echoed and he was thrown against the wall. He struggled into the bunk and held on as tight as those hands would grip.

The feeling of being dragged. The boat was already well under and headed for the deep before he realised he should have gotten out of that room. He scrambled to the door and peered out the circular window, seeing only darkness. He climbed to the top bunk and kneeled. Water leaked in from the joints in the door.

It was quiet. Then there was a dull thud. The sinking stopped. Three quarters of the room had filled with water, levelling just under the mattress. Didn’t know how long the air would last. A red cigarette box and its contents floated on the water. A picture of Kazuki’s granddaughter. That was all.

“Kazuki?” he whispered. The light flickered. Panic churned inside. Breaths became much deeper. “Kazuki? Jiro? Anybody?”

No answer.

The rescue party would be there soon. Kazuki told their co-ordinates. The captain might even have been going for help. Had to just stay calm and wait. He curled into a ball and pulled a damp blanket to his chest. Exhaustion swallowed him.

Taro opened one eye. Hands numb, pins and needles crawling in his legs. The water level had risen and the walls were groaning. He took both hands out the water and rubbed them. Teeth chattered. The bulb flickered. After three breaths it went out.

He held knees in the darkness. Even if they knew where the boat was, why would they rush down there? He was dead; that’s what they’d all think. It would be weeks, if ever, before they’d try and salvage the boat.

No one was coming to save him.

No one.

Only death.

He clenched his jaw and dropped into the cold water, gasping. He wasn’t waiting to die in there. He took a series of deep breaths and paused. Silent. And smashed his elbow into the center of the glass. The glass shattered and water rushed inside. He pulled himself through the window and swam through the darkness.

Taro ran over the grass towards the old temple with his brothers. The scent of spring in the wind as it blew through pink flowers. Everyone smiling. He was home.

The meth-heads and heroin addicts get on the bus and off the bus every day like I do. The city-employed men in yellow vests harass them. Not because they’re meth-heads, but because none of us can figure out how to pay to ride the MAX. To pay the ticket machines. The silent judges of whether we get to progress. They take your money and don’t print. They don’t take your money and don’t print. The button is stuck. And that button, too. It won’t scan your credit card. It rejects your cash. It rejects you. The screens don’t even light. It won’t be forced to acknowledge you. Especially in the pouring rain, the kind that flies sideways and the architectural wonder, the design student’s wet dream—those damn hipsters that ride their bikes around downtown with their coffee-cup holders and ridiculous jeans and a guilty mother’s money on every single First Thursday—of a public transportation stop that can’t help you stay dry. Try the next machine and the next. You should have gotten off at the subsequent stop and paid when the previous one didn’t work, says the yellow-vested I’m-more-employed-than-you man. He’s got health insurance that isn’t even on the exchange. Go wait in line behind all the folks who’ve already done their business at the methadone clinic and act like you don’t know that’s what’s happening, he says. He didn’t say it, but let’s not pretend. We all know. One day I went into work late and everyone on the train had armbands, had medical tape around their forearms. How strange, I thought. Then I realized they’d all donated. The plasma joint is one block up, the methadone clinic is right next to the train station. They donate, they re-up, and they ride with their new cash and their new high and I’m old news just going to work to sit at a desk, or if I’m lucky I get to stand, and earn what I earn to pay for my dinner, my rent, and my clothes, and maybe one night of over-priced vintage cocktail happy hours with day-old oyster shooters per week even thought the coast just isn’t that far away. Let’s not even talk about insurance. The other riders know I don’t belong because I don’t wear the armband. They’ve got tokens for free food and the lady next to me wears a lanyard that I know means she never pays to ride this thing, or the bus, or the streetcar, too. Maybe even the cab. The news says there’s an underground token market. You can get sixty cents cash for every dollar of tokens. Buy all the drugs you want. The meth-heads hang out near the newly remodeled yet authentically retro Voodoo Donut—the one in the Northwest, not the one in the Northeast, I know we’re riding from Gresham, but please—and you can barely tell the drugged-out zombies from the art students and viticulturists. I know the lady with the lanyard has got it worse than me but sometimes it still makes me angry when I sit at my desk and wonder what it feels like, what’s so worth riding all the way across Portland and waiting in line after line, to slug back that little plastic cup.

Becca Borawski Jenkins holds an MFA in Cinema-Television Production from USC and has short stories appearing or forthcoming in concis, The Forge, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Jersey Devil Press, Five on the Fifth, Menacing Hedge, and Corium. She and her husband live in a RV they built by hand. They split their time between an off-grid mountain cabin in the Idaho Panhandle and wherever their whims and the winds take them. 

Mary Lynn Reed’s prose has appeared in Mississippi Review, Colorado Review, The MacGuffin, Smokelong Quarterly, FRiGG, Sakura Review, and Whistling Shade, among other places. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Maryland.

There was this stupid charity event in the town square. Some firemen were walking through the crowd, collecting for one of those ‘make a wish’ children’s charities. They were going to pull a fire engine with a rope. I didn’t give them anything. I hate those things. It’s always swimming with dolphins or going to Disney World. I swam with dolphins once, and I thought it was shit.

It wasn’t a wish being fulfilled. I wasn’t dying or anything. We went to Florida in the summer break when I was twelve. One morning dad drove us all to the coast. Mum said we were going for a day out at the beach, but she was one of the worst liars anybody had ever met. When we got there she turned around in her seat, smiling like an idiot. ‘You two know what we’re doing today?’ she asked. It was supposed to be some big surprise. My little sister Mattie almost broke my eardrums with her screaming when mum told us. She was ecstatic. I didn’t blame her though, because she was just a little kid. She didn’t know any better.

Anyway, we got out of the car and there was this wooden hut nearby and on the side it had this awful painting of a smiling cartoon dolphin with a rainbow above its head. You should have seen it. We went inside and some old man was there. He made my parents sign some forms, probably so we didn’t sue them if we drowned or got bitten or something. Then he got these life jackets out. I told him I didn’t need one, but he said, ‘You don’t wanna drown out there, boy.’ I kept telling him it was too tight, but he kept saying it was fine. I think I’d rather drown than wear one of those again.

Outside, there was this wooden jetty that had two rowboats tied to either side of it. Mum looked like it was the happiest day of her life and she wasn’t even getting in the water. ‘Oh, isn’t this magical?’ she said to dad. He just nodded. I don’t think he cared either. Maybe that’s where I get it from. He didn’t even raise his voice when he caught her with someone else that time. That was the problem with dad. He never cared about anything.

Mattie ran ahead when she saw the dolphins.

‘Be careful now, you hear?’ the man shouted, but she wasn’t listening. Once she got her mind on something you could never talk her out of it.

She stopped at the end. There must have been five or six dolphins there, jerking around like excited dogs when they know they’re about to go for a walk. The man climbed down into the water, then held his arms out while dad lowered Mattie to him.

I jumped right in. I just felt like doing it. ‘Hey,’ I shouted, ‘what do we do now?’

‘What do you mean? Enjoy yourself! You’ve got a half hour out here before the next group arrives. Just enjoy yourself.’

I still didn’t get what I was supposed to do. I kept my arm around the steps at the side while the man and Mattie played with those damn dolphins.

‘Let’s get a nice photo for grandma,’ mum said. How are you supposed to get a nice photo when you’re floating around with a stupid life jacket on and you’ve got these things wriggling all around you, smelling you or whatever, and you don’t even know what you’re supposed to be doing? That picture is still hung up in grandma’s living room. I hate it.

Anyway, some of the women in the crowd in the town square were going on about how damn sexy those firemen were. Whistling and everything. But they’re not like that in real life, are they? When you see them, real ones, I mean, they always look normal, no better than anyone else. Some fat, even. Some the wrong side of fifty.

They picked up this rope that was attached to the front of the fire engine. Nobody really knows how heavy those things are though, do they? And it’s on wheels, so really all you need to do is get it going and then it rolls all by itself for a while, so it’s not that impressive if they’re sharing the weight. But some people in the crowd were gasping like it was the most amazing thing they’d ever seen.

I got really worried all of a sudden. There wasn’t anything separating this thing from the crowd, nothing telling people how far back to stand. They were standing all over the place. Kids running around, everything. There wasn’t anyone in the driver’s seat ready to slam the breaks on if something went wrong. I saw it. They were going to pull it forwards and lose control and the crowd would be dragged underneath it and there would be nothing anyone could do.

I sort of wanted it to happen, the more I thought about it. I wanted everything to go wrong for them so everyone would realise that these guys weren’t so great. But nothing did go wrong in the end. They pulled the fire engine forwards for a bit and people moved out of the way and it rolled to a stop and the crowd started clapping and cheering and then started to put even more money in the bucket. That was it. I didn’t hang around for long.

All I’m saying is, those kids the firemen were collecting for are probably going to end up disappointed with whatever they get. That’s the problem with those things, isn’t it? I know they’re ill and everything, but what do they have to look forward to after they get their wishes? I don’t know. I don’t know what I was expecting. I’d rather have gone swimming with sharks, I think. At least you know where you are with a shark.

Spencer Chou is a writer and editor from Nottingham, England. He runs the literary magazine and publisher The Nottingham Review, and has been published in various places. In 2016 he was shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award. You can find him on Twitter @spencerchou.

Stout Sister Flavian is at her desk as I enter the classroom. She shoots a glance at my shirt, wrinkles up her nose and barks, “Monica, come here!” My ears heat up; trouble’s brewing. Every head in the classroom turns. My toes curl inside shoes that are one size too large—for growing into, my mother said.

I’m sure Sister doesn’t wrinkle up her nose because of the smell from my shirt; I took it off the clothesline this morning. The nuns at my school are particular about uniforms—white shirts, navy skirts, white socks and black shoes. They are particular about our nails, and our hair. They are particular that notebooks should be covered in brown paper, labels stuck on the top right hand corner with our first names, last names, subject and grade level inscribed in all capitals.

My mother bought my uniforms a year in advance in a larger size—five shirts, five skirts. She knows the rules and sends me here for education and discipline.

“Was this shirt washed?” Sister asks. I stare at the mole on her round chin. The white hair in the center of it wiggles when she talks. “I said yesterday that shirt is more yellow than white.”

When I tell my mother Sister Flavian says my shirts are more yellow than white, I don’t think she hears me. Mother’s always busy with the babies, or in the kitchen. Everyday, I take the public bus with friends from my neighborhood.

Sister lifts my arms. Sweat stains make semi-circles. I pray someone flings a paper rocket across the room.

“Early hormones,” she says.

I don’t know what she means.

“Yes, it was washed,” I mumble.

I want to tell Sister I don’t wash clothes. I’m nine.

The nun’s thick finger lifts my collar. “Tsk, tsk. Your collar has a ring. Needs scrubbing.”

She turns to one of my classmates.

“Pia, when you go home for lunch, take Monica with you. Get her a clean shirt.”

I want to learn how how to faint.

Perfect Pia is not my friend. This girl wears shiny, polished, black shoes. Blue ribbons thread through her tight braids. Her navy skirt has pleats ironed into sharp creases. She gets the highest grades. Perfect Pia, teacher’s pet, sits behind me in class.

I study the once-white, now gray, socks on my feet. Will Sister ask Pia to give me a pair of socks as well?

Pia doesn’t say a word as we walk to her home. The place is as perfect as she is. The apartment has clean, tiled floors. I’m afraid my shoes will leave dirty marks. Six red cushions sit in a row on a beige couch. A red table cloth drapes the dining table.

Pia asks the maid for a white shirt and one appears, crisp, bright, and ironed. I change in a bathroom with shiny faucets. I abandon my yellow-white shirt by the sink.

The maid places cheese sandwiches, sliced apples and glasses of milk on the table. We eat lunch and walk back to school. I thank Pia but she won’t answer.

The next day, Pia’s shirt goes into the pile of washing and I wear one of my other yellow-white shirts. Sister clenches her teeth.

“Pia, can you take her home again? I will send your mother a note.”

I’ve heard Pia is the only child of busy lawyers. Again, we only see the maid. Again, I thank Pia and she won’t look at me. I change into her white shirt, and leave mine behind. I eat a cheese sandwich, gobble up the sliced apple and drink strawberry-flavored milk.

Sister nods in approval when we get back. Anything less than a brilliant white is imperfect.

Three days later, the nun wrinkles up her nose again. “Why can’t your mother get you new shirts?” she asks.

By now, I’ve learned not to feel bad when Pia whispers to her friends. I imagine row upon row of white shirts and navy skirts hanging in her cupboard. Her mother won’t mind giving me a few. They are rich.

When I take off my tired shirt, I see someone has pinned paper on the back of my shirt. It reads, “Monica is stupid.” I dump my shirt on the floor.

I have three white shirts now. But then, we get a couple of rainy days. Two of Pia’s shirts hang damp on the line and one waits to be washed. I know what to expect from Sister.

We go through the same routine. Sister wrinkles up her nose, shakes her head. Pia makes a face but takes me home.

I try hard to stick to the four white shirts I now possess; Sister leaves me alone.

Until my mother gets the flu. Four days of clothes remain unwashed.

I tell my mother I don’t want to go to school. She tells me if I stay home, I’ll get sick too.

I wear the fifth and last of my old yellow shirts. Will someone stick another note on my back?
Sister gets that glint in her eye. Pia makes a face, again.

After I change, I drop my last yellow shirt in the bathroom sink. In a way, I am relieved. I have five white shirts now, one for each school day.

My mother gets better, washes the mountain of clothes. White shirts shine in the sun. She irons them too, not a crumple in sight.

I come to school, confident. Hoping to receive a smile, I grin at plump Sister. She ignores me,

Instead, she wrinkles her nose at imperfect Pia who wears a yellowing, white shirt.

Sudha Balagopal’s short fiction has appeared in Peacock Journal, Foliate Oak, Superstition Review, and The Tishman Review, among other journals. She is the author of the novel A New Dawn and the two short story collections There are Seven Notes and Missing and Other Stories. More at www.sudhabalagopal.com.