Dead Men Don’t Drown: #10
(catch-up with all episodes here)
The next morning I sit at the kitchen table eating strawberries and cream for breakfast while the neighbour’s cat stares through the screen door with the patient outrage of a creature expecting staff.
It knows this house better than I do, hooks one claw beneath the warped edge of the screen door I’ve cursed every morning and lets itself in by long-standing invitation, walking past me as though my grandmother merely popped down to the shops and foolishly left me in charge of the sardines.
This kitchen keeps offering her back in pieces: lavender on one day, coal smoke on another, and once, when I was small enough to fit beneath the table, the sun-warmed smell of strawberries on her sleeve as she bent to kiss the top of my head.
“Fenella,” she told me then, drawing out the name as if tasting it, “sounds like honey slipping off a fat spoonful of vanilla yoghurt.”
I take the letterlock paper from the shelf and study its scissored cuts, tucked tongues, and stubborn little interlocks, careful not to force what some hand took pains to keep closed.
By lunchtime I have sent photographs of the spiral lock to a paper conservator at King’s College, who replies within the hour with six careful sentences, three exclamation mark, and the words please do not attempt to open this yourself.
Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story including the word “curse”. Some images created with Midjourney; some music created using Suno; all writing is authentically my own original work.
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