The Winner of the Flash Fiction Competition 2021

1st Prize

Chrissy Sturt

Choosing Cards

I struggle with the door.

The shopkeeper comes to assist, ushering me into luxury scents—candles, soap, perfume. Too many years have passed to ask each other’s names. Her eyes drop straight to my belly, blinded to the rest—skinny limbs, sallow skin.

‘You’re expecting again! How wonderful!’ Her warm hands are on my babyless bump. ‘A sibling for your daughter!’ She knows Hannah; she’s seen her rush to the soft toys in here, dizzied by all the gifts and glitter.

What can I say? I don’t even know what’s inside me. Puss? Blood, lumpy with tumour? I look away when they drain it.

‘I’m so happy for you.’ She glides towards the till, smiling. ‘After anything in particular?’

I nod – not trusting myself to speak – and stagger to the rear, the imprint of her hands still lingering.

Here are the cards, sending out vanilla scents. My eyes try to take in the shimmering display, all these numbers: 11, 12, 13 … 18, 21, 30 … greetings for a whole lifetime, all the way to 80 and beyond.

My sweaty fingers pluck at one, something Hannah would like.

Now I’m scooping piles into my arms, cellophane wrappers slippery as a newborn. Everything I will miss is here. Hannah’s future, captured in cards: graduation, engagement, first home. Even, first baby.

Another customer sweeps towards me, smartly dressed. Then stops. Backs away.
Look at me – squatting, spidery legs splayed by my swelling, leaking a cancerous smell. I should never have come out. The world is for well people.

I struggle up, slowly place the cards back. You see, the oncology department sent an ‘end of life planning pack’ – please consider recording videos, digitally delivered on pre-selected dates etc. etc. My face is way too wretched for that. Cards, though, that seemed doable.

One refuses to leave my grasp … so perfect for my little nature lover. WHO’S TEN, THEN? Bright velvety animals – squirrel, mouse, rabbit – gather round a parcel. I touch the felt, press a sweetly sequinned eye…

Hannah’s tastes won’t change, will they? She’ll be the same twirling woodland sprite, when I’m gone? Frozen in time.

A tear soaks into the paper. I brush it off by opening the card, where creamy space calls to my fountain pen. I feel it, moving fluidly in my hand.

To my darling Hannie,

I hope you have a most brilliant birthday. You must—

She must, what?

I see her little fingers opening this message – elfin face turning pale, the words backfiring, raking over her grief. I see her narrow shoulders hunched over a caterpillar cake, offering Giles a quick smile, hiding her hurt. And I’m not there, to kiss her better.

Giles will try his best.

But birthdays were my department.

Now I stand like a stalker, wrecking my family’s fragile recovery with this imperfect, posthumous message.

Thing is, you can’t compress a lifetime’s love into a few lines.

I drop the card.

‘Nothing take your fancy?’

A jangling bell answers for me.

Author Bio

Chrissy Sturt is on a lifelong adventure with words. Officially a freelance journalist, she also writes flash, short stories, children’s stories and is embarking on her first adult novel. She lives in Hampshire with one husband, two children and a multitude of peculiar pets.