Sylvia

...and onto the boat she fell, or tumbled – you choose, over the side and into the water. Jumping for Sylvia was art; of the Jackson Pollack variety. Her legs dipped down, deep and deep, tugging at the mire and the muck like a juggler reaching for slippery juggling balls and she thought, for a moment, how she’d love to turn into a mermaid. Here and now, tail here – feet gone, flip, flap and fuck off. She hated these people anyway.

Still, Teddy reached out a hand for her and that seemed charming enough. Big smile, white teeth, windswept Cambridge hair and out she came soaking and laughing, head tipped back so the spittle caught the sunlight…

Her cheeks still flushed, just a little hot and here she was folding laundry. Laundry! The smell, crisp white crackle and flower bright, delight on the tip of her nose, pause for the joy of it then back to the drudge. Fold bend crease fold bend crease, slip slide crunch into the drawer and on to the next day and the next day and the next…what happened to the summer? And here each day so lonely and long, each moment a suffocating clot of all that she wanted and all that was expected and all she could not have. Suffocating, every moment suffocating, she thinks she’ll end up suffocating…

She’ll come to the day like any other. She’ll shut the windows, turn the lock, she’ll close her eyes and wonder, she will, she will and…


This is a piece of prose I submitted for a collaborative writing project called Disharmosaic. The project fell through, but the prose is quite decent. Not enough people chose to participate in the end. A shame, but no matter.