The wind blows straight in from the sea, stinging cold that makes my eyes run, but the chips are hot and salty, burning my fingers through the greasy paper. I search into every last corner, lick up each trace. Two dirty grey gulls watch from the railings running around the edge of the pier. One of them opens its beak wide and I can see the strangeness of the inside of its mouth.
Another gust rips the chip paper from my hands, whisks it out over the sea like a kite. The gulls fall on it, shrieking and tearing, a flurry of yellow eyes and beating, arm breaking wings. Mum and dad are still talking, away where I can’t hear them. Mum is pale, dad’s face is red. I know that up close he smells of Saturday night. I know they are fighting over me the way the seagulls are tearing the chip papers into greasy rags. Dad looks over, dares me to move. I look out,out,out and away to where the sea is silver and flickering.
Someone is watching us. The lady in the fortune teller’s booth. ‘Madame Leona knows all, sees all.’ Mum is so pleased that I can read the words. Dad says that all these old women are charlatans. I don’t know that word. I want to know but I don’t want to ask. My cheek still stings from the last answer Dad gave me, so I store it for later. Mum wants to get her cards read, but there’s no money left. She said well anyway, she can guess what was in the future, and sort of smiles but her eyes are shiny and bright,bright green.
When the lady sees me looking, she pulls down a paper blind and the lights go out. It is starting to get dark. An aeroplane flies out over the sea, leaving a white trail behind it. I watch it go higher and higher until I can’t see it any more, only where it has been. The sadness of it sits in my stomach, hard and lumpy, like old chewing gum.
I lean against the Teddy Picker, place my hands on the plastic dome. In among the teddy bears, next to the single plastic ball with a ten pound note folded up tight inside it, there is a ring, and I think it might be a diamond. It changes colour as the lights on the pier swing in the wind. I think how pretty it would look on my mum’s finger, her nails painted and shiny. She doesn’t paint her nails now. They are bitten and sore and she thinks I don’t notice. Deep in my pockets there is a coin in a nest of old tissues and sweet wrappers. I press it into the slot, guide the claw with chip fat greasy fingers, closing it slowly,slowly around the ring, holding my breath as it rises from a sea of furry arms and legs.
The key to this story is immediacy and freshness. The child’s-eye view of the world is a narrative perspective that has been done many times, but this short, sharp piece of fiction works because it matches detail to emotion, and never overstates or over-interprets. It’s all in letting the details and emotions speak for themselves – it’s moving precisely because it shows such restraint and gives the reader space.
Patrick McGuinness
It’s hard to pull off a child’s POV, but this story about a tense day out at the seaside does it effortlessly. From the first words to the last, it’s so present and sensory. Subtle and gorgeous writing, that is also raw and incredibly emotive. From the stinging wind, to the shrieking gulls, to the fateful teddy picker, you can’t help but hold your breath at the end too.
Farhana Khalique
Karen Arnold is a writer and psychotherapist. She came to writing later in life, but is busy making up for lost time. She is fascinated by the way we use narratives and storytelling to make sense of our human experience. She won the Mslexia prize for flash fiction in 2022. She has work in The Waxed Lemon, The Martello, and Roi Faineant amongst others.
Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 