Amanda Forsyth

We fell, and fell, and fell.

By Tuesday, we were finishing each other’s coffees and sentences.

On Friday, we sneaked off work, went skinny-dipping. She painted my nails, then closed her eyes and I painted words on the lids with my lashes.

The Sabbath was not a day of rest but of hunkum-bunkum, rowdy, hilarious sweat; and, when I asked the wrong question, tears.

Monday was the coldest day of the year, which was stupid, because the railway lines warped in the heat and all the trains were cancelled.

On Wednesday, I went to the Botanical Gardens to try to get warm. Shivering, I stumbled and found a rare fern.

Then rare Fern found me and put her arms around me, and the shivering stopped.

There was a hot cup of tea, and holding her hand so hard so hard so hard I couldn’t let go.

So I didn’t let go, and that was all right, and we walked into the dusk, the night, the dark, the daybreak.

She finished her own sentences, street by street, with perfect punctuation. When the words stopped, we were at the Library, and that was a fine thing to make us both smile.

So we went home.

And then we fell some more, and it was glorious.

***

Amanda Forsyth only recently started creative writing, trying hard to write around the obligations of a day job as a stock market investment manager. The particular challenges of the Flash Fiction genre have provided a rich stream of inspiration, and Amanda was a finalist in the 2020 Edingurgh International Flash Fiction Awards. Amanda lives in Edinburgh, Scotland with her husband and student daughter, who is also an aspiring writer.