After Leonora
Carrington
—
Frances Gapper
Crookhey Hall
Of our stately home’s ancestral glories, only topiary tufts remain. Plus a chill of ghosts and me, stripey creature. The artist fled horrors in her nightgown. Who’s that hovering near an attic bedroom? The half-naked woman, who’s she? And the swooping shadow? Who runs along the jetty / drowns / walks on water / fishes from a boat? Whose word is law here?
Don’t worry Stripey, I’ll take you with me. And so she did.
How Doth the Little Crocodile
We five hatchlings / juvenile crocs travel in mummy croc boat, steered by daddy croc, on a night expedition to view shooting stars. Drenched in yellow-blue light, we head for a whirlpool. The moon bleeds white stringy stuff. Between planetary fireworks the night is dark like underwater.
Bird Bath II
Me: a sitting duck or an extinct flightless. However my bath / cauldron has lively legs.
Two old lady acolytes, armed with spray and tea towel. One sports a beak in homage to feathered godlings past.
Am I their baby? Your baby? Anyone’s?
Neighbourly Advice
The infant is awfully pale, like a jack-in-the box. Mama consults next-door neighbour, who recommends sieving her breast milk to extract the larger particles.
Who hid Agatha’s porcelain-headed doll in the loft? Me of course. A small but mighty act. Terrible on a niche level.
Mama: He accuses me of putting on a show which isn’t true. My sighs arise like hot air balloons from Satan’s fiery meadow.
Nursery frieze: joyful dancing.
Untitled
Mummy and Sister One are playing strip table tennis, using spiny sea urchins and luminous slugs attached to hand mirrors. Sourced from rock pools, they’re deadly. S1 is clad in a stinky dead-wing poncho, thrice charity-bagged and hoiked out again. Mummy, naked except for her crown and wedding veil, covets S1’s lightning meringue hat. Either Mummy triumphs (urgh urgh) or S1 gets to wed her lovely monster. Alongwhile in a shadowy corner S2 counsels hope to us little doomists.
Portrait of the Late Mrs Partridge
Electrified hair amid storm clouds. Fey but county. Lugs a gargantuan blue bird and a Le Creuset casserole dish. Her scarlet enamel Aga has a seven-day timer, four hotplates and a main oven bigger than her kitchen. Dogs flop and yawn, soon to be remixed as tigersnakes and giraffe-necked sheep.
Do You Know My Aunt Eliza?
She’s a game old skull of a dog/bird. Had an affair but very religious.
The Meal of Lord Candlestick
Lord Candlestick invited the Upper 10,000 to his Anniversary Feast but gleaned only the savagely theatrical, e.g. Oscar Wilde, a flowery hat, cast of the Scottish Play. They dined on roasted ox, flamingos and human baby. The Ladies drank. I hid under the table, scribbling blackmail notes.
I Want to Be an Insect
Stick up my fanny, be-plinthed. Extremely thin. No hands, tiny feet. Aural aerials plus a weaponry. Brass nerve. •
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Frances Gapper lives in the UK’s Black Country region. Her stories have been published in five Best Microfiction anthologies and lit mags including Pangyrus, Flash the Court, Your Impossible Voice, Atlas and Alice, trampset, Splonk, Wigleaf, New Flash Fiction Review, Fictive Dream, Forge, Literary Namjooning, Gooseberry Pie, and Trash Cat Lit.
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Of our stately home’s ancestral glories, only topiary tufts remain. Plus a chill of ghosts and me, stripey creature. The artist fled horrors in her nightgown. Who’s that hovering near an attic bedroom? The half-naked woman, who’s she? And the swooping shadow? Who runs along the jetty / drowns / walks on water / fishes from a boat? Whose word is law here?
Don’t worry Stripey, I’ll take you with me. And so she did.
How Doth the Little Crocodile
We five hatchlings / juvenile crocs travel in mummy croc boat, steered by daddy croc, on a night expedition to view shooting stars. Drenched in yellow-blue light, we head for a whirlpool. The moon bleeds white stringy stuff. Between planetary fireworks the night is dark like underwater.
Bird Bath II
Me: a sitting duck or an extinct flightless. However my bath / cauldron has lively legs.
Two old lady acolytes, armed with spray and tea towel. One sports a beak in homage to feathered godlings past.
Am I their baby? Your baby? Anyone’s?
Neighbourly Advice
The infant is awfully pale, like a jack-in-the box. Mama consults next-door neighbour, who recommends sieving her breast milk to extract the larger particles.
Who hid Agatha’s porcelain-headed doll in the loft? Me of course. A small but mighty act. Terrible on a niche level.
Mama: He accuses me of putting on a show which isn’t true. My sighs arise like hot air balloons from Satan’s fiery meadow.
Nursery frieze: joyful dancing.
Untitled
Mummy and Sister One are playing strip table tennis, using spiny sea urchins and luminous slugs attached to hand mirrors. Sourced from rock pools, they’re deadly. S1 is clad in a stinky dead-wing poncho, thrice charity-bagged and hoiked out again. Mummy, naked except for her crown and wedding veil, covets S1’s lightning meringue hat. Either Mummy triumphs (urgh urgh) or S1 gets to wed her lovely monster. Alongwhile in a shadowy corner S2 counsels hope to us little doomists.
Portrait of the Late Mrs Partridge
Electrified hair amid storm clouds. Fey but county. Lugs a gargantuan blue bird and a Le Creuset casserole dish. Her scarlet enamel Aga has a seven-day timer, four hotplates and a main oven bigger than her kitchen. Dogs flop and yawn, soon to be remixed as tigersnakes and giraffe-necked sheep.
Do You Know My Aunt Eliza?
She’s a game old skull of a dog/bird. Had an affair but very religious.
The Meal of Lord Candlestick
Lord Candlestick invited the Upper 10,000 to his Anniversary Feast but gleaned only the savagely theatrical, e.g. Oscar Wilde, a flowery hat, cast of the Scottish Play. They dined on roasted ox, flamingos and human baby. The Ladies drank. I hid under the table, scribbling blackmail notes.
I Want to Be an Insect
Stick up my fanny, be-plinthed. Extremely thin. No hands, tiny feet. Aural aerials plus a weaponry. Brass nerve. •
Frances Gapper lives in the UK’s Black Country region. Her stories have been published in five Best Microfiction anthologies and lit mags including Pangyrus, Flash the Court, Your Impossible Voice, Atlas and Alice, trampset, Splonk, Wigleaf, New Flash Fiction Review, Fictive Dream, Forge, Literary Namjooning, Gooseberry Pie, and Trash Cat Lit.
Twitter | Bluesky | Facebook