What Maisie
Knows an X-Ray
Can Reveal
—
James Montgomery
TODDLER BONES, DEVELOPING. A ONE-CENT coin. Mottled clouds of pneumonia. A Lego head. A shin’s minor break, fractured by a street curb stumble; common enough to happen to any kid. A marble. Ribs, for ribbing and tickling, while protecting soft, hidden places. Playground injuries—above the elbow, along the forearm—blamed on monkey bars, spider-spun climbing webs and other wicked beings. Secrets swallowed whole. The dark, jagged gaps where milk teeth have been uprooted, to make a home for more permanent placements.
Teenage bones, aching. Invisible breasts. A heart behind bars. Metal braces, stapling teeth—overcrowded in their eagerness—into a more desirable shape. The lungs, memory chests for held breaths. Joints, for connecting, that connect, the smoky texture where they almost touch. The charged voltage of a moment, unprotected. Movement, blurring. A body, lit, as if bioluminescent. Exposure. Extended fingers, reaching for no one. Misalignments. A gymnast’s wrist, frayed by too many yanks and twists. Late evenings spent in a sodium-hued gym, hiding from phantom hauntings. Dislocations. An IUD, suspended, the miracle of its tiny T-shaped wings. The outline of everything, seeped in blue ghost-print.
Adult bones, strengthening. Wisdom teeth, emerging. The architecture of a first-forever home. Desk-bound days, causing the spine to curve slightly, leaning into its history. A pelvis and its stone-white dome, stretching from child’s pose to mountain’s, calming the nervous system, shifting awareness inwards. The bony callus where old breaks have healed—made firmer, more resilient. The shadow of an enlarged lymph node. Fears made real. The black and white of benign or malignant. The truth of what we are, laid bare. Nothing. All clear. No further acute findings. Only bones, the extraordinary shock of them, still, like human scaffolding. •
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James Montgomery writes from Stafford in the UK. His stories have been published by Bath Flash Fiction Award, Splonk, The Welkin Writing Prize, Emerge Literary Journal, Gone Lawn, Maudlin House, Fractured Lit, and more. His work was recently selected for 2025’s Best Small Fictions and the Wigleaf Top 50.
Website | Bluesky
Teenage bones, aching. Invisible breasts. A heart behind bars. Metal braces, stapling teeth—overcrowded in their eagerness—into a more desirable shape. The lungs, memory chests for held breaths. Joints, for connecting, that connect, the smoky texture where they almost touch. The charged voltage of a moment, unprotected. Movement, blurring. A body, lit, as if bioluminescent. Exposure. Extended fingers, reaching for no one. Misalignments. A gymnast’s wrist, frayed by too many yanks and twists. Late evenings spent in a sodium-hued gym, hiding from phantom hauntings. Dislocations. An IUD, suspended, the miracle of its tiny T-shaped wings. The outline of everything, seeped in blue ghost-print.
Adult bones, strengthening. Wisdom teeth, emerging. The architecture of a first-forever home. Desk-bound days, causing the spine to curve slightly, leaning into its history. A pelvis and its stone-white dome, stretching from child’s pose to mountain’s, calming the nervous system, shifting awareness inwards. The bony callus where old breaks have healed—made firmer, more resilient. The shadow of an enlarged lymph node. Fears made real. The black and white of benign or malignant. The truth of what we are, laid bare. Nothing. All clear. No further acute findings. Only bones, the extraordinary shock of them, still, like human scaffolding. •
James Montgomery writes from Stafford in the UK. His stories have been published by Bath Flash Fiction Award, Splonk, The Welkin Writing Prize, Emerge Literary Journal, Gone Lawn, Maudlin House, Fractured Lit, and more. His work was recently selected for 2025’s Best Small Fictions and the Wigleaf Top 50.
Website | Bluesky