Cynan Jones with Girl in the Grass as the first contribution to Wales Arts Reviews’ Flash Fiction Month, a month-long celebration of the flash fiction form.
Years from now she will remember this, the tiny black diamond of liquorice in her mouth. Knowing, if she takes her mind off it a moment, the thing will disappear on her tongue.
She will be in a restaurant with a group of people, desperately smiling, and it will take her by surprise. Her tooth cracking on a hard star of spice.
But now, there is only this. On her back in the warm grass; a money spider on her white skin.
Briefly, she knows who she is. But briefly. Her mind away from results, from the choices she must make. That others tell her she must make.
In a moment she’ll allow in a thought. Try to decide who to be. The liquorice will move on her tongue; and she will build her life from glass.
Girl in the Grass by Cynan Jones is part of a Wales Arts Review series publishing original flash fiction pieces by some of Wales’ top authors in a celebration of the unique literary genre and National Flash Fiction Day.
More of Wales Arts Reviews’ features on Cynan Jones can be found here.
Cynan Jones’ latest book Stillicide can be purchased via Granta.
