GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE winner 2019/20

ISHA KARKI

‘All In Good Time’

Part I: The Airport 

THE FIRST TIME, you spend the plane journey reading a novel about a college dinner, where sorority girls grip silverware with fine-china hands and chant in unison before carving into platters of meat. You gulp wine to swallow the dry chicken they serve; chunks of it stick in the gaps between your teeth. You polish off two Magnum cones. The woman beside you pushes her meal away: you sip her apple juice, take dainty bites from her salad, and wonder when you can ask the attendants for more snacks.

You’re sat by an emergency exit, so you stretch your feet and nap as if you’re home: sunlight warming your lids, handmade blanket warming your body, mother clattering around downstairs. You should tell her to rest, offer to steep tea with ginger and cloves, stir fry a heap of wai wai – you hear the bones of her knees grinding even from here – but there’s the low whistle of the pressure cooker and the moment passes. You think, it’ll be good to get away from the house.

The landing announcement jolts you awake. All you remember of your dream is blonde hair, manicured hands, and lips stretched wide: Welcome.

On the way to immigration, every blonde ponytail draws your gaze, until one of them catches you staring, whispers to her companion. He turns, a whole-body turn, the bulk of him aimed at you and – you look away.

An hour later, you’re still packed into the corridor, back aching from jutting your hip too much. Your posture is terrible; you’ve always thought how grotesque your spine would look if excavated from a site of ruin hundreds of years from now.

Hours seem to pass. The line crawls and sweats as one. The sorority sisters are stripping off their clothes, one climbs onto the dining table, tiptoes delicately between plates of gnawed bones – when you emerge into the main foyer. This is supposed to be the biggest airport of the biggest city here, but you’re all packed in, noses almost brushing backs of skulls.

A blue light signals your turn.

A woman – Talula according to her name tag – sits behind the counter. She doesn’t smile but her face has a moon-like quality that reminds you of your mother: the thought is both solace and a hiss on skin. She asks why you’re here. You tell her about the writing residency.

What’s that?

Your back prickles with sweat. What had Mrs X said on the phone? We combine the ethos of a workshop with the creative solitude of a residency. When you probed further, she said, All in good time, pet. You know the programme is sponsored by an old sorority, that there will be green space and a grand house. You explain this to Talula, but the words tumble out too fast as if rushing to block view of something crouched in the gape of your mouth.

Do you have other papers?

You don’t have anything printed. She’s glancing at the maroon passport which you thought would be enough. Explain what a writing residency is.

You are rubbing your left palm where the word shower is scrawled in permanent marker. Underneath, there’s the outline of the word hair though you don’t know why you’d have written that. You tell Talula what Mrs X said.

But what is it?

You think of the word residency – the right to reside, permanent home, citizenship, belonging – and hesitate.

What’s your book about?

An answer emerges, skin slowly splitting to reveal hard pupa inside, but you don’t want it, not here, not now. You shake your head.

How much does it cost?

I’m here on a scholarship.

So how much money do you have?

You show Talula your banking app and detect a shift on her face. You know immediately it’s the wrong answer. She presses a button and someone scurries over. Your face grows hot, and before you can say you were invited here, you’re marched down the aisle to a wooden door.

It opens and you understand finally that the airport has been remodelled. Through the door is a place without end: lines of steel chairs screwed to the floor so tight you are sure even when the world collapses, these will remain. On them, bodies, drooping and slouching, a staleness to them.

You pause at the threshold. It strikes you that you are clad in red – the jacket your mother pressed into your hands before you left – just as dulhans in her Hindi serials entering their husband’s homes, just as little girls in stories entering the woods alone.

You step through. The air blurs, then settles musky and heavy, as if it has lingered on the pores of each body inside and leeched something essential from them.

You’re shown to a seat. Your legs knock against knees and toes, the chairs fixed closer than they should be. You avoid looking at anyone – to do so would be to acknowledge you see them. Instead, you note the cobwebs clinging to the seats in front. A layer of grime is grooved into the edges of everything, and under a soiled napkin, you sense movement, something small and many-legged scuttling.

You bring your feet up and wonder how long you will be stuck here.

*

The first time, there’s something wrong with the landing. There are whispers of mechanical malfunction, a sick pilot, a viral outbreak. The plane hums and whirs on the runway for hours, you’re not sure, your phone is dead. The doors open once, letting in a blast of air. Half the plane disembarks but only the names called. The man next to you, whose hand kept brushing your skin though you coiled away, is gone. You’re so grateful, you don’t care you’re being sent back to the house you’ve struggled to leave for weeks, its sickness – yours, your mother’s – even now a waxy layer on your skin.

Only brown bodies are left in the seats. Your glasses slide down your nose and fall. Eyesight blurred, all the faces have cleft chins and dimples like yours. You think you hear the engine sputtering. You dab your forehead with a tissue and, hands trembling, slip paracetamol into your mouth. You’ve hallucinated once before and don’t wish to return to that place.

You feel a bit better and think you can write – but the thing you were trying to voice pulses huge and dark. Your mind skirts around it. The only other image that comes to mind is a blonde woman, sapphires glinting on her ears, hair pulled so tight it looks like it might snap from the roots. You don’t want to write about yet another blonde woman, so you sleep, wondering if you’ll ever get off this plane.

*

The first time, a small child behind you sniffles through the whole flight. You can’t sleep, yet you still manage to miss the food. The smell of it lingers in the air, cheesy and salty. Crumbs sprinkle the tray table next to you; the girl is turned away, her snores soft sighs. You lick your finger. The word run is scrawled on the back of your hand, a reminder to get out of the house, away from your mother once a while. The ghost of the word hair is underneath. You press your finger to the tray table, the pieces cling on and you slip them into your mouth. A drop of wine blooms on your sleeve. You put that in your mouth too and suck.

At immigration, you find yourself in front of a woman – Talula – her doughy face without blemish or scar. The sting of menthol makes your eyes water. Your mother smells like this now, body slathered in balms and ointments. Why are you here?

The sound of bones grinding echoes in your ears; guilt bulges inside you. Talula repeats her question.

What comes out is the dream: a smudged pink door and a blonde woman standing in front of it, lips dyed red, pigment deep and rich, teeth whitened to luminescence. She’s singing welcome welcome welcome. Something about her hair is slightly askew like she hadn’t put it on right. You tell Talula about the middle-of-nowhere house you’ll be staying in, the sorority that got shut down because of some hushed-up scandal. You joke that’s what you’ve come to write about, except you haven’t told her you’re a writer so she stares when you say perhaps murder.

She jabs a button and someone shepherds you away, nudges you through a door into a vast space that stinks alarmingly of piss. You catch sight of a napkin, a smear of brown on it, and think, surely it can’t be shit.

They take your passport, phone and Mrs X’s number. The whole time you’re thinking of Talula and how she said nothing before smashing that button, not a word of warning, not a limp sorry, though she looked like your mother – and that seems more unforgivable than anything else. Wolves in sheep’s clothing, you think, as a pang of hunger hits you. You look around, eyes gliding over bodies slumped and slouched, and spot the vending machine. Your mother pressed some dollars into your hands before you left, and the coins are warm now, as if the heat of her lingers in the metalwork.

The machine, you discover, is empty. A sign: Out of Order. Danger.

A screen catches your attention. It’s a news broadcast. A close-up of a muzzle appears: leathery skin scrubbed raw; a tongue, furry with white growth, lolling out. The camera pans out to a shot of a cattle pen – ice spreads from the core of you.

You’re not scared of gore or the head chopping of horror films. You eat your steak rare. Dead animals are a fact of life. But you’re suddenly reminded of the visit to your grandfather’s house in Biratnagar, how excited you’d been to meet Lakshmi and Sonu who’d been with him since they were wobbly-kneed calves. When you got there, the stench made your mother gag. You rushed forward before your grandfather could stop you and glimpsed Sonu, the whites of her eyes cracked and leaking. That night, your mother tried to put you down with a cup of Horlicks, but you heard the animals bellow, one plaintive cry that went on and on, even after the thud of bodies. The next morning, you’d seen the dent their bodies left on the ground.

You’re grateful the screen is muted.

Someone’s trying to catch your gaze, the way people do to offer a smile or strike up conversation. You flinch away.

I’m not like you, you want to shout, the image of Sonu branded in your mind. You go to your seat. There are no windows to mark the slipping of a sun, but you hope it’ll be light when they come to tell you they’re very sorry, this was all a mistake.

*

The first time, they don’t serve food on the flight. There’s been a contamination or spoiling, it’s unclear; they apologise for the inconvenience and promise vouchers upon landing.

To fill your stomach, you drink and drink and go to the bathroom twice in fifteen minutes. Pee spills thick and golden like oil. You look at the word scrawled on your hand and remember that your mother’s waters broke on a plane. You cradle tiny bottles of wine that tang sour. Your dreams merge with the novel you’re reading about octuplets who end up in the same sorority, tasked with inviting a guest each to a dinner party. They debate the pros and cons of each candidate. They wear the same clothes and their hair is so buttery bright it must be fake.

At immigration, you show them limp pages of your flights, ESTA, scholarship, bank statements.

The woman – Talula – asks how long you’re here for. You say six weeks. She frowns. Six months?

No, weeks.

You’re not authorised to stay for six months.

They herd you to a hall so packed surely there can’t be any more space. The stink of sweat and unwashed hair swallows you as you step in. You hear the baying of animals. They find you a seat and you see you were wrong. In between the slumped and sleeping bodies, there are people-shaped gaps, as if whoever sat there once has vanished and whoever comes next will slot into their outline, a seamless, never-ending loop.

Opposite you is an old man, head tilted back, a calm about him. Every time a border guard, torso bulky with padding, taps him, he opens his eyes and looks with warmth. They gesture to their wrist and hold out ten fingers as if to say ten more minutes. They do this every half hour, so perhaps they mean hours. The kindness in the man’s gaze doesn’t change.

You want to ask: Have you been here long? Is anyone with you? Will you tell me your story?

But these are questions you couldn’t even ask your mother.

You look down at your water bottle, two inches of warm water sloshing inside. Bits of you are raw with hunger: the edges of your gums where a wisdom tooth is sprouting, the swell and throb of your left ankle, the curve of your ribs. You keep hearing sounds like glass shattering but no one else seems to notice. The air is gritty as if there’s a hole in a window somewhere, sand seeping through.

The next time your gazes meet, you proffer the bottle to the old man. The smile that breaks his face is so beatific, your chest aches.

*

Part II: The House

The second time, you’re standing outside the house, security pad beeping, blue light blinking. You’ve endured hours at immigration, a smile conversation with an old man who couldn’t speak English, and your body is ready to fold in on itself.

A woman, wrapped in a dressing gown with an elaborate print she later calls tribal, opens the door. The wavering sunlight reflects off the sapphires on her ears and neck. Her lipstick has slid a few centimetres but otherwise her face is immaculate, coiffed hair so perfect, it could be a wig.

Your cheeks heats. I’m sorry, did I wake you?

The woman pauses a beat too long before her lips stretch wide. We weren’t expecting you so early.

Oh, sorry, you say, though you’d been updating them every half hour.

That’s alright, pet, come in. You step through. The air blurs before settling around you, cool and light. You note the grand staircase, the kind you’ve seen in period dramas.

Now, she says, voice cheerier, go right ahead and pick a room, I’m sure the journey took it out of you. She doesn’t breathe between words. Last year, we also had a girl flying in from India – she must’ve slept for twenty-four hours. We had to look to make sure the house hadn’t eaten her!

Her laugh is the clinking of chandeliers in a storm. You didn’t fly in from India but you don’t correct her; it’s not the focal point of her story so why bother.

You look around the living area, sofas and rocking chairs are nestled into nooks and crannies, bearskin rugs tucked in between. You notice class photos lining the walls, a remnant from the sorority days. There are no gaps between the gilt frames, just rows of headshots, girls who look identical, heads tilted the same angle, lips tipped up in a smile. At the centre of each frame, the same woman appears with such a strong resemblance to the immigration officer you almost laugh.

Your clothes feel stale and threadbare, like they’ll unravel any moment. Is it okay if I get a shower?

Sure, pet, I can give you the tour afterwards. Your fellow residents will get here tomorrow, so you’ve the house to yourself.

What time’s dinner?

Come down any time, no need for formality. Though, I do like to get fancy. She pauses and leans in conspiratorially, fingering her necklace. You might’ve noticed I’m airing my mother’s sapphires. These date back to the Raj and I’m no expert, but Daddy said these are related to the Kohinoor! Now isn’t that a thought?

Before you can protest, she grabs your hand, where you’d scrawled food, and drops the necklace onto it. You expect it to be cool, but it’s hot and coated in an oily sheen. The longer it touches your skin, the more distinctly you hear a murmuring sound, like a chorus of voices whispering at once.

You push the sapphires back to–

Mrs X, pet, call me Mrs X, the woman says, scooping the necklace up. Perhaps it has a magnetic close, because it hangs perfectly on her neck, sapphires obediently strung up by their heads.

She wanders off and you suppose the place to go is up the staircase. On the way, your foot catches on something. You peer down and see a dent in the wood, where perhaps, years ago, something heavy came down with much force.

You put your suitcase in the first room you enter, too weary to go traipsing through the house. When you open the window, you notice smudged fingerprints. You hear a bellowing sound from a far-off distance, perhaps a wounded animal laying down to bleed in peace. You look at the expanse of yellowing grass outside and see nothing but trees trembling in the breeze.

You go to run the bath and –

You snatch your hand back. Wispy locks of blonde hair are scattered across the bathtub; they glint and disappear with the light.

You close the bathroom door. You’re hungry, you remind yourself – you haven’t eaten anything since the plane. On the way down, you examine the photos lining the stairwell. There’s something odd about these headshots, a haziness as if one image has been superimposed on another. You’re surprised they would showcase such shoddy photography.

When you find Mrs X, she smiles, and you stand, awkward. I was feeling a bit peckish.

Oh, pet, I’m sorry, you missed dinner, she says, and you stare. It can’t have been more than fifteen minutes since you went up. Why don’t you check the fridge? I’m off to sleep, big day tomorrow. This place will be crawling, reminds me of the heyday, all those lovely girls. Sometimes I hear creaks and get hurled back in time, imagining they’re here, walking barefoot, sneaking down for snacks, gathering in a circle in the dining room.

She wanders off and leaves you there. There’s nothing to do but walk through to the kitchen where the wood flooring gives way to stone. Everything mechanical and electric seems super-sized as if this is the home of giants. You glance up to see the height of the fridge and must heave with both hands to open its door. Your skin puckers as cold air gusts out. At first it is a blank blue-white inside, but then you see something in the back.

You stick your head in.

A sudden push from behind, and the moment you pitch forward, you see it: a perfect coil of golden hair, tucked away in the corner.

*

The second time, Mrs X shows you up the staircase and highly recommends a room, which you find after entering a corridor that splits into another corridor that splits into another. A musty smell settles on your skin. You’re not sure you’ll find your way out, you joke.

Her face is stern. Now, I want none of that. Someone spread nasty rumours about this house last year. We invested a lot of PR money to fix it. Considering we bestowed a generous scholarship on that person, it’s just… She gives you a look.

You ask her why this room, though you can see bay windows, clouded with dirt, the desk with an ink pot, the bed with its fall of gauze.

Oh, I like to think my mother still watches over it. Mrs X gestures to a black and white photograph. It features a woman, slumped forward, head angled away from the camera. Intrigued, you move closer –

Is that…?

You recoil.

Oh, pet, you know what it is? Wonderful! Usually I have to explain it to folks, you won’t believe the ideas some have, calling it morbid. I’m glad the room speaks to you. Before you can say anything, she barrels on, It’s good you made it here in one piece – awful how long they kept you.

You swallow the ungracious words requesting to see other rooms. It wasn’t too bad. There was this old man who didn’t speak a jot of English. No one knew how long they’d kept him there.

Mrs X walks to the en suite, opening the door to glance in. I do wonder what these people have done to be kept in quarantine. I’ll let you rest now.

She leaves you in the room where her dead mother’s portrait hangs. You don’t want to examine it again, but you suspect the Xs dabble in post-mortem photography. You don’t fancy a nap under the photo of a corpse – and hunger is gnawing, you haven’t eaten anything for twenty-four hours – so you unpack and wander down.

Hi, Mrs X, will there be any dinner today?

Oh, pet, didn’t I tell you? There’s something terrible going around these farmlands. We’re not sure where it came from, maybe carrion birds, or foxes, or those illegals, anything that can go rabid – the farmers have stopped their supply. The nearest supermarkets are miles away. We’re arranging something for tomorrow morning, but we weren’t expecting anyone this early. There’s a smile on her face that sits oddly with her words.

Oh, no worries at all, you say and your insides clench.

You know what, pet, there’s probably food in the fridge I could rustle up.

Oh, no, no, I can do that myself. I’ll go have a look.

Your feet slap against the stone floor. Dust rises. You remember going with your mother on one of her riverside walks. You’d seen a man, bare-chested, lungi wrapped around his hips, thrashing something on rocks. Your short-sightedness undiscovered still, you asked your mother what he was holding. You found out later he was a local dhobi, squatting with a pile of clothes, but for some reason your mother told you it was fish he was smashing on rocks so they would show up on your plate that night.

You tug open the giant door of the fridge and are greeted with fluorescence. There are congealed spills and grime in the corners. In the middle tray, a brown paper bundle, perhaps a cabbage or a cauliflower or a small watermelon. You open the bag and peek in, but layers of packaging obscure your view, so you stick your hand in, the word food still scrawled on it. Your fingers press against something that gives, a pulpiness to it. A coppery tang rises from the package and you see a trail of red, pooling at the bottom of the fridge.

You snatch your hand back and rush to where Mrs X is rocking on a chair.

That thing in the fridge, you start.

What, pet?

Is it safe to keep meat here?

Mrs X frowns. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Before you can mention the contamination, her eyes light up. Just a heads up, we usually get dressed up for dinner. We have some costumes through there, it’s always fun to have a party, isn’t it?

You are compelled to nod.

Let’s look at them together tomorrow, I bet you want to get started on your work. What was your project again?

It happens then. You spent a whole month working on your application, days whittling away the skeleton of your novel. But now your mind is blank, as if the information has been scooped out of your skull, leaving behind only blanched bone.

Mrs X is speaking again. We’re expecting food delivery at dawn and I want to make sure I’m awake. Can’t have our residents starving, can we? Need to fatten them up so the creative juices flow.

She leaves and you press a fist into your gut. That thing in the fridge, the squelch, is still so vivid, yet you can’t help but think of food, of all those stories you’ve read in which famished creatures make desperate bargains. You need to ignore the hunger somehow, so you go to see the costumes.

The room that Mrs X gestured to turns out to be the dining room.

The dream you had on the flight floats in front of you like a hallucination. There had been a large dining table like this and all around cheek-boned, long-legged girls. Like a snapshot in time, the girls were staring at whoever was standing at the door – you – heads tilted, mouths turned up.

The image fades. At first you are perplexed by what you see. Then it slots into your brain as strange things do. There are wilting peonies at the centre of the table. In front of each chair, a folded uniform, possibly a blouse and skirt, possibly the clothes the sorority girls wear in their class photo, and on top of each pile, a blonde wig, shining buttery bright under the winking light of the chandelier.

*

The second time, you’re in a taxi to the sorority house, when the driver says, I wouldn’t eat that if I were you.

You flush. How embarrassing to be caught picking up a half-eaten sandwich found in the back of a taxi. The airline had some bullshit contamination, the vending machines were out of order, and the cafes all shut. Your stomach is cramping painfully.

The driver glances at you and says, The dude who left it was mid-chew when he started getting the sweats. I blasted the AC way high, then he was like I’m freezing and made me pull over. He puked his guts out. We’re passing the spot in half a mile, I’ll show you.

You groan, say no thanks, and stare out the window. A few minutes later, a heavy smell roils the air.

Hey, hey, the driver says, not my leather seats.

Can you stop? Your stomach sloshes.

Look, I can’t stop now, and there aren’t any bins on the highway. Just chuck it out.

What?

But the sick is rising, and you can’t think, so you unwind the window and fling the sandwich out. It disintegrates as soon as it’s outside. When you peer at the road, you see a trail of breadcrumbs behind you, and think of two small children making their way through a dark forest path.

*

The second time, there are no clocks in the sorority house and by the time you arrive your phone is dead. You know you packed your adaptor but can’t find it anywhere. You never wear a watch, though your mother got you a gold one for your eighteenth birthday ten years ago, and a few months ago, as congratulations for this residency, the same watch again.

You think you see her face looking at you from faded class photos with an expression of accusation, as if she can count the number of times you’ve imagined snapping her bones with your bare hands.

You asked Mrs X about the plug situation, but she stared at your phone as if she couldn’t make sense of it. What’s that, pet? You joked that the model was so old she hadn’t recognised it. Her face remained blank. You couldn’t find any plug points in the rooms you checked.

Now, you ask Mrs X about food – stabbing pains twist your stomach – and she bursts into tears. It’s a disaster. She’s sobbing, mascara streaking her powdered face. You reach out gingerly. She grips your hand, her own bloodless.

We’re out of food, she cries.

Painstakingly, you extract the story from her: some menace has been afflicting the local farms, crops razed, cattle slaughtered. The residents arrive tomorrow and to welcome them, the sorority alumnae are coming. It’s a time-honoured tradition to host a lavish dinner for those who make the residency possible, but there’s not a grain of food in the house. The supplier Mrs X was expecting at dawn came around to tell her the worst had happened. 

Mrs X is twisting the frayed belt of her dressing gown and pulling hard at the sapphires in her ears. You imagine a torn piece of ear throbbing on the floor.

I have… some money –

It’s not the money, Mrs X cries.

Shall we drive to the nearest supermarket? Your question is hesitant. You want nothing more than to huddle in bed, but no food in the house means no food for you.

Oh, would you help, pet? I know it’s a big sacrifice, but we’d be so grateful.

Of course, when do you want to go?

I’m in such a state right now. I’ll knock in a few hours.

You pause – some strange dread blooming within – but then you see the woman quivering in front of you. I’m a heavy sleeper, I might not hear you knock.

Don’t worry, pet. She gathers your hands and brings it close to her chest, bowing her head over it as if she’s praying or sniffing your skin. She rushes off, muttering what seems like a grocery list but you’re sure you hear words like shower and hair.

You retreat to your room. It’s musty and old, drawer handles missing, wardrobe doors askew, a note of disrepair on every surface. You want to stay up, read, but you’re too hungry, so you sleep to stave it off.

You sense that you are thrashing around, turning and flinging the covers off. Your dreams are broken: there’s a huge table, an identical group of women, buttery soft hair, chanting – in the middle of the table, a giant steel platter with something round resting on it, something so familiar about its shape –

When you wake, the dark is so dense you can’t feel your hands. It presses down as if some dead weight – an animal, a corpse – is draped over you. You struggle to breathe.

You hear footsteps. The turn of the doorknob, a whine as the door opens. A bulky shadow. The shape of a body – or many bodies – moving towards you. The glint of an object, curved and sharp – and the sudden sensation of something cold on your neck, glittering blue.

*

Part III: The Airport

This time, the minute you step off the plane, they call a quarantine. A swell of panic travels along the queue. You text your mother but just as you hit send, your phone dies. You see the word run scrawled on you hand. You glance around expecting to see sweat rolling down faces, bodies wilting, but people only look pissed off.

Then the first person thuds down, the metal of their suitcase crashing with such force it must have gouged the floor. 

They herd you into queues and rooms, pack you in like cattle. Face masks are distributed. With trembling fingers, you try to slip yours on. It snaps. You’re fine, you tell yourself, taking stock of your breathing and temperature. Your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth, dry and furry. You think of water. Somehow, even amid all this, you are ravenous.

Time becomes elastic. At one point there’s a crackle in the announcement system: Please can the healthy report to desk numbers fifty to sixty.

When you get to the desk, the officers say: We need people to man the desks. We’re warning pilots not to land here, but if they disembark, we need to start the immigration process.

You think you couldn’t have heard correctly but people are stepping up to volunteer, knocking against elbows and shoulders to be first. You want to turn around, but an officer is asking for your papers. What was the purpose of your visit?

Beads of sweat prick your back. You feel words emerging, skin splitting to reveal the hard pupa underneath, but then, as you reach for them, they’re gone.

The officer sighs and hands you something. Put these on and go to desk one oh one.

You look down at the heavy-duty mask and the name tag. This isn’t my name.

Just wear it, someone behind you snarls and you do as you’re told. You’re given no instructions except that US citizens are to be sent to medical, the rest to quarantine.

You hear someone demanding: When can we leave?

The guards respond, almost chanting in unison: All in good time, ma’am.

When you get to the desk, there’s already a line surging towards it. You look at the desperate faces, which seem to merge into one, and then you look at the name tag you’ve been given: Talula.

You sink into your seat. In the distance, you see blonde ponytails, pulled tight on identical scalps, cutting the queue, bobbing towards you. Closer and closer. Something grips your throat.

You don’t have the sickness – not yet – but you know it’s only a matter of time before you too sweat and fade. The insides of you, flesh and sinew, will disintegrate, bones grinding to dust. You will become a husk. People will come to you and you’ll look at them from eye sockets gaping wide. They won’t see you, not really. You will ask them questions and they’ll answer but the words won’t make sense, as if everything has been scraped out of your brain. You will repeat the question again and again, until finally you will call for help.

But maybe if you do this long enough, well enough, just as they want, maybe one day it will end.

ISHA KARKI writes and lives in London. Her short stories have appeared in Lightspeed Magazine and The Good Journal and have placed in the Brick Lane Book Shop Short Story Prize, Mslexia Short Story Competition and the London Short Story Prize. She is a 2019 Clarion West graduate and a London Writers Awardee.