BRACONID — a fiction
She steps lightly between the door and its frame, the flashbulbs strobing rectangles across the pictures hung in the hall, a single strand…
She steps lightly between the door and its frame, the flashbulbs strobing rectangles across the pictures hung in the hall, a single strand of web caught in the light hung from frame to frame, one loose tendril waving at the cameras.
She turns, clicks the door shut and breathes again. She can still hear their shouting, their questions, their clawing at an invisible state-imposed respectful boundary, desperate for a glance to be thrown their way.
Over here, love!
The phone rings. She checks the receiver and rejects the call.
None of that. No more. She has spoken enough, looked to camera enough, stripped make up from her face in the studio toilets.
She makes tea, sits with the mug warming her thin fingers, nails clicking against the porcelain. There was a time she would have considered a biscuit. Not today.