The hard bed beneath me. The warmth of my clothes. The soft heaviness of the blanket. The sharp pain stretching from my hairline to my jaw.

This is all I am aware of.

I sleep. The next time I wake, my fingers flutter over the bandages covering my eyes. I feel the material whisper against my skin but cannot hear it.

I tap out the seconds against the blanket. After one hundred and eighty I lose interest. Time doesn’t matter when you’re not living.

Hours – days? – later, he comes.

It’s the first time I recognise the hands touching me. His hands are gentle, warm, but most of all, loving. He helps me sit up with none of that impersonal, brisk professionalism the other hands have had.

I reach out.

He captures my hand with his fingers, rests it against his soft, freshly shaven cheek. His smile curves against my palm.

For me? I want to ask, then I want to laugh because it’s a waste, I can’t see, and I’ll never again be able to.

Water fills my eyes. Wetness trickles down my cheeks, into my nose. A drop curves into the corner of my mouth. It tastes of nothing.

His knuckles smear away the tears. His warm breaths tickle my skin. His lips are dry against mine.

Our lips lock together like puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit. The feel is right but without his taste I could be kissing a stranger.

He kisses my cheek, murmurs words against my skin that make my follicles vibrate.

The sound isn’t there but the meaning remains. I love you.

I take his hand and place it against my chest.

I’m still here, I want to say.

I can only let my heart do the speaking.

* * *

To celebrate National Short Story Month, I’m running the Senseless Challenge throughout May. Each Friday is dedicated to a different sense – the challenge is to write a piece of flash fiction inspired by that sense. The final week is dedicated to touch.

Beneath the decay, he tasted of guilt.

He tasted of stolen cigarettes and late night wine, of chocolate and indulgence. I kissed his mouth again and tasted the love we used to have, gone bitter in death.

The hollow of his chest – where I’d once laid my head – was salty with sweat. I savoured the flavour, couldn’t quite bring myself to recognise that this time would be the last.

Then I kissed his neck and tasted her. The sharp floral tang of another woman’s perfume. The sticky cherry of her lip gloss. I licked his skin again and knew that this sickly, sugary flavour was the taste of infidelity.

I stepped away from the bed and let my eyes do the tasting. His eyes were closed, his naked limbs relaxed, the bed sheets artfully scrunched beneath him. A spatter of blood circled his body like the most delicate of sauces.

She was tied up on the other side of the bed, curled like a shrimp, her sweet young flesh begging to be tasted. I’d gagged her with lemons and left her to marinate for hours.

I picked up my knife, started towards her. When she flinched, my mouth flooded with saliva.

Time for dessert.

* * *

To celebrate National Short Story Month, I’m running the Senseless Challenge throughout May. Each Friday is dedicated to a different sense – the challenge is to write a piece of flash fiction inspired by that sense. May 24th is dedicated to taste.

It smelled dark.

The air was sweet and cold, moonlight-sharp. The flowers had closed their blooms, their scent gone pale without sunlight.

The hunter slid through the shadows, head tilted, her tongue flickering in and out of her mouth. Great battles had robbed her of both eyes and riddled her fur with scars, but she – the last of her kind – remained the greatest killer of man.

The leaves beneath her paws were damp with decay, their cloying scent all-but masking the sweet earthiness of the insects wriggling in their midst.

She had bigger prey to catch.

There! A gust of stale breath on the air, the sour stench of sweat.

She stopped, lifted her head into the breeze to triangulate her quarry. The trail was faint but as she crept forwards it grew stronger.

Soon she was close. All but masked beneath the richness of deer excrement was the scent of man.

“How much longer do we have to wait?” a boy whispered in the darkness.

She couldn’t hear him, but his stale breath was enough.

“Patience,” a woman replied. Her breath was fainter, laced with mint.

The hunter breathed slowly, mapping the clearing.

“I’m scared, momma,” the boy whispered. “I want to go home.”

“The beast has found our home before. Do you want that to happen again?”

A pause. “No.” The boy barely exhaled as he spoke, and the hunter didn’t smell it.

“We’ll get it, son. We’ll make it pay for what it did.”

“It wouldn’t have done it if we hadn’t–”

The woman raised an arm, sending a wave of deer scent through the air, tinged with fear. The hunter froze.

“It’s coming,” the woman breathed.

The hunter padded through the trees, circling her prey, using the earthiness of tree moss to guide her.

Then, when the scents were right, she stopped. She gathered her legs beneath her, took one last deep sniff, and leaped.

Her jaws collided with a bundle of straw and cloth that smelled human but had none of the salty richness of blood beneath.

The sweet pile of damp leaves that should have softened her fall crumbled beneath her. She fell deep into the earth, past the sweet worms and the musty soil. Upon impact, the scent of blood and fear overtook everything else.

Far above, tainting the fresh air, was the woman. She stood at the edge of the pit, reeking with satisfaction.

“I told you she’d come back for her eyes.”

* * *

To celebrate National Short Story Month, I’m running the Senseless Challenge throughout May. Each Friday is dedicated to a different sense – the challenge is to write a piece of flash fiction inspired by that sense. The third week was dedicated to smell.

From a distance it looks like he’s yawning.

The road where the man is kneeling is blocked with abandoned cars. From my vantage point on the second floor of a Cafe Nero’s all I can see is his profile, his open mouth and dark hair, the lurid green of his coat.

The yawn has lasted too long. I squint and realise it’s a scream.

I break off a nail-sized bite of bread from the last sandwich I have left and squeeze it paper-thin. I place it in my mouth, then take a glass of water and tilt it against my lips until it is empty. I rub my throat, hoping the bread goes down the right way.

I glance outside. The man is still kneeling in the road.

It’s been weeks since I’ve seen another person. Curiosity gets the better of me.

Going down stairs isn’t easy. I crane my neck to watch my feet, place my hand on the handrail. The sight of it reassures me. My hand still looks young, strong. Still looks like my hand, although it’s long since stopped feeling.

I walk across the ground floor of the coffee shop and lean against the front door until it opens. The man is still kneeling in the middle of the road, his head bowed, defeated. It’s a grey summer’s day and the sky is heavy with rain clouds, but the air in London has never been clearer. There’s no one left to pollute anymore.

The wind pushes my hair into my eyes as I zigzag through the abandoned cars. Most of them still have keys in their ignition, doors left ajar. London has become a city of forgotten things. We are all ghosts, fading slowly away.

The man has already lost his hearing. He doesn’t notice when my hand knocks against a car door even though my knuckles are now bleeding – it must have made a sound.

I walk closer, until he notices me and freezes, his shoulders tensed, nostrils quivering.

For a moment we stand there, staring at each other.

When he mouths words at me but they’re impossible to read. Another language.

There’s a pair of car keys by his feet but he cannot curl his fingers around them. He straightens, slowly. His hands hang uselessly by his sides, forgotten, like plants left out in the sun. Tears trail down his cheeks as he lifts an arm towards me.

It’s just your hands, I want to say. Wait until your feet go. You’ll have to learn to walk all over again.

* * *

To celebrate National Short Story Month, I’m running the Senseless Challenge throughout May. Each Friday is dedicated to a different sense – the challenge is to write a piece of flash fiction inspired by that sense.
This first week is dedicated to sight. I had a hard time resisting the temptation to describe temperature (hot, cold, etc).