Adele Evershed

Content Warning

suggestion of abortion

He told me that when he was very young, he thought the man who lived inside his radio was announcing the ‘skipping forecast’ so little girls everywhere would know if it was too windy to bring out their ropes. 

All in together, girls. 

How do you like the weather, girls? 

January, February…..

March, when I was young, the Met Office’s shipping forecast for Lundy was ‘Southwest hurricane force of 12’. Definitely no skipping or taking off in a helicopter to leave then.

Lady, Lady, touch the ground. Lady, Lady….

“Turn around, Mary,” Professor (call me Denzel) Jones shouted at my back as I strode out in my Wellington boots, my hair whipped my face in silent rebuke at my retreat. Earlier our conversation, to borrow shipping forecast parlance, had started out ‘good,’ moved through ‘moderate,’ and ended up ‘fairly poor.’ So I left. The wind came in gusts hurrying me along like an impatient aunt at my back. When I got to the tip of the island, the cliff-nesting Kittiwakes were waiting. Speaking into the mini-recorder, I noted the females’ behaviors, those looking for a mate. “Couple B–bird one–upward choking.”

Six he loves; Seven she loves, 

Eight both love; Nine he comes…

Ten, he tarries 

Eleven the hands on my watch told me I had been sitting there for an hour trying to skip over the moment when he told me he was not leaving his wife. And then he added, as easily as if he was demonstrating a side swing in jump rope, “If you want to stand any chance of finishing your dissertation, you should get rid of that little problem.” 

Now it’s gone two, and he has not appeared. He knows where I’ll be, perched high on the slippery rocks–just another crestfallen bird.

Cinderella dressed in yellow

Went downstairs to kiss a fellow

Made a mistake and kissed a snake

How many doctors did it take?

Turns out you only need one.

This piece was first published Reflex Fiction

Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who swapped the valleys for the American East Coast. You can find some of her poetry and prose in Grey Sparrow Journal, Anti Heroin Chic, Gyroscope, and Janus Lit, among others. Adele has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press) and The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press). She has published two novellas in flash, Wannabe and Schooled (Alien Buddha Press), and has a forthcoming novella, A History of Hand Thrown Walls, with Unsolicited Press. Her short story collection, Suffer/Rage, has recently been published by Dark Myth Publications.