Fiona McKay

Listen to Fiona read her story

It gets dark earlier in Italy, and Kate feels a cognitive dissonance: going out for dinner on a warm evening, the sun already long gone. They walk back to the hotel, John catching her hand, slowing her stride. She is full of pasta, and the wine she has avoided since Ella’s birth. Her breasts are heavy with milk and she will have to pump; already she hopes she won’t leak, won’t ruin the new dress that shows off her breastfeeding cleavage. 

Later, on their balcony, they watch tiny shapes loop and swirl between the trees. The hotel is beside the sea, and somehow Kate does not associate bats with the water. Pictures dark moors instead. But the tiny squeaks of their echolocation are unarguable. John pours wine into glasses from the bar. Kate scrolls, says ‘I always forget bats are mammals.’ 

‘Isn’t it lovely to be away at this time of year?’ John says. ‘You must be glad you agreed to apply for the career break.’

Kate misses the new pencil case feeling of September, the new students. The beginnings of things. Fresh slates. ‘It’s weird to think they have ankles,’ she says.

‘What?’ 

‘Bats. And femurs. Ribcages. It feels like they should be birds, but look at their skeletons; they’re like tiny humans.’ She angles her phone. John glances.

‘You’re not texting your brother again? I’m sure he and Louise are doing a great job with Ella. You need to relax.’

‘They’re not blind. Bats. They have “low visual acuity” so they can’t see clearly. Louise sent pictures while you were pouring drinks. Ella was standing by herself. Look.’

‘About time,’ John says. ‘Nine months. She’s a big girl now.’

Around midnight there’s a cooler breeze from the sea. They move inside; Kate changes into a pretty nightdress. That cleavage will be gone when she stops feeding Ella. 

‘It’s so nice to get away, just the two of us,’ John says. Reaches for her. Touches all the places she likes. 

Kate is mostly there. Part of her now always wherever Ella is. Her brain never fully on one task, even when the task is pleasure. ‘Wait,’ she says, as he moves over her. ‘We need to use something.’

‘You’re breastfeeding,’ he says. ‘Nature’s contraceptive. I didn’t bring anything.’

Later, John sleeps. Kate’s eyes won’t close. The coffee after dinner, maybe. She scrolls. Learns that female bats can control when they get pregnant, give birth. To ensure birth is at a time of plentiful food. Delayed fertilisation. Delayed implantation. Or even delayed development – the mating happens, the egg is fertilised, but growth is held back until circumstances are favourable.

Kate sleeps, finally. Dreams of leathery wings. Control.

Fiona McKay is the author of the Novella-in-Flash The Top Road, AdHoc Fiction (2023), and the Flash Fiction collection Drawn and Quartered, Alien Buddha Press (2023). She was a SmokeLong Quarterly Emerging Writer Fellow in 2023. Her Flash Fiction is in Bath Flash, Lost Balloon, Gone Lawn, New Flash Fiction Review, Pithead Chapel, The Forge, Ghost Parachute, trampset and others. Her work is included in Best Small Fictions 2024. She lives in Dublin, Ireland with her husband and daughter. She is on X (formerly Twitter) @fionaemckayryan and Bluesky @fionamckay.bsky.social