Adele Evershed

Stress Fracture – a hairline crack caused by repetitive stress.

She hates incense; the scent clings to her like grief. As she drifts down Keong Saik Road, shadows twist into all her lost people. Her Ma, holding a plate of rice dumplings, the smell of pork belly reminding her how hungry she is. Ah Gong, her grandfather, with a pocketful of paper money for the ancestors. And Yong.

Greenstick Fracture – an incomplete fracture.

On the first night of the Hungry Ghost Festival, the gates of hell fracture. Spirits slip into the world. So, she’s not surprised to see Yong in the smoke from the burning paper money. His back broader, his hair still sticking up like a pineapple despite the Brylcreem. She calls his name, but it is pulled away on the breeze. 

Spiral Fracture – a break around the bone, caused by twisting forces.

She strokes the frangipani on her Cheongsam. Once bright pink, now faded to bone. She was thirteen, Yong fifteen, when he put a bloom behind her ear, whispering, “When we marry, I’ll give you more than fallen flowers.” She confided in her sister, Joy, told her they were Romeo and Juliette. Joy had laughed and said, “Ai yah, remember how that turned out?”

Segmental fracture – the bone is fractured in two separate places.

They couldn’t last. Mr. Lim saw them holding hands and went to Yong’s father. Even now, she flushes at the humiliation. The man had shown up at Tiong Bahru, called her a “Loi kui,” then threw down a wad of money, saying, “I’m paying you to stay away from my son.” Her Ma had to hold back her Pa to keep her from a beating. They locked her in her bedroom and told her she would be sent away for shaming the family.

Avulsion Fracture – a tendon pulls a piece of the bone away.
She told Joy she’d heard from Yong, “Romeo wants to meet me. He has money saved. We can leave Singapore together.” Joy begged her to forget him, saying, “Sweethearts don’t stay sweet when they’re starving,” but she pressed money into her hand all the same and smuggled her out of the apartment.

Comminuted Fracture – the bone is shattered.

That night she’d taken off her sarong kebaya and put on a Cheongsam – bought second-hand. It had been too big, so she altered it, embroidering a pink frangipani over her heart. She waited four hours. Yong never came. A group of ‘Ang Mo’ sailors wove down the street. One of them called, “Hey there, little miss, are you looking for company?”

Compression Fracture – the bone is crushed.

The body was on a slab, neck bruised, limbs bent unnaturally. She stood beside Joy, slid an arm around her trembling shoulders. Then she turned and saw Yong in the doorway – white as a ghost, eyes like burnt offerings. She called his name before she was pulled away on the breeze.

Adele’s prompts were: During the First Day of…, a Childhood Sweetheart, Fracture

Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who swapped the Valleys for the American East Coast. Her work has appeared in Poetry Wales, Modern Haiku, The Ekphrastic Review, Trash Cat Lit, Atrium, and Literary Mama, and she was recently shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize. Adele has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press) and The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press). Her third collection, In the Belly of the Wail, is forthcoming with Querencia Press. She has published two novellas-in-flash, Wannabe and Schooled (Alien Buddha Press), and has a third, A History of Hand Thrown Walls, forthcoming with Unsolicited Press. Her short story collection, Suffer/Rage, was recently released by Dark Myth Publications. Find her on X @AdLibby1, Instagram @ad_libby, and BlueSky @adlibby.bsky.social.

Read more from Adele:

Here on Trash Cat Lit – ‘Did You Know if Sheep Fall on Their Backs, They Die‘, ‘The Diary of a Reluctant Spectroscopist‘, ‘I Made a Wish Jumping Rope‘ and ‘The Boy Most Likely to Save the World and Other Myths‘