Flash Fiction: Requirements
A flash fiction piece from the murky depths of girlhood.
Ice, lighter, needle, apple, nine o’clock, three girls.
Ava holds her down while Georgie hovers the sterilised glint of metal over her ear.
“Keep still! It only hurts for ten seconds.”
But then it’s coming at her and every muscle flares. She bucks, twists her head just so that Georgie’s needle misses her earlobe and soundlessly pierces her cheek. It sinks right in, like she’s made of butter, grazing her canine.
“You moved!” Ava shrieks.
She sits up, silver in her peripheral vision like a bright underline.
They scream her to the bathroom, dragging her under the armpits.
“Someone has to pull it out!”
Ava and Georgie back up against the tiles while she pinches the end and assesses her surreal reflection over the sink. She looks away again, and pulls.
A neat red bead forms instantly on the outside, but inside the loose blood coats her teeth. She rinses her mouth and spends the next two hours pressing the inside of her cheek with her thumb.
Even her own parents don’t notice the difference when they get home from their party at midnight. They package the girls into sleeping bags and sofa cushions, then shut the door.
Ava and Georgie murmur goodnights, but she can’t remove her thumb to respond. Because it isn’t only the blood her thumb holds in place—it’s the instinct to cry and claw at those girls’ faces. For piercing her cheek, sure, but also for the messages.
She saw them on Georgie’s phone over dinner, after they’d done all their revision, so unimportant and obvious she hadn’t bothered to lock the screen.
Why do we have to do this, from Ava.
And Georgie’s reply. Once we’ve passed we’re free of her, no worries.
Her thumb will stopper her mouth until she falls asleep. But she’ll wake in the morning, and the mark will remain.
Thank you for reading this flash fiction piece from my archives. More to come soon! I’d love if you could share my work with fellow readers and writers.
And if you’re not subscribed…