by Helen Gwyn Jones
The ghost of Frances visits 2022 Helen in a dream
after The Melting Queen by Jamie Bordeau, winner of Seventeen’s 2002 fiction contest
Perfection is a timebomb — isn’t that what mother said? Long ago I traveled your alimentary canal, from your 11-year-old molars I swam down your esophagus, gut, and urinary tract, and tinkled into the porcelain bowl mother hugged close in her pageant days. Though, dear sister, you’ve not let go. I follow you with my gelatin eyes. You waste your youth in this mausoleum, dusting mother’s lace-doilied pedestal where I once rested, spending your grocery clerk paychecks on cartons of her menthols, digitizing her competition VHS tapes for YouTube videos with no views. I know every moment you’re in that house, your insides slosh, your nostrils prick with French dressing remembered. Helen, the first step to exorcism is admitting you’re haunted. And honey, twenty years is an eternity for possession. Never again look upon the DNA, gooey, untouched on my bedroom carpet. Sister, let the COPD kill the old hag. Thank our neighbor for searching, but tell her of my liquid end. Pack up her moving truck, help her flee from the murderer who birthed us, who let you live, albeit caged. Explode, fly free, and live your next twenty years like an uncut gem, perfect.
Lauren Kardos (she/her) writes from Washington, DC, but she’s still breaking up with her hometown in Western Pennsylvania. The Molotov Cocktail, Rejection Letters, HAD, (mac)ro(mic), Best Microfiction 2022, and The Lumiere Review are just a few of the fine publications where her work lives. You can find her on Twitter @lkardos.
Helen Gwyn Jones (she/her) started recording her world at the age of 8 when she bought a Brownie camera from her sister, something which has become a lifelong passion. A collector of the past, she likes nothing better than muted images of imperfection. May be found poring over Welsh grammar books when not photographing drains or going into raptures over rust. Originally from Wales, now living in Spain. Recent publications include Hungry Ghost Project, Free Flash Fiction, Acropolis Journal, Paddler Press, Blink-Ink, Hecate, Pareidolia, Moss Puppy, The Levatio, Camas, Subliminal, Terse. Instagram and Twitter: @helengwynjones Facebook: Helen Gwyn Jones Photographic Artist