by Chris Cottom

My sister Simone’s up her own arse again, banging on about Prince Charming being a bit player in Sleeping Beauty’s journey, mocking the ‘sly curve’ of the steps up to my ‘phallocentric summit.’ I keep quiet and, just to annoy her, brighten the pink in my ‘cottage-perfect quilt’ of trees. What does she know of being dragged upstairs by the hair, our rent-a-quote philosopher, our poster girl of the Left? I shade the verticals of the steps a little lighter. There’s no point explaining they’re luring no one, not leading up but down, that that’s why they’re called a flight.

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Chris Cottom lives near Macclesfield, UK. He has work published or forthcoming in 100 Word Story, Eastern Iowa Review, Flash 500, Free Flash Fiction, Heimat Review, Leon Literary Review, NFFD NZ, NFFD UK, On The Premises, One Wild Ride, Oxford Flash Fiction, Roi Fainéant, The Centifictionist, The Hooghly Review, Witcraft, and others. In the early 1970s he lived next door to JRR Tolkien.