Of spiderwebs and broomsticks

I took down the get-well cards on my daughter’s wallboard. A scrap of paper under a silver horseshoe with a date in her handwriting. The date scheduled for her surgery.

But the horseshoe must have run out of luck.

I took down her painting of a witch with long blonde hair, big boobs, and a broomstick with a bright gold flash of magic in the shape of a web. I straddled the broomstick she’d given me for my birthday and rode it to the mailbox. Strung between the box and a rosebush a spider’s web flashed gold in the sunlight.

Sandra Arnold’s flash fiction has appeared in numerous journals, including Bending Genres, Connotation Press, Spelk, New Flash Fiction Review, and Bonsai: Best Small Stories from Aotearoa New Zealand. She was a finalist in the 2018 Mslexia Flash Fiction competition. Her third novel, The Ash, the Well and the Bluebell (Makāro Press, NZ), and her first flash fiction collection, Soul Etchings (Retreat West Books, UK), will be published this year.

Photo Credit: Fuzzy Mannerz

One Response to “Of spiderwebs and broomsticks”

  1. Andrée Gendron says:
    July 11, 2019 at 11:37 pm

    Hope meets reality hard in this piece. Well done. I liked the soft landing at the end

    Reply

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