CHELSEA CHONG
Short Stories
‘Trust me,’ The Leader said. ‘It is a new way. It is a better way. You will be safer and happier in the other place.’
I hand over a bucket. I receive a bucket. Our skinny arms perform poorly. So many of them between us but hardly any water left when each bucket arrives.
My mother named me after Princess Charlotte because she’s obsessed with the royal family. It didn’t matter that every second girl born that year was named Charlotte, or that Princess Charlotte has had her fair share of scandals. Royal scandals are like heresy to my mother. She outright refuses to believe the family can do anything wrong.
Robert McBride hobbled into The Commission building. He felt he was storming into the place, but the lethargic clack of his walking stick told him otherwise. Tucked underneath his left elbow was a small bundle comprised of a summons, a battered black notebook and the letter he had typed and printed that morning explaining his request for a delay.
Many years ago, in a small white doctor’s office, sat a young woman everyone called Birch. She had received a letter inviting her to attend the medical centre to investigate her recent chest pain. When the doctor placed his stethoscope on the young woman’s chest, he furrowed his bushy brows.
‘Josiah know about this?’ The bookie tilted my mother’s ring, so the diamond flashed under the morning sun. He brought it close and studied it with a bloodshot eye.
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‘Course he does,’ I said.
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He fixed his eyes on me, drilling in. ‘These your folks’ rings?’
Eve stood on the soaked pavement outside the store. She balanced her umbrella in one hand, wrapped her coat tighter, and pulled her phone from her pocket. Her hands trembled.
The black clouds above were playing a game with her, exhaling their frozen breath, trying to catch her by the umbrella and blow her onto the street.