2018 FlashBack Fiction Microfiction Competition
Highly Commended
Life After Death
by Jennifer Moore
After he died they put a stranger in his stitched-up shell, sewing his name into the fellow’s mud-mushed brain to keep it from slipping. They gave the chap a wife – his wife – setting him at the table with potatoes in his mouth, white flesh sticking to his broken teeth like hate. They gave the chap a bed – his bed – setting him at his wife with dust in his mouth, white flesh yielding to his broken fists like anger. I’m sorry, he wanted to tell her. I love you. But the stranger in his shell held his tongue tight.
Jennifer Moore is a freelance writer and children’s author from Devon. Her short fiction publication credits include The Guardian, Mslexia, The First Line and Short Fiction. She is a previous winner of both the Commonwealth Short Story Competition and the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest. Find her online at https://jennifermoore.
and on Twitter @JennyWriteMoore.