Flash Fiction by Katy Naylor

Thread

Everywhere I walk, I trail a thread of forget-me-not blue. It unspools gently as I navigate each turn.

I go walking every day, the blue unwinding as I go. I walk to the night we sat by the river and laughed ourselves hoarse. I walk through the old allotment, where the plants you tended now grow in an ever-wilder tangle of green. I walk a land of sorrow. It’s a geography you’ll never know, even though every stile and gatepost is carved with your name.

I know the lack of you so well now. I have mapped out the space where your body should be, pored over the details of words that could have been said. The silence over breakfast, hanging thick in the air over your cup, is as heavy and as intimate as a kiss.

This morning I went to the market…