Difference
The two women cook together in the kitchen with the back door open. They swear and cackle about their boyfriends’ penises. When the sun gets lower in the sky they go out with their steaming plates and sit cross-legged on the tiny lawn to enjoy the light coming through the leaves above.
One has a nose that widens at the end like a lightbulb and stretches bigger whenever she smiles. The other likes to look out from under her eyelids in a coy kind of way that lets you know she is in control. Lightbulb-Nose wears a long green dress, one from an ex-boyfriend that is too expensive to give away. She is showing the first signs of a baby in her belly. She eats her food slowly. Coy-Eyes eats fast, in short bursts, like a lizard swiping its tongue.
They eat with their hands and their hands get dirtier while the orange of the sun gets richer and the children from the surrounding gardens have been sent inside because the women are swearing too much and the women will never care about the dirty looks and you should never try to stop them because life is loud and brave and full of difference.
Lucy Smith is a short-form fiction writer from North West England. Her fiction has been published by Palm-Sized Press and has won various awards. She is creator of Talking Ink, a flash and poetry podcast. Find out more – lucysmithwriter.wordpress.com