Whale Song by Nicola Bourne

Originally published in The Stockholm Review of Literature, Issue 21

Something’s different. Approaching the beach I feel it immediately. There’s something unknown, like a song caught on a breeze that you can’t quite hear. The wind whips my hair, slapping me across my cheeks. Salt is thick in the air, it tastes as bitter as the cold, but even so, a large crowd has already turned out.

I came as soon as I heard, running from my stall in the harbour, not even considering that I was leaving it wide open. The man in front of me rushes, accidentally kicking a child’s crab bucket over, causing crying from the boy and crabs to slip all over the walkway, unable to tell the direction of the sea. We scurried away from the harbour, to the point where industry gives way to wide beaches flanked by lawns, promenades and the suntrap making windbreakers. And then ¾ she was there. A demonstrative humpback whale beached on tiny pebbles.

There’s no blood. That’s the first thing I think. I don’t know why I had assumed there would be. Actually, I lie. There’s no blood was my second thought, my first was a half-formed thing — a shock, a sharp intake of air, the size!

Continue reading ‘Whale Song’ by Nicola Bourne on The Stockholm Review of Literature

Sunday Six Word Story…

This Sunday Six Word Story is about women not allowing people to tell them to be quiet. To quote Lynzy Lab ‘it’s time for women to rise up, use our collective voice.’ Don’t ever let anyone silence you, your thoughts or your feelings because in doing so, they make you feel you aren’t worth hearing and you are!

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Stars don’t die quietly

they scream light into the blazing sky

with Ares’ sword pointed towards themselves

 

spitting and burning the

truth

they splatter blinding supernovas

into the black padding of the night

 

dying stars don’t wink at the moon but take

pride in their indifference to

Death

and their

Love of the withering

light that burns them up from the inside

constellations of dust and

dents that hold the everlasting dark

 

until they do no more and

_

 

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A Sunday Six Word Story

Apologies if you received this earlier in the week – the WordPress app and I were not getting on! 😉

Anyway, as I was saying…

I thought I’d publish a cheeky little six word story! I usually put these on my instagram so of you’d like to see more, follow me over there but for her, here’s today’s Six Word Story and I personally think this truly is a story we should all remember, all the time…

Happy Sunday x

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Connected by Nicola Bourne

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They say when someone dies that they leave a hole in your heart but I don’t think that’s true.

Instead, they add something to your heart.  It has the shape and weight of a large boulder and its forever in the way.  It makes it hard for your heart to keep working.  Hard to breathe.  I tried explaining that to a woman at work and she told me about someone her friend knew who had a tumour inside their heart the size of a pea.  I think she thought that would help.  Empathizing by sharing a parallel story.  They did both involve hearts.  Maybe the emphasis was lost over text message.

That is why I bought him online.

Read the rest…

Published on www.50GS.com, 14th March 2018