When Tino called in the sharks they were ready. They’d practiced so many times. The circle, the dip. Synchronized finning to the music of Bolero. Everyone watched the sharks so no one watched Tino. That’s how he released the swans who never stayed in order no matter how much they practiced. They flapped and snapped at whatever was closest so people scuttled like roaches and Tino was invisible as always.
Category: Flash
Baton twirlers, sash girls and red-cheeked boys with guns
Madelaine, Because we want to grow up, Families complicate things
These three little stories were first published in Leon Literary. https://leonliteraryreview.com/eirene-gentle-madelaine/
A little god on a cold morning, dreaming
A tiny bubble first published in Ink in Thirds, March 2025.
Flower tongue
https://inksweatandtears.co.uk/eirene-gentle
Daffodils hate being shoved in corners. When forced they emit a peculiar scent, part butter, part ulcer. I wear yellow shoes because I don’t like corners either but I am frequently left in them, and so I exude a peculiar smell. You sense it even from outside and I feel you hesitate and turn away.
How do they Sing and Tornado has the last dance
The calls of their last days and hours reverberate endlessly through the buildings and trees, carried on the wings of any buzzing thing that survives the heat. I am sometimes beak and sometimes claw, sometimes two legs like the fallen
Violet
No one warned me of this thirst. Your throat bulges like a baby bird, my chin is streaked red and there’s no one to feed us.
https://www.roifaineantpress.com/post/because-we-don-t-know-how-to-lose-violet-by-eirene-gentle
Because we don’t know how to lose
Because we bend. Like trees. Flow like rivers, know a whole vocabulary of smiles, such range of choice flight freeze and fawn because we don’t. Know how to lose.
https://www.roifaineantpress.com/post/because-we-don-t-know-how-to-lose-violet-by-eirene-gentle
Happy endings
Did you ache to bear sorrow for me? You should have taken it with you then. I never asked you to carry me, I break enough things. Just a place to crawl into, like the space between breaths. The luxury of quiet outside contusion. The tang of pine in the sound after thunder.