Reeds and Curlews | SkyLightRain

I can never resist the opportunity to catch a ‘behind-the-scenes’ glimpse into the workings of a creative endeavour. It’s why I launched this series of posts offering insights into the inspiration behind the flash fiction and short stories that make up my Valley Press collection Sky Light Rain.

The twenty-ninth story is ‘Reeds and Curlews’. It carries us through a rainstorm to one of my favourite places, Laugharne in Wales, at the moment when a mother recognises the hazards of the age her son has reached following the death of one of his friends. Even as she attempts to shepherd him through his grief, she’s swept sideways by the relief that it wasn’t her son who died.

We all have those moments, don’t we? Those terrible, guilty feelings of “Thank goodness that happened to them, not us.”

An earlier version of ‘Reeds and Curlews’, then titled ‘Wriggler’, was published in the October 2018 issue of Ghost Parachute.

The story begins:

The suspension bridge tries to catch us in its wires as we drive from Bristol to Wales, chasing storm clouds as we go.

“It’s a spider with a gazillion legs,” Oli says, staring up throughthe sunroof.

I can’t help but smile. In those words I hear the little boy he used to be, just last year or the year before. Not that twelve is so very close to full maturity, but the perils in his vicinity seem disturbingly adult.

The thirsty July ground is too hard-baked to let rain soak in. Puddles form, then lakes and rivers, gushing down hillsides to meet us. The deluge fills me with a kind of fierce delight. I feel we’re amorphous – regressing to the amphibious beings we were in the womb.

“I was never a frog,” Oli says, holding tight to the backpack cradled in his lap. One hand is closed in a fist, gripping something I can’t see.

“No, but you were a wriggler,” I say, my own hands fixed to the steering wheel as we aquaplane for a second, and then regain the road.

Sky Light Rain is published by Valley Press and is available to purchase here.

Discover the inspiration behind my other Sky Light Rain stories by clicking on the story titles below.

If you’d like to request a review copy of Sky Light Rain or interview me about my writing, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

SkyLightRain

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Sky Light Rain – Reeds and Curlews