Balloons

One from the archives of the masters writing prompts. My note taking leaves something to be desired and I’ve titled this ‘Writing Activity: Flash Fiction’. This was the first flash fiction I wrote on the MA. It sits between the notes for a chapter on Plot and Form and Plot and Beginnings. Either way I’ve worked on it and wanted to share.

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Alice stepped carefully into the room full of balloons. She considered the biggest one- the special one. It looked over-full the sharpness of the blue colour faded with the absorption of exhales from her and then her husband. He had intervened and taken over responsibility for blowing up the balloons. She hadn’t blown them big enough.

Alice felt big enough. She felt she should be the only one who judged when things were full these days. In fact, she identified so strongly with this balloon she wanted to carry it with her today. But balloons are light with air and Alice was heavy and bulbous with the baby. She had to leave the living room.

The living room walls had a blue hue to them now that Steve had blown up all of his balloons and drawn the curtains. He was fixed on recreating a photo memory from his childhood. It was of him sat amongst a sea of balloons at Cheryl’s christening. He wanted the same effect for his guests today, he was hosting this baby shower after all because Alice hadn’t been interested. Steve decided to throw out the tradition of a shower being hosted for the mother and have one generally for them as parents. The plan was to close the doors on the living room until they were all there and then let them in through the glass doors that created the division to the dining room. Steve had thought of everything and carefully obscured the glass by blue tacking pink and blue wrapping paper onto them.

Alice was alone in the house, Steve had gone to collect Marcia from the station. Knowing better than to fight her on Marcia coming early he had volunteered. Wading back out of the room through the balloons and then chasing the ones that had leaked into the hallway cursing them as they floated out of her reach on the floor. Steve would have to gather them. In an effort to show that she was on board with the afternoon and could be supportive Alice decided to grate the cheese. She could handle grating the cheese and then it would be ready to sprinkle on the pasta bake for the last 10 minutes of cooking time. Then they would look prepared and Steve liked to have planned ahead. She pressed cheddar to grater.

There was a crunch. For a second, she thought she had caught her acrylic on the grater. But they were all still intact. Shining pebbles of burgundy on her fingertips. Why did her nails look engorged and swollen too, no part of her body was safe even the false bits she added? The scrape came again. Frowning into the grater, nothing.

CRUUUUNCH. Louder and longer this time, the cheese stuttered against the metal like an engine stalling. Alice considered the brick of extra mature cheddar in her hand, the posh one she liked.

An odd red mark had been revealed in the centre of the block.

A blemish on an otherwise perfect golden sheen.

She pressed her thumb into it.

When Steve walked in, Alice was hunched over the cheese with their small brown knife; whittling at the mark. Extracting, excavating. Marcia put her hand on Alice’s shoulder and peered closer at what she was doing. The touch was just Marcia, only Marcia, and it sank through Alice slowly.

“Al? What’s wrong?” she said her ear lining up with Alice’s.

“It’s IN the cheese” Alice said and put down the knife. “Look it’s in the cheese, the nice cheese, my nice cheese” She held up the mangled mess of the block from the lumps and crumbs she had broken away from it. Still half encased in the block was a red stone.

Steve reported the stone to the people arriving at the house with maddening fervour. He was outraged. She was pregnant. How could that cheese be so tainted? It was from a nice shop. She was pregnant. Very pregnant. About to give birth pregnant. And there was a bloody stone in the cheese. Alice grimaced at his choice of words.

Every guest was marched to the kitchen, the wonder of his balloon ocean forgotten. The gender reveal was disregarded.