Hello
I am Danielle Sensier, a writer and editor with Mauritian roots, who calls Sussex home. I have a degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Sussex, where I also studied Creative Writing. My first novel Spook House Dreams, for which I am seeking an agent, was long-listed in the Mslexia Fiction Competition 2019. I am working on a second novel, a dystopian tale inspired by a wicker man cult. I have written, published and performed poetry for children and now write short stories and flash fiction for adults.
Here is a circular story written in the spirit of the Chalk Circle 360 challenge, a fiction which ends where it began in just 360 words.
What a man is thinking
The alarm cuts through your dream. It’s a relief; you’d been rehearsing an old argument again.
Reach out, find your phone and stab. Never snooze. Get up there and then. Don’t bother opening the curtains, it’s still dark outside. Shower, dress, brush your teeth, drink coffee. Wait for the ping. Eat instant porridge at the counter, standing up. Your mother would have stirred a pot and brought it to the table. Golden syrup spooned from a tin: a dead lion on the label, bees swarming.
Coat, shoes, briefcase, ignition. Tangerine globes light the bypass, white lines blur, disappear. You eye the speedo. A casualty every minute they said on the driving awareness course. The guy next to you blamed BMW drivers. A woman said her brother was killed outside his own house. The motorway’s almost empty; best thing about early starts. And the skies: pale parchments blotting out the night, violet to pink to white.
Radio wars: John from Tooting disagrees with Marion from Chester; Brian from the Hard Shoulder, says they’re both stupid. Ahmed from Milton Keynes agrees. In Iran, Ukraine, somewhere else, missiles find their targets. Opposites attract. Rachel trekked up a mountain with you once, the picture’s still on your phone: dangling boots over an edge, metal eyelets winking. Thin air between you. Outside the office, someone has planted ornamental cherries, each tree surrounded by a cage of wooden staves.
The meeting goes badly. No fist bumps. You follow the graph looking for peaks. Janice from Accounts says the guys in London flatlined again. Redundancies on the cards. Your cousin, Toby, loved reading cards: at the cottage when you were kids, a torch under the covers, turning the pictures over. The Hanged Man. The Page of Cups.
An accident on the A40. You’ll be late home again. In the queue you scroll through pictures on your phone. Swing by Tesco’s. Pick up a meal deal. Open the front door. Shout hello out of habit. A tray for one. Wait for the ping. Fire, sofa, TV. Your favourite comedy. You’ve seen it before but it’s still funny. A beer or two, why not? Remember to set your alarm.
Danielle Sensier