I Told Her That I Loved Her.

This dream I had about my Grandma, the fearsome one who prayed through closed lids though she could see you with rays that bounced off the back of her eyes, this woman who saved a family from ruin with her formidable reach, this woman, who gave you lip for saying God's name backwards, so the unsayable jumped off your tongue like a lie. In the dream, I followed her footprints, to see if I could find her, the taste of burnt coffee on the roof of my mouth, with four sugars, exactly the way she liked it, this woman with her side-to-side walk, fastidious as a priest, who in the dream gave back the cuppa I made her, because everything should have been cleaner, the saucer, the golden crumbs on the toast, the jug that held cream scorched and cooled to the temperature of breast milk, the plastic pots where she washed her fingers just so, the shushuri-shushuri of water on skin, this woman, this glorious woman with titties that fell to her waist and ears that heard sounds that hadn't yet happened, she came to me last night, and I, sheepish in delayed gratitude, told her what I had never said with sincerity when she was alive, I told her that I loved her.

 

by Nod Ghosh

 

Nod Ghosh lives in Christchurch, New Zealand and graduated from the Hagley Writers' Institute in 2012.

Truth Serum Press has published three books featuring novellae-in-flash: The Crazed Wind (2018), Filthy Sucre (2020) and Toy Train (2021).

Two novellas are due for publication in 2023: Throw A Seven by Reflex Press and The Two-Tailed Snake, by Fairlight Books.

Nod works as a medical laboratory scientist, diagnosing leukaemia and lymphoma and is a relief teacher for Write On School for Young Writers.

Further details: http://www.nodghosh.com/about/