Roaring Twenties by Kathryn Aldridge-Morris

She remembers the vodka-clear starts of nights. Leggings, suede jackets and crimping hair, her sister separating strands. Rainy platforms, ring-pulls and beer the color of old blood, trains that curve through mizzle from the suburbs into the London light, the punch of hot noise when the pubs doors open. Bands on makeshift stages, monkey boots, dancing and not giving a shit, bouncers, the midnight rain straightening her hair, the closest pubs a short run away, fragments – a beautician, right? – treading a thin line – a lot to learn – the guitarists, the drummers, the strange yet familiar smell of men’s duvets, the sound of their flatmates splashing water, doors slamming, unshaven chins between her breasts, the taste of kebabs, egg rice, ready lasagnes from the night before at 4 in the morning, bechamel sauce at the back her throat, the way they pull on their jeans no pants, don’t offer coffee, call her anything but her name, and her, lying there, naked: not remembering, not remembering a damn thing.

Kathryn Aldridge-Morris is a Bristol-based writer with work in Pithead Chapel, Flash Frog, Bending Genres, Janus, Ellipsis, among others. Her stories have been nominated for Best Microfiction and the Pushcart Prize and she recently won Manchester School of Writing’s QuietManDave Prize for flash fiction 2022. She tweets @kazbarwrites & you can read her work at Kamwords.com.